an fa cup style competition would be a great idea, A-league clubs could play mid week.
a-league div 2, promotion/relegation will not happen for at least 15years. this is for several reasons. 1st it isnt yet profitable for 8 major teams to play in a national competition (its a jsut a fact of australia being such a large country). the 2nd reason is that any clubs in 2nd div would have to meet the same criteria the a-league clubs themselves met... that is a large target market ie no ethnic ties. the ffa would not want syndey fc competing with another sydney club till sydney fc was extremely profitable.
the ffa has given the 8 teams exclusive licences. that is no new teams from any of the current 8 locations will be allowed for 5years.
the ffa has spoken of expansion in 3 to 5 years... teams mentioned were geelong, wollongong, far north queensland (possibly townsville) so it would probably be 2 of those 3 teams and i think it would be more like5-8years before we see that.
state league play-offs has been proposed but as i said letting clubs like that into the new league really goes against the whoel a-league philosphy of a fresh start.
finally NZ isnt a waste of space, where in australia would an 8th team go (shut up wollongong - as far as i know you didnt even place a bid for an a-league side, there were no other places not currently represented who placed bids.) NZ itself should be a profitable team, given that they have a whole country to themselves, if i were them it would be 5 games auckland 5 games wellington 1 game duniden... finally a quality NZ is (or was) good for australia internationally. lets remember why we lost direct world cup qualification...australia lost to nz. nz went to the confeds and got shat on. if nz were competitive it wouldnt have cost us direct qualification. we may be in asia now but we still have a responcibility to the nations in the ofc (ffa recognises this helping fund pacific island nations and the asking the nz knights to be in the a-league).
Tassie and NT is a nice dream, but at the moment the costs would be extremely high, and with population spread in NT the target market is small, which makes it hard to get alot of people to games, but then again there aint a fuck load to do in darwin, trust me ive been there.
a-league div 2, promotion/relegation will not happen for at least 15years. this is for several reasons. 1st it isnt yet profitable for 8 major teams to play in a national competition (its a jsut a fact of australia being such a large country). the 2nd reason is that any clubs in 2nd div would have to meet the same criteria the a-league clubs themselves met... that is a large target market ie no ethnic ties. the ffa would not want syndey fc competing with another sydney club till sydney fc was extremely profitable.
the ffa has given the 8 teams exclusive licences. that is no new teams from any of the current 8 locations will be allowed for 5years.
the ffa has spoken of expansion in 3 to 5 years... teams mentioned were geelong, wollongong, far north queensland (possibly townsville) so it would probably be 2 of those 3 teams and i think it would be more like5-8years before we see that.
state league play-offs has been proposed but as i said letting clubs like that into the new league really goes against the whoel a-league philosphy of a fresh start.
finally NZ isnt a waste of space, where in australia would an 8th team go (shut up wollongong - as far as i know you didnt even place a bid for an a-league side, there were no other places not currently represented who placed bids.) NZ itself should be a profitable team, given that they have a whole country to themselves, if i were them it would be 5 games auckland 5 games wellington 1 game duniden... finally a quality NZ is (or was) good for australia internationally. lets remember why we lost direct world cup qualification...australia lost to nz. nz went to the confeds and got shat on. if nz were competitive it wouldnt have cost us direct qualification. we may be in asia now but we still have a responcibility to the nations in the ofc (ffa recognises this helping fund pacific island nations and the asking the nz knights to be in the a-league).
Tassie and NT is a nice dream, but at the moment the costs would be extremely high, and with population spread in NT the target market is small, which makes it hard to get alot of people to games, but then again there aint a fuck load to do in darwin, trust me ive been there.