Australia's soccer horizon

[Wedgie]

This was written by a poster on the world game forum and I thought it was excellent, I thought I would share it:

Australia’s Football Horizon
By Stentorian

Contro il Calcio Moderno, a phrase coined by disgruntled Italian football followers, is a widely used one and prevalent in many European supporter circles. Meaning simply ‘against modern football’, it is reflective of an attitude that has emerged in the past decade due to the shameless commercialisation of the round ball game, which has seen the terraces transformed from sanctuary of the working class to playground of the upper class.

Fed up with corporate takeovers, multi million dollar transfers and endorsements which result in little to no player club loyalty, corporate seating allocations, match fixing, commercial re-branding of names and logos, and bans on expressive flares and banners, many traditional football fans are taking the fight to their respective clubs. In many cases, as with supporters of Manchester United, Wimbledon and Austria Salzburg (recently re-branded Red Bull Salzburg), have gone as far as establishing new clubs, by the fans and for the fans.

However, the reach of modern football is not only restricted to Europe in a globalisation minded world economy, and has spread across Asia and the Indian Ocean to the developing football nation that is Australia. More recently, Australia’s national football landscape underwent a major overhaul in which administrators were replaced and 12 of the 13 existing National Soccer League teams were scrapped, leaving only one NSL club, albeit a relatively new modern football minded one, to join forces with 7 brand new (Queensland Roar would deny their history as Holandia) artificial entities in order to form the Hyundai A- League. The league is distinct to the former National Soccer League, disregarding the latter’s history or relevance to the sport in Australia.

The move discounted over 50 years of Australian football tradition and was a slap in the face to the very people who carried the game in Australia for over half a century when nobody else cared. The traditional fans, predominantly made up of both British and continental European migrants, ensured the code’s survival and also continued to develop players worthy of representing the country at World Cup level.

Melbourne Victory chairman Geoff Lord would proclaim upon the A-League’s inception that “the days of wogball and pumpkin seed eaters are gone”. Excuse me? Wogball? Pumpkin seed eaters? The racist reference to the ethnic communities which carried the game since the 50s was one of upmost disrespect and one of the first indications that the new look Football Federation of Australia (FFA), lead by Frank Lowy (chairman of the long defunct Jewish backed NSL side Sydney Hakoah), had no intention of acknowledging the history or stakeholders of the game.

They chose instead to disregard the past and ignore generous contributions made. Declaring “out with old soccer, in new with football” and that “it’s football, but not as you know it”, it was clear that traditional football clubs and supporters would be treated as second class citizens and formalities, the league instead aiming to capture a market of ‘new football’ fans, who would eat up anything accompanied by a flashy marketing campaign.

The very same pumpkin seed eaters, synonymous with old soccer instead of new football, produced most of the current Australian national team, the likes of captain Mark Viduka, Mark Schwarzer, Brett Emerton, Vince Grella, Marco Bresciano, Mile Sterjovski, Jason Culina, Lucas Neill, Scott Chipperfield as well as recent retirees Stan Lazaridis and Tony Popovic amongst others.

Socceroos? I thought it was new football, oh but of course, Footballroos isn’t nearly as marketable to the masses.

Now, the cornerstone of new football, the Hyundai A-League, has arrived and is in its second season (sorry Version 2 - try saying that without a chuckle!), and it is proving fruitful as far as promotion of the game to a wider audience is concerned. The league is averaging an attendance of over 11,000 per game (boosted significantly by Melbourne’s 26,000 average home attendance) and as far as crowds and media coverage is concerned, is light years ahead of the NSL (it was Australia’s first national sporting competition, formed in 1977) which at its peak in the late 90s averaged crowds of just over 6,000 (thanks predominantly to the Perth Glory and Northern Spirit crowds).

Australia’s admittance into the competitive and beneficial Asian football confederation is an achievement that the former administration could not achieve and is a very significant step in the right direction. The idea of World Cup qualifying via Asia and participating in the Asian Cup and Asian Champions League has many fans of Australian football salivating.

However, the A-League has some serious teething problems. Firstly, there’s the New Zealand Knights debacle. Here you have a team that struggles to draw more than 3,000 people to a game, is not backed by the NZ football federation, has few actual New Zealanders playing for it, is struggling to pick up any points and if in the more than unlikely scenario that it qualified for an Asian Champions League position, it would not be able to compete because the country it represents is not part of the Asian confederation!

This is testament to the Rugby Super 12 brains of former FFA CEO John O’Neill. Meanwhile, Melbourne Victory’s Geoff ‘no more pumpkin seeds’ Lord is an advocate of a South African, Japanese and Korean team joining the A-League. Such a move would in a way make the Asian Champions League redundant. Additionally, having an Australian competition in which foreign teams are dominating is hardly an ideal scenario and is not one that would serve to develop the local game one would imagine.

The league is in serious need of expansion, an 8 team league in which teams play each other 3 times for a regular season comprising of 21 rounds is hardly sustainable in the long term and the quicker that further teams are introduced, the better.

The moderate success of the A-League (there is more to the league than just the east coast) is a testament to a well thought out and most flashy marketing campaign, strong political and media influence, as well as the Australian national team’s qualification for Germany 2006, something that the NSL did not enjoy.

Many are quick to say that it is because of superior management and administration that the ‘Socceroos’ qualified for the World Cup. This is simply a way of discrediting ‘old soccer’ even further. Sure, the move to hire Dutchman Guus Hiddink paid dividends this time as opposed to in 1997 when the appointment of Englishman Terry Venables ended in disaster when two late goals by Iran in a World Cup qualifying playoff meant being on the wrong side of the away goal rule stood between Australia and the World Cup.

However, things could have easily gone Uruguay’s way this time, if not for a whole lot of luck falling on Australia’s shoulders. Would the so-called superior management suddenly have become mismanagement in the event that the team failed to qualify?

Quick, somebody tell me how many A-League teams were responsible for producing the players that represented Australia that fateful November evening in 2005…

This is not to say that the future of the game lied with the NSL or the state leagues, because sadly, despite all of the tradition, history and players produced, both have been cruising like a car with flat tyres in recent years, merely rolling along at a slowing pace, inflicting greater damage on itself in the process. The future did not lie with the either platform as far as promotion of the game was concerned, however this does not mean that the past should be forgotten.

The popularity of Australia’s domestic football competition is at an unforeseen high. Suburban grounds where in recent years no more than 4,000 people would turn up to an NSL game have been replaced with mult-million dollar stadiums and attendances in excess of 20,000. This is true in the case of Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC and Queensland Roar, although the rest of the league is far behind the mark averaging less than half of their eastern counterparts which justifies their less than glamorous surroundings.

It can be argued that the popularity of the A-League is something that will drive youngsters to get on board and increase the already impressive football participation rates (over 320,000 participants making it the number one played football code). There is a kind of catch 22 associated with this. In the past, children of migrants were inspired to register at their local football club that represented their ethnic community. The likes of Mark Viduka went to Melbourne Croatia, Mile Sterjovski represented Rockdale Ilinden (a Macedonian club), Marco Bresciano played for Carlton (an Italian club). The pattern applies to most of the Socceroos.

Many are quick to point the blame at ethnic tensions and political allegiances as holding the game back due to riots and brawls, however the fact is that off field incidents were few and far between and much less significant than European incidents that occur on a weekly basis (many more arrests occurred at AFL/NRL games). Angst is not absent in the A-League, only the current FFA administration knows how to better deal with the media than their predecessors.

The ethnic affiliation of clubs is responsible for no less than an entire generation of kids taking up the game and provided us with our golden generation of Socceroos, who as FIFA President Sepp Blatter put it, could have and perhaps should have gone all the way to the semi finals in Germany.

This is not to say however, that the trend is not continuing. Go down to BT Connor Reserve and you will find that the majority of the Preston Lions juniors are of Macedonian descent, Somers Street and most of the juniors are Croatian, whilst down at Bob Jane Stadium, many juniors have Greek roots. However, this is not to say that these clubs cater for only their respective community, the two most recent players to break into the senior squad at Preston are of Turkish origin.

However, there is a level of mismanagement that has not exploited the entire potential of these clubs’ ability to produce players. The Melbourne Knights and South Melbourne both received millions from the sale of Mark Viduka and qualification for the World Club Championship respectively, but have very little to show for it in terms of player development, the former escaping relegation to Victoria’s second tier competition by a solitary point in the season past. South Melbourne on the other hand is lucky to still be in existence after going into administration and has generous creditors to thank for its survival.

Politics also hurt the league from inside the boardroom, many popular teams falling victim to the political agendas of clubs with greater influence. Politically charged divisions were also emerging inside the football media and there is still evidence of this lingering today.

Nonetheless, the state and former national league clubs collectively have always been responsible for player development and it is important that the FFA acknowledges and nurtures these clubs, otherwise it could be a case of dominos with a bottom up effect. If the state leagues suffer, so to will the A-League and subsequently, the Australian national side.

The Australian national team’s success (or if you’re new to the sport – the Qantas Socceroos success) at the 2006 World Cup played a major role in revitalising the popularity of the round ball game in Australia and securing the short term success of the A-league.

If not for the pumpkin seed eaters, there would have been no Australian national team worthy of competing at the World Cup and perhaps an A-League that didn’t appeal to the common Australian sports fan.

Traditional clubs are still responsible for the development of the country’s players, from a junior to senior level. However, the FFA in all their wisdom has demanded that state league clubs give up players to the requesting A-League club for no more than a meagre $3,000. The clubs require greater compensation in order to continue developing quality players. Furthermore, the A-league clubs and coaches take the credit for developing these same players, even though they spent from 10 to 20 years learning their craft at a traditional club first.

The A-League, in its current format, does not have a youth set up or reserve teams, nor has there been any indication of this being established in the future. And why would they, when they can poach players from state league clubs for bargain basement prices and expend absolutely no time, effort or money developing them. This will ultimately result in a situation where neither national nor state league clubs are interested in player development. Alternatively and perhaps more probably, it could result in state league clubs having a greater incentive to shop their players to foreign leagues. Greater compensation would be offered but the sidestepping of our national competition would hurt the A-League.

How about the supporters? A new fringe of either casual clad or scarf clutching ‘hardcores’ (high on footy flicks such as Green Street Hooligans and Football Factory) has emerged who are joining in the against modern football chorus, despite the fact that they are a direct product of modern football, never supported the local game in the past, carry sponsorship laden banners, wave flags proclaiming their casual status and bow down to every request of their boardroom superiors. And although traditional self respecting fans the world over will find that laughable (and rightly so) while local fans of traditional clubs will find their ignorance most offensive, one cannot deny that the display put on by for example, the Melbourne Victory fans, is not impressive.

In fact, one of the most recognisable Australian sporting supporters, Joffa – fan of Australia’s richest sporting club, the Collingwood Magpies Aussie Rules football club – has gone on to give them credit and say that they are light years ahead of anything that Aussie Rules fans could do, however that is not a hard task, given the latter’s mundane approach to supporting. Sure it’s likely that he never would have witnessed an NSL or state league game in which similar displays have been made but still, it’s the kind of interest that was unheard of in the past and is due to some well executed marketing strategies that are a primary factor for the revitalisation of the sport (baring in mind that a number of critical factors have gone its way, ie. World cup qualification).

Many of the traditional fans feel bemused at this new generation of fans, who perhaps only as recently as 3 years ago would have referred to the game as wogball due to its ethnic ties and laughed at the NSL, now embracing the game as their own. Mutual respect and collaboration between the old school and the new school is what is required in order to secure the long term prosperity of the game.

Unlike with foreign clubs whose supporters justifiably swear by the Contro Il Calcio Moderno slogan, their clubs and leagues already enjoy huge crowds and significant publicity in countries where football is number one and everything else is a distant second. The lack of both publicity and crowds was something that was holding the game back in this country for far too long.

As an old school football fan, early signs from the A-League are positive for the promotion and success of the sport, despite its weaker points reflective of big business (such as the fact that every club wears the same Reebok kit only in different colours). Over 26,000 people regularly flocking to the Telstra Dome in Melbourne to watch a team that was created merely two years ago can not be a bad thing, despite the fact that most of these people were hiding in the wilderness prior to the A-League launch in 2005.

However, I personally will put my club first, the traditional club that I have supported since childhood, as this is where my passion lies. This does not mean however, that a traditional supporter cannot enjoy the resurgence in Australian football on the national stage. The sooner that barriers are broken and all levels of the sport are perceived as one, the better it will be for everybody involved.

In closing, many questions are still to be answered. Youth development and the collaboration, acknowledgement and compensation of traditional clubs must be addressed as to must the pending expansion of the league.

Once these issues are resolved, the sport will be in a much better position to move forward without encountering any ‘unexpected’ hurdles in the future and we can all look forward to a vibrant and tribal state league set up feeding the A-League and having the Socceroos showcase our combined efforts on the world stage.

[MightyEagles]

Nice article and agree with some of the points made.