What has become obvious is the home ground advantage for Wellington. The wind, cold and sometimes rain is just too much for the Australian teams now that Wellington fields a decent team.
I predict that the weather advantage will now propel Wellington and North Queensland towards the top 6 as the Australian summer approaches. Townsville is going to get hotter and more humid. Few players - not used to these conditions - will cope up there. And Perth, after this season's intervention by the FFA, has the potential to lock the gates at its home base.
The Roar on the other hand has put up with the venue voted by A-League players as the best to visit. Either the club has to finance the best players in the league to play on the rolled surface or move post haste to Ballymore. The views and needs of fans appear irrelevant to the club now, so let's at least go somewhere where visitors will be uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, it is being clear that Gold Coast has got what it wants with FFA taking over is marketing, ticketing and perhaps underwriting some home game costs - why did we need Australia's richest man?
The owners of the clubs are meeting Frank Lowy in a few weeks to discuss this years dramatic decline. Newcastle, who has had perhaps the worst crowd decline (as a percentage), is calling for all clubs to get help.
If the FFA is serious it needs to re-visit the whole governance structure. Adhoc favourable assistance to Melbourne and Perth, its ownership of Adelaide, its intermittent assistance to Central Coast is coming home to roost on the other clubs.
It is very unclear what the Brisbane Board is trying to achieve. And its coach's promise of defensive, grind out football, is going to put off even more fans. The fans Brisbane loses now are likely to be lost for good. They won't come back next year just because Brisbane has decided it has to wait that long to fix its act.
4 comments:
Thanks John. Insigtful stuff, and I find myself agreeing with them all.
Thanks Hamish
Re-the penalty, I had exactly the same thought "Would it have been a penalty if Reinaldo had gone down like that?"
If fans don't return this season, the future of the A-League may well rest on a successful World Cup and the return of a couple of Socceroos (and some 'retiring' Euro-footballers). An early exit for the 'Roos could be disastrous.
"Would it have been a penalty if Reinaldo had gone down like that?"
Yes if Zetter is the ref apparently.
I think we took the life out of Adelaide's fans tonight - well they have been doing that to us for 4 years.
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