http://www.nzherald.co.nz/football-soccer/news/art...
Football: Auckland a Possibility for New A-League Franchise
By Steven Holloway
5:00 AM Friday Dec 12, 2014
"Auckland is, by far, the largest city in Australasia not represented in the A-League and after Auckland City's win yesterday against professional opposition at the Fifa Club World Cup, it appears the talent is already available for a competitive A-League team.
The Phoenix have also pulled in over 68,000 fans in their last four games at Eden Park (albeit four one-off fixtures including a Premier League exhibition match against West Ham).
The combination of factors could create a compelling case for an Auckland side to trump likely applications from a second Brisbane team and a third Sydney team."
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But the problem is that the talent on display yesterday was almost entirely foreign and you can't field so many foreign players in the A-League.
Auckland started with only three Kiwis in the side yesterday in the Club World Cup (maybe you can add De Vries - not sure if he has a NZ passport or not: "Ryan was selected to play for NZ in U20 World Cup 2010 and was later ruled out because of the FIFA ruling in FIFA Statutes on Eligibility to play for Association")
They would have to sign mostly Kiwis and Aussies to compete in the A-League since the number of foreign visa players per A-League club will be reduced to four in the 2015–16 season. (After that, the limit of four might become “3+1”, which means three imports from anywhere and one from Asia (following regulations in the AFC Champions League).
There simply isn't the talent pool available of enough NZ players of sufficient ability to play A-League to support two NZ franchises. And probably not enough decent Aussie players willing to cross the ditch either, to supply two NZ teams.
And of the relatively small number of NZ players playing professionally overseas, few would want to come back and play in the A-League because the wages are lower than the leagues they are playing in (if they are half decent players) and there's more opportunities for career advancement and development as a player overseas.
Maybe a second NZ franchise could be considered in ten years or more - but only if we were then producing more decent players in NZ and there was a flood of good Aussie players willing to move here.