terminator_x wrote:
Jerzy Merino wrote:
IMO it's an 'artificial' league. IMO NZF should pull all stops out to get permission for a 2ND NZ A-league franchise then get rid of the ASB. The Chatham Cup used to be a good way of finding out the country's 'top' club. Chatham Cup winner and runner-up to the O-League. Sorted.
Not a bad solution. At the end of the day is trying to run an amateur (or at best - semi-pro) national league in a country the size of New Zealand just not viable?
Either that, or return to a club-based national league with strict financial controls and/or a player points system. You've still got the viability problem but financials controls might help with that.
Totally this. Football is not NZ's primary sport, and we do not have the critical mass of followers for a national professional league as a secondary sport; and with population and cultural trends it is never likely to be so (well, not in the next 100 years).