A-league Expansion - Derbies

TOM SMITHIES and EMMA KEMP, The Daily TelegraphNovember 29, 2018 8:13pmSubscriber only

IT’S the unintended consequence of expansion that is causing A-League bosses a serious headache – how many rounds to play when two new teams are added, probably next season.

Assuming expansion goes ahead, Confidential can reveal that Fox Sports will inform Football Federation Australia their preference is to broadcast a 22-round regular season, with every club playing each other home and away, followed by the finals series.

That equates to almost exactly the same number of games being broadcast – 137 in a 22-round competition plus finals, as opposed to 140 this year with 10 teams - but it will mean between two and three fewer home games for each club in terms of revenue.
Some had assumed the league would expand to 33 rounds, but at roughly $80,000 production costs per game, that would cost Fox an extra $2.5m – money the broadcaster has made clear it cannot afford.

However, a 22-round league puts FFA on a collision course with the Asian Football Confederation, whose rules around which countries can take part in the Asian Champions League state a minimum of 27 games for the top division.

That can include cup games and finals, but A-League teams would only be guaranteed a minimum of 23.

No wonder FFA CEO David Gallop and his staff are scratching their heads. “We haven’t fully determined the number of rounds in a 12-team competition but obviously we would not want to see our clubs and players playing any less football,” Gallop told Confidential. “We are already playing less than the international benchmarks.

“However we intend to talk to our media partners who do a great job of juggling the period when all codes are operating. The current three round structure is not ideal and the matter gets a lot easier when we have 14 teams.”

Thankfully a 22-round season also rules out the prospect of an AFL-style fixture list, with select games such as derbies and the Big Blue played for a third time at the whim of the competition’s schedulers.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/football/fox-sports-warns-aleague-bosses-extra-teams-will-mean-fewer-rounds/news-story/a9dce5b28d6504b17f179d76644a8587

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/sydney-fc-to-reject-any-cash-compensation-from-southern-expansion-20181128-p50ixz.html

Rob Morrison with some common sense regarding A-League expansion (first couple of minutes of this segment - came at the end of a chat with Piney about the Perth game).

http://120.138.20.16/WeekOnDemand/radiosport/2018....

Summary please.

https://dailyfootballshow.com/ffa-deputy-chair-heather-reid-talks-growing-the-w-league-reforming-wnpl-and-a-league-expansion/

Again over whelming felling is no decision on Nix will occur until the NLWG at least puts forward recommendations on league structure and re distribution of assets/wealth/income. "March 2019"

Former Football Federation Australia director Danny Moulis has thrown his support behind A-League expansion hopefuls Canberra and South Melbourne, declaring the bids "streets ahead" of the four others.Moulis spent three years on the FFA board but was not re-elected for a second term at the highly-publicised annual general meeting last month.

New chairman Chris Nikou and Moulis were the only members seeking re-election after former leader Steve Lowey and four of his directors stepped down.

Moulis played for the Socceroos and Canberra City before serving as the Canberra Cosmos chairman and starting a successful law firm in the capital.

Canberra are one of six bids - and the only outside Melbourne and Sydney - left in the expansion race with two teams expected to be announced following an FFA board meeting on December 12.

Team 11 are one of three bids from Melbourne in the hunt for an A-League licence, alongside Western Melbourne Group and South Melbourne. Southern Expansion from Sydney's south, South West Sydney and Canberra round out the six.

It is still unknown if the new teams will come into the A-League next season or the following year.

A-League boss Greg O'Rourke was initially set to recommend two teams for the FFA board to ratify in October but that meeting never went ahead after Lowey announced he'd step down.

It is understood Canberra was right in the mix two months ago and Moulis believes his hometown is one of two clear-cut choices for expansion.

"The A-League needs football-focussed organisations that speak to the fans, come from areas with deep national league history, have the necessary stadium infrastructure in place, and will create the kind of contests that will ignite the competition," Moulis told The Canberra Times.

"On those measures, South Melbourne and Canberra are streets ahead of anyone else.”

Canberra are considered the only "ready to go" bid after securing significant investment from the ACT government, signing more than 7000 members and inking a deal to play at Canberra Stadium.

They've also signed memorandum of understandings with Capital Football and former expansion bid the Wollongong Wolves.


There is speculation that as many as four teams could be added to the league to solve a scheduling headache

Teams currently play each other three times in a 27-game schedule. A 12-team home-and-away season would see teams play 22 games which isn't enough football.
Another spanner in the works is the Wellington Phoenix who were set metrics by the previous board to extend their licence past next season.The Phoenix signed a 10-year conditional licence with the FFA in 2016.
The first four years, ending in 2020, were guaranteed, while further three-year extensions were contingent on meeting metrics such as attendance figures and television numbers.But the A-League are keen to become independent of the FFA which would see the metrics scrapped.

The new board could also decide to not enforce them.
It is understood Wellington have the support of the current clubs but that could count for little after Perth Glory owner Tony Sage claimed they had not been consulted in the expansion process.

It seems no scenario is off the table and it is believed the FFA have discussed adding three teams, which would somewhat resolve the scheduling predicament.
Scrapping the Phoenix metrics and adding teams from Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney would form a 13-team competition and make a 24-game home-and-away season. Just enough to keep almost everyone happy

.It would also see the A-League come good on their promise to "expand into new territories".

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/former-ffa-board-member-danny-moulis-backs-canberra-a-league-bid-20181203-p50jt2.html

Weekends Reading

12 Dead, 6 Alive

1. “Team 11” (South East Victoria)
2. South Melbourne (Lakeside)
3. Western Melbourne ( Wyndham )
4. Macarthur South West Sydney (Campbelltown) Joint Bid
5. Southern Expansion (Sutherland-St George-Illawara)
6. Canberra
7. Wollongong WolvesFox said No or Bid too low ?
8. Ipswich Pride Fox said No or Bid too low ?
9. FC Brisbane City- 31st Aug 2018 - Too risky for Long Term Stability
10. SouthWest Sydney (Liverpool)20th Aug 2018 - Sacrificed into Joint Bid
11. Macarthur (Campbelltown)20th Aug 2018 - Sacrificed into Joint Bid
12. Gold Coast United29th June 2018 - Lowy said wrong place
13. Tasmania29th June 2018 - Lowy said wrong place
14. Fremantle29th June 2018- Lowy said wrong place
15. West Adelaide 29th June 2018- Lowy said wrong place
16. Belgravia Leisure 29th June 2018- No idea why
17. Brisbane Strikers 20th May 2018 - FFA model was too risky
18. Victoria Patriots June 2017 - Got a better offer from Wyndham Council

Its got me fked how two of the bids have no stadium yet there still in there???. A lot of money must be being promised for the licence.

I believe a delegation from the A-League clubs involving Anthony di Pietro, Simon Pearce and Scott Barlow will meet with FFa at around 5pm tomorrow to discuss expansion. I understand club chairman Paul Lederer will hook up via phone . Interesting to see how this pans out.

— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) December 5, 2018

Last minute merger attempt, SE apparently contacted Macarthur.

https://twitter.com/Gatty54/status/1071623582944378880?s=20

A-League: Last-minute attempt to merge expansion bids https://t.co/L7C8j2D32A

— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) December 9, 2018

4 Teams?

Macarthur South West Sydney have confirmed knocking back a last-gasp merger attempt by Southern Expansion ahead of Wednesday’s FFA board vote on the potential granting of two new A-League licenses for next season.

A-League expansion

Today it's Fairfax's turn to look at the A-League expansion candidates. The Canberra report sounds like it was written by the bid team's PR machine, noting that they have "a heavyweight overseas investor who has a strong presence in top-flight US and European leagues", but no questions about who that might be and why it's secret - which, in fact, is raised in relation to another bid which has Australian backers only. The rest of the read is worthwhile.

Check-out how we see the six expansion bids stacking-up here. 

What a cluster fudge that Southern Expansion bid is. 

Article mentions Property Development being the key factors in both the Southern Expansion & Western Melbourne group bids. That doesn't seem a very good idea, if the market collapses so will the clubs. Its gotta raise some serious red flags, surely?

Meet the cashed-up tycoon bankrolling South Melbourne’s A-League bid

Bid said to be dead in water as Victory and City keep up objections.

A-League expansion

Note the time stamp. 12.54pm yesterday when Ray Gatt published this storyabout FFA suggesting to Southern Expansion - which is seen as being somewhat dead in the water in the expansion race - that they merge with (the already merged) South-West Sydney bid. The offer was "politely declined" by South-West Sydney's Gino Marra. However, Southern Expansion claimed that South-West Sydney approached them "but no common ground could be found". When asked about this 'he said, he said' situation by Gatt, Marra pointed out that his bid has no need to seek a merger.

A little more than 3.5 hours later, Vince Rugari published the Fairfax version of the same story, talking with the same people, noting that a merged bid would increase the "financial power" behind the South-West Sydney bid - not that they are lacking financial power, with billionaire Lang Walker backing them. However, Southern Exposure is rumoured to have made the biggest financial offer for a license to FFA which might explain why someone at FFA is keen not to lose them. Rugari tried to contact FFA CEO David Gallop for comment who declined to make one.

Why did FFA seek to intervene in the process in this way? On whose authority? Shouldn't they be giving frank and fearless advice to the FFA Board, rather than attempting to engineer an outcome?

Rugari also notes that "counting against" Canberra is that additional funds are triggered from FOX Sports if the two expansion clubs are from either Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. We first wrote about this point on 23 December 2016 (amazingly, 717 days ago).

The real point is that those 'additional' funds (of $2.5 million pa) are already included in the total FOX Sports deal of $346 million over six years and are triggered from 2021-22, the fifth year of the deal. If a Sydney and Melbourne team are not included (Brisbane is obviously now excluded), then the total broadcast deal would be $341 million over six years at an average of $56.8 million a year, rather than the current annual average of $57.6 million.

Adelaide United's Michael Marrone tells Val Migliaccio that expansion would be good for players, and that two more teams would mean "the players will have a bit more bargaining power." Can you hear the alarm bells ringing in A-League chairmens' offices around the country?

Meanwhile, in Canberra, the local paper is publishing the Canberra bid team's PR again (sent to media outlets on Friday) setting out the "five points of difference" with their A-League bid being: new fans, equality, one shot (with a slight re-presentation of history), sports business background (mystery backer still a mystery) and fan owned.

Sauce

Two A-League expansion bids won't try again if they miss out https://t.co/Q1UwfSkaP1 via @smh

— Vince Rugari (@VinceRugari) December 10, 2018

Insider information or Just preempting FFA meeting today

"Dear Canberra Supporter

After a long and rewarding journey, tomorrow we believe the Football Federation of Australia will sit down and decide the fates of the six remaining bids seeking to be a part of the A-League.

For our bid, there is a chance the FFA will announce that we will enter the A-League next season, there is a chance they will push expansion back until the following season, there is also a chance the FFA may announce two successful bids or they may decide on more. There is of-course a chance that the bid may not be successful at all.

No matter what the result, our message to the community is the same – thank you.

The one thing that has struck the bid team throughout this process is the amazing level of support from football supporters across the ACT and Southern NSW region.

We now have almost 8,000 Foundation Members – people who have signed up to show their support for having an A-League team based out of Canberra. Eight thousand people united behind a club representing a unique region steeped in football history, honouring the memory of Steve Doszpot.

But it’s more than that. When we called for volunteers more than 100 people came forward to help – they signed up members, they handed out flyers and attended events to promote the bid.

Businesses came forward offering support, some displayed posters in their window, some showed their support on social media, others provided services such as printing of promotional materials and consulting. We forged a partnership with the Australian Sports Foundation to further community programs, and received public and financial support from the ACT Government.

This is the reason that the Canberra and Capital Region Bid has come so far. When this process began there were 15 bids contesting two spots, and Canberra were by all measures huge underdogs. We were told in no uncertain terms by those in-the-know that the next two teams would come again from the large city markets of Melbourne and Sydney.

Yet here we sit on the eve of a decision, favourites now in many judges’ eyes, and that is because of you. We know for a fact that the FFA now see our bid as very attractive due to the enormous wave of support that football fans across the region have shown for this bid.

So thank you, thank you for making this bid too hard to ignore.

The good news is that for those who haven’t yet signed up as Foundation Members it’s not too late, in fact this is just the beginning. From the moment the FFA delivers the green light, we will change from a bid to a club. And the first order of business is for you, the Foundation Members, to choose the club’s name, colours and crest.

There will be a cost in activating your Foundation Membership, but we are mindful to make it affordable. The founding principal of the community-based club is inclusion, and we don’t want to exclude anyone through price.

This will secure your right to vote on the key decisions to come, and help write the next chapter of Australian football history.

There are a number of people who have been working hard behind the scenes to make this happen. Thank you to Aaron Walker, Adam Castle, Alberto Florez, Alex Belperio, Arshad Hafiz, Ben Hugosson, Boyan Taseski, Jeshua Hollis, Kasey Lam, Patrick Pentony, Russ Gibbs and Nick Titcume.

While you have already done enough, if you want to help there is still one last thing you can do. Share this email with anyone you think may want to sign up as a Foundation Member. Let’s get to 10,000 and send a big message to the A-League – we are on our way!

We look forward to sharing the next part of the journey with you."

My guess is they will give SW Sydney and Team 11 provisional licences for the 2020/21 season which will be confimred after the new operating model is sorted in March and Team 11 can confirm funding for their stadium. 

Ignore, I got sucked in by a fake account.

6 remaining bids? Let them all join, 17 teams, play each other twice = 32 games person, top four play home & away semi, winners into the final.Potentially a 34 game season. Better than playing each other 3 times.

Apparently 2 of the bids will walk if there not selected this round. What does that say about there bids??.

The hour has past but:

So FFa board meeting finished close to 8pm. No announcement until midday tomorrow. Supposedly None of the bidders have been informed of any decision. Count down minus 15 hours

— Ray Gatt (@Gatty54) December 12, 2018

Sounds like West Melbourne next season and South West Sydney the following. 

The Qzzzy fans will hate it though!

I hate bye rounds.

Also, the team that has to build a stadium is let in straight away, but the team that will already have somewhere to play out of wont? Makes no sense. Will take at least 3 years for the stadium. Playing out of fudgeing Geelong on a temp basis sounds terrible.

Daisey Fields seems like an even worse option.

An article reckoned it was so WSW could get a season at their new stadium before having close-ish competition. 

Gallop:

An FFA press conference is expected to confirm the announcements at midday today.

W-M-G set to get the nod

Macarthur-South West Sydney and Western Melbourne Group will be announced today as the two new clubs to join the A-League, but only one will be joining next season.  

Some media still can't help themselves. Could only be Fox Sport.

The X-Factor is how the A-League plans to deal with Wellington Phoenix. The New Zealand club’s license is conditional on meeting certain benchmarks by the end of the 2020 campaign, and signs aren’t good.

Is this not true though? - besides from Rob Morrison indicating things should be easier now there is an independent A-League there has been nothing to indicate anything else has changed 

Yeah all the language is we're cooked.

And even with the report, they're gonna favour an Aussie club over us because it makes the competition neater etc.

Western Melbourne Group will enter the competition in season 2019/20, with Macarthur South West Sydney entering the competition the following season 2020/21.