General A-League discussion

More on the FFA handling of the betting fiasco:

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/stunned-exsocce...

That kind of hypocrisy happens everywhere. This season in Scotland, a Partick Thistle player was banned for breaching SFA betting rules which state that players, coaches and club officials are banned from betting on any football match anywhere in the World. That's all fair enough, but a week or so after the ban had been handed down, the SFA announced that from 2016 the new sponsor of the SPFL will be Ladbrokes. Which just happens to be a betting company!

Robbie Hooker.  ex-Kingz as well.

This is rediculous... because I play in the 8th Division in NSW I cant bet on the A-league.... Clearly my participation gives me great knowledge into the outcome of games

He has gone up in the world then, now playing over 35's in Sydney

for...

sweet.

May be putting my tin foil hat on a bit here, but:

It's interesting that he has claimed the TAB has owed him $600k in the past. He's right to question why they've solely gone after him specifically. Once again, it's almost as if the FFA are making decisions based on their relationship with the betting agencies, - who actually runs the game in Australia? Because it sure seems like it is these betting agencies making these decisions. 

Betting agencies - determine where teams finish in the table (Perth 7th), are seemingly heavily involved in sanctioning registered players.

Fox Sports - determines the leagues fixtures list. 

FFA - Do they even have any control over the league at all?

Good ol' fashioned pay dispute rumbling on in the background:

 http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/26/ff...

Question though - at the moment the FFA TV deal money covers the salary cap for every club, right? If the salary cap was increased, would the money from the FFA to cover it also increase? If so, no problem. If not, it's pretty obvious that's only going to make certain clubs' financial situations worse.

The article isn't really clear about that and to me that's a key point.

The other issue is that the salary cap is entirely covered by the TV deal, yet some clubs (CCM/Roar) are managing to not pay their players on time. So if FFA increase the cap and still cover the whole thing, what's to say that the clubs won't abuse that money like they have been doing so far?

The simple answer would be for the TV deal money to be paid directly as player's salaries. It might get complicated with marquees but all non-marquee players would then at least have certainty about getting paid regardless of the dickishness of their club's owner.

Josh Kennedy retired.

If the FFA pay the players directly, wont that mean they are effectively contracting the players? Means they would be liable for their contracts, something the FFA wants to avoid.

I don't know how the technicalities of the accounting would work, but could you not just give the money to the clubs with the restriction that it can only be spent on player salaries? Plenty of grants to organisations are for specific purposes already aren't they? 

One of the problems that clubs have is if they fall behind in theit tax bills then the Australian government takes it straight from the sallary cap money as it arives. The FFA has also been known to withold part of it if a club isn't behaving properly.

The rules also stipulate something like you only have to spend 85% of the salary cap, so clubs use the rest of the grant money for admin costs.

Harry kewell's incentives to play for Citeh are celery on steroids. See the SMH story on kewell and fiat Chrysler boss Clyde Campbell.

Classic FFA mind you. Everyone knew it was dodgy at the time, now the owners have changed an investigation will find evidence of that but won't have a Heart to prosecute.

More re: Betting

Brisbane Roar swaps Coffee Club with Ladbrokes… but just for the friendly against Liverpool. Also, don’t bet on football, says FFA mmmkay?

— Kevin Airs (@KevinAirs442) July 3, 2015

http://m.theaustralian.com.au/sport/football/door-...

sorry wrong thread; it should be in the fruit n veg section under celery.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/football/adelaide-united-sees-red-over-union-cash-demands/story-fnii0g1e-1227429568670

but yeah, the players union has the growth of the game at heart.....

I would have expected that one of the things which the standard player salary would reimburse them for would be their particpation in freindly matches. How ignorant I was. I wonder how much money the Phoenix players are demanding as compensation to paly against a Central League XI?

This seasons ball

Sexy....

Oh. Good. Lord.

seems unfair that Brisbane could camouflage the ball by standing near it

According to 442, Tony Popovic is the 45th best coach in the world for 2015. 

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/fourfourtwos-5...

Here are his scores:

Style: 3/5 

Quotability: 3/5

Aggro: 4/5

Transfer: 3/5

Man management: 4/5

I think the authors needs a lie down.

it looks...heavy (on TV) 

Wonder what it looks like flying at you. Surely the black's no-good for visibility. Like the green and half-blue ones (two different) that Lotto throws out.

Everyone should be using Campionatos. Or Mitre Ultimaxx

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/football/olyroos-could-miss-up-to-one-quarter-of-a-league-season-under-stringent-timetable/story-fnk6pqot-1227453098199

Lucky we're disqualified, the boot will be on the other foot.

http://www.afr.com/business/sport/game-data-to-stream-live-for-melbourne-city-football-fans-20150725-giit15

Shame this wasn't around previously, Patrick could have coded a 'Where on the pitch is Tim Brown?' feature into the YFApp

I get that you were (probably) joking... but I can forsee someone somewhere wanting to use this to judge offsides sooner or later. Imagine Fox Sports getting it in their heads that they could live plot where everyone was, and ignoring the technical advice that GPS is only accurate to within however many metres etc, and then using the telemetry to put a "Fox Sports Offside Line (TM)" on the screen.

I can even see them reading the technical feedback and someone in a meeting saying: "So? We never get the offside line in the right place anyway, so what does this matter? Just do it Neville."

GPS is pretty much useless for offside because it has no idea where the legs and head are, it only knows where the GPS device itself is. So even if Fox wanted to use it, they would work out pretty quickly that it's useless and that a normal replay is more useful.

Whether they decide to ditch the tech at that stage or use it anyway is a different story though...

Tweet the other day froM Danny Vuka saying it was light, and taking some getting used to in the flight.

standard new-ball complaint.

He wants to try working with an over-inflated $20 job in 30 year-old floodlights on a Tuesday in July from 6 yards!

Genius:

Any ball that has colour on it is horrid - if Brisbane could pull a croud then half the ball would blend into the background.

CBA talks between FFA and PFA have just broken down again. Deal apparently close but FFA reportedly unwilling to commit to it in writing.

— Kevin Airs (@KevinAirs442) August 19, 2015

Also heard NYL has been split into 2 conferences next season. Winner of each to play off in GF & shorter season to save costs 4 AL clubs

— Elia Santoro (@Elia_Santoro) August 19, 2015

SFC, WSW, CCM, NEW & AIS in one conference, MVC, MCY, BRI, ADL, PER in the other.

That gives us a bit more of a competitive advantage