Melbourne Thai-up guest player

Earlier in the year this column commended Melbourne Victory for signing Thai international Surat Sukha. Not only were they getting a very good player but they were taking a bold initiative among A-League clubs in recruiting in their own backyard, something the other then-eight teams in the competition had hitherto decided was simply "too hard".

Now, after only eight games of the new season, another Thai is joining Surat at the 2008/09 A-League champions. It is a defining moment for the A-League and for South-East Asian football.

Sutee Suksomkit has been signed as a "guest player", a spot usually taken by high-profile aging European or South American players looking for a short-term payday - think Benito Carbone and Kazu Miura at Sydney, Romario at Adelaide. He will arrive in Australia on October 5 from Singapore's Tampines Rovers and his first game is likely to be on October 24 at home against Melbourne's arch-rivals, Adelaide. The contract is for three months at AUD$15,000 a month.

Sutee breaks the "guest player" mould in more ways than one.

First, he's still young at 31; second, he's still playing international football; third, he's relatively inexpensive; and lastly, like Surat, he is promoting Australian football and the Australian league in a part of the world that holds the key to its growth.

When I was in Bangkok in 2007 for the Asian Cup and seeing with my own eyes the passion and fervour Thais had for football, as well as the quality of some of the Elephants players in their match against the Socceroos at the Rajamangala, I couldn't help think a golden opportunity was being missed by the A-League in ignoring Thailand.

For a long time, the marketing bounty of South-East Asia has been effectively harvested by European clubs but not by Australian ones. No longer.

It's clear from the double recruitment of Surat and Sutee that Melbourne has firm plans to brand the club regionally as part of its ambition to become an Antipodean version of Barcelona. And it's something other A-League clubs would do well to replicate, especially since most of them are broke.

Recruiting players from South-East Asia is not only smart but economical. With Football Federation Australia propping up so many clubs - Brisbane Roar is the latest to find itself in some financial trouble - one can only hope some of Melbourne's bravery and foresight rubs off on other teams in the competition. The A-League cannot go on, especially when it is being plundered each week by West Asian clubs taking advantage of the Asian Football Confederation's "3+1" rule, being a slightly rundown retirement village for has-been European and South American footballers with inflated price tags.

Melbourne is not only setting the benchmark as an Australian club in the way it does its business, but it is also so as a South-East Asian one.

With Surat and Sutee now in the A-League mix, perhaps the AFC's motto, "The Future is Asia", isn't so hopeful after all.