I think the more telling part of that article is this, if you presume it's unintentionally giving us a bit of the real story:
"It is understood the FFA is unwilling to continue funding more than $3 million into the club that yields little in broadcast revenue, Australian football development and attendances.
The governing body is putting pressure on the Phoenix to seek alternative funding to continue being part of the A-League. As of yet the club has not been granted additional funding from the New Zealand government, Sky TV or New Zealand Football."
The reported $2.5m - and now claimed $3m in that article - that they send our way is, as they might see it, giving them only 7 Aussie players in our squad, and no Aussies coming through our reserve side. That imo is what they are bitching about. Welnix are being too successful in developing NZ football and they are paying for it. Better to have another Aussie side (assuming it's viable, and doesn't cannibalise from an existing club).
When they thought they'd get moulah from a 4.5m population TV deal, they probably thought they were going to be on the good end of that deal. So far they are not.
My gut feel is they want $1.5-2m p.a. or so reduction in what they are giving the Nix, so they are expecting Welnix/NZF/WCC to cough that up. If so they would be sending around $1m our way, to cover the measly seven aussies we support.
Interestingly, by my reckoning, if it's $1.5m they want to reduce the NZ "subsidy" by, less the $200k they already get from the NZ TV deal, with 13 home games, then $100k every home game is the difference. Which would be 5,000 extra $20 tickets sold per home game. Make that a smaller sum per game by increasing the TV license deal, or getting something out of NZF or WCC. Or Welnix.
That's the real metric, I think.
I personally think that the A League is in a death spiral at the moment and kicking us out won't help them one little bit. As I see it, the only thing which might save the comp is a shift to a separate entity controlling it. I've said it before but the MLS is an example of how it should be done. For a start every owner is technically actually an investor in the competition and player contracts are managed centrally - it's hard to imagine something like the banned fan fiasco or the FFA's treatment of our license extension happening if club owners were part of the leadership of the comp as a whole.