Ten years since the A-League began, there is more support than ever for a national second division and promotion and relegation. Put it down to the success of the FFA Cup, the grand final of which takes place on Saturday night between Perth Glory and Melbourne Victory.
In two seasons of the FFA Cup impressive crowds have turned up to watch A-League clubs play lower league sides such as South Coast Wolves, St. Albans Saints, Balmain Tigers, Sorrento, Darwin Olympic, Hume City, Bentleigh Greens, Tuggeranong United, Sydney United and Heidelberg United.
Most intriguing, however, was the crowd of 1,857 people who turned up to see the round of 32 match between Rockdale City and Perth SC in August. Nothing special at first glance, but it was a great atmosphere and a respectable turn-out considering it was a cold Wednesday night, there were no A-League clubs involved, and neither side has a history in the old National Soccer League.
In their respective leagues, neither Rockdale nor Perth SC could hope to draw a crowd anywhere near that size. The grim reality is that spectators don’t care for the National Premier Leagues, which are national in name only – basically it’s a re-badged state league with an end of season play-off between the winners of each state. Indeed such is the lure of a true national audience, many clubs are realising that one game in the FFA Cup can do more for a club’s finances and reputation than years of solid performance in the state league.
Perth Glory CEO Peter Filopolous believes promotion and relegation is an “ideal” which will need to come after the introduction of a national second division. “I think you’re building a second-tier of football brands at a national level,” says Filopolous. “You’re giving them an ability to grow and invest in their football infrastructure, and one day in the future, as the game grows, they could be the next A-League clubs – even if it’s 20 years away.”
The familiar advocates for a two-tiered system are the former NSL clubs, particularly Melbourne Knights, Sydney Olympic and South Melbourne. When FFA released it’s Whole of Football Plan in May, with no plans for promotion and relegation to the A-League, South Melbourne somewhat histrionically called it “the possible end of aspiration football”.
Of course it is self-interest rather than commitment to principle guiding this view – South Melbourne were hardly manning the barricades during the periods in which the NSL scrapped promotion and relegation.
Still, the advocates of promotion and relegation are no longer fringe-dwellers and dreamers. Former SBS commentator Les Murray, Fairfax’s Michael Cockerill and Michael Lynch, and Fox Sports commentators Simon Hill and Mark Bosnich have all argued for its introduction, based on notions of fairness and football principles. As Cockerill writes: “If a team like Nieclecza can play in the top tier of Poland representing a village of just 750 people, why should Australia deny the dream?”
Yet the A-League was never supposed to be fair. It was established as a corporate cartel with privately-owned franchises given privileged access to colonise regions that community clubs had spent decades investing in. It’s a thoroughly undemocratic system but it has powerful currency – consider Sydney FC’s reaction when Melbourne City decided they wanted to wear sky blue, for example, or their recent outcry at FFA’s plans to bring in a third team in the south of Sydney.
This is reality, not criticism. The model, undemocratic as it is, has found more support than any other football experiment in this country. But there is also a growing desire, brought on in large part by the wonderfully anarchic spirit of the FFA Cup, to give the lower league clubs an opportunity.
Australia has its own dramatic stories to tell in this department. When St. George-Budapest were relegated from the national league in 1980, they brought Frank Arok back from Yugoslavia to coach the club. In 1981 they won promotion, by 1982 they finished second, and in 1983 they won the NSL. Arok was promptly appointed Socceroos coach.
However history also shows that promotion and relegation favours clubs in the populous states of Sydney and Melbourne, and can be wildly chaotic. As the Bradley Report noted in 1990, promotion and relegation led to “instability in the league”, and neglect of important areas such as facilities and spectator recruitment in favour of on-field results.
Moreover, since the state-based NPL system was established, the winners have been Sydney United, North Eastern MetroStars and Blacktown City. The latter two don’t even closely resemble a potential A-League side.
“The gap is wide between the NPL and the A-League, it’s a big jump,” says Filopolous. “We need to spread the next best tier of talent across 10 clubs. Given the distance, the airfares required, the costs associated with a second tier are challenging. In terms of an economic model you’d need to see how viable it is.”
For Filopolous, who has worked in sports administration across many codes, a national second division would help promote Australian talent. “You’re helping fix that pathway and bridge that gap between NPL and A-League and so that the step between NPL and A-League is easier,” he says.
The best idea yet is for the states to run a national second division. FFA have absolutely no plans to roll out another competition, and with their resources already stretched, nor should they. For a national second division there is some movement and plenty of support at Football Federation Victoria, but at the moment no concrete plans have been made.
“I think we have to have a sustainable A-League and a successful A-League before we embark on promotion and relegation,” says Filipolous. “I think you say ‘never say never’. The day that it happens is the day we know that football has arrived and is a very successful, strong, viable competition.”
