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Future of City post A-league


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1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

How childish this all seems. Don't the participants realise that this sort of thing puts fans, players, coaches, backroom staff, potential investors and sponsors - indeed everyone - off the game? A demonstration of "how to shoot yourself in the foot."

Well the oil prices have come down, Messi still wants $700million next year. Money doesn’t grow on trees! 

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2 minutes ago, Dylan said:

I can see us easily falling down the table if this player payment issue is correct. You take that, which would be demoralising, add a novice manager and thats a recipe for a Aloisi Heart season

At this stage there won't be a table to fall down.

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Well fwiw, i don't think there's much chance if any that we are doing this as a cost cutting exercise, if its even true at all.
But either way, no one knows whats going on with any degree of clarity other than the involved parties, especially old mate Dave Lewis at TWG who is probably the worst football 'journo' going round. 

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51 minutes ago, bt50 said:

Well fwiw, i don't think there's much chance if any that we are doing this as a cost cutting exercise, if its even true at all.
But either way, no one knows whats going on with any degree of clarity other than the involved parties, especially old mate Dave Lewis at TWG who is probably the worst football 'journo' going round. 

Yeah from memory he is a bit dodgy. Well I should say, his sources are. You also had Joey Lynch having his source confirm it as well

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21 hours ago, Dylan said:

I think one issue we have in particular is the money we probably pay to AAMI to play there. I am not sure there is any alternative but if I were the club id be looking around

I also think people are going to be wary of using public transport to go to matches - if there are any matches. Can't see us drawing big crowds for a while yet. A suburban venue with good parking would be ideal, but I doubt that anyone's going to be keen to accommodate us - NIMBY. 

Most possible venues are OK if you live in that area but a bugger to get to if you have to cross town.

Bentleigh Greens are 10 minutes for me, and I can park right outside. At this stage I have renewed my City membership, but I can see me watching Bentleigh when I need a football fix unless the A-League gets itself sorted pretty quickly.

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7 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Yeah from memory he is a bit dodgy. Well I should say, his sources are. You also had Joey Lynch having his source confirm it as well

We aren’t paying our players that’s it and I’m embarrassed by it....if we were you would release a statement to debunk and promote the brand/club just like Sydney FC have done.

Edited by Mr MO
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Look at the CFG pissing money up the wall elsewhere around the globe and here we are in Australia trying to cut $75k PA footballers wage with 30%.

With our backing we should take advantage of this situation, pay players properly outside the CBA with personal contracts. Build a good squad and just win the league whilst the rest are on the back foot. 

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26 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Yeah from memory he is a bit dodgy. Well I should say, his sources are. You also had Joey Lynch having his source confirm it as well

I'd be wary of the way its being framed tbh.

For example a club might pay its wages monthly on the 20th, and the journos can say that said club hasn't paid anything to its players this month. It's not factually incorrect, but its also intentionally misleading. It could be unintentionally misleading too. ie Journo simply asks player if theyd been paid this month, player says no. No one has lied but people assume eg.

There's also the factor of the salary cap at play and paying players 100% only for the cap to be cut could be problematic in terms of then complying with the cap. I don't know all the factors at play, and i'm pretty sure no-one does but i suppose i'd be wary of accusing anyone of anything, or presuming their intentions without a full set of facts at play.

It's certainly possible we are screwing players down, but its equally possible, perhaps more likely based on our previous positions, that we are just making sure we don't find ourselves in a spot where we can't get out of.

Edited by bt50
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51 minutes ago, bt50 said:

I'd be wary of the way its being framed tbh.

For example a club might pay its wages monthly on the 20th, and the journos can say that said club hasn't paid anything to its players this month. It's not factually incorrect, but its also intentionally misleading. It could be unintentionally misleading too. ie Journo simply asks player if theyd been paid this month, player says no. No one has lied but people assume eg.

There's also the factor of the salary cap at play and paying players 100% only for the cap to be cut could be problematic in terms of then complying with the cap. I don't know all the factors at play, and i'm pretty sure no-one does but i suppose i'd be wary of accusing anyone of anything, or presuming their intentions without a full set of facts at play.

It's certainly possible we are screwing players down, but its equally possible, perhaps more likely based on our previous positions, that we are just making sure we don't find ourselves in a spot where we can't get out of.

An earlier report said that we were paying players on Thursday (yesterday, 17/9/20).

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This is indeed a mess and given what’s at stake can also get pretty emotional, with a lot of second guessing about future actions and motivations, with so many people on both sides of the fence unsure about how it will affect them personally.

Let’s wait and see what happens.

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1 hour ago, Shahanga said:

This is indeed a mess and given what’s at stake can also get pretty emotional, with a lot of second guessing about future actions and motivations, with so many people on both sides of the fence unsure about how it will affect them personally.

Let’s wait and see what happens.

Yes, but where there's smoke there's fire. With the state of the game in so much turmoil I would have thought it prudent to release some sort of statement. In the past we have taken this "batten down the hatches" approach, and that's fine, but IMO the current situation is not the climate in which to keep silent - it appears arrogant and uncaring about the future of professional football in this country. Everyone knows that Simon Pearce of CFG has been the prime mover in orchestrating changes at FFA, and we now have an ex-CFG executive at the helm, so IMO if you want your fans and supporters to keep faith with you some sort of media presence is required. 

FMD, we can announce a partnership with Laybuy, encouraging people to buy on credit, but we can't make a comment on the current situation? Not good enough in my view.

Edited by jw1739
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15 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Yes, but where there's smoke there's fire. With the state of the game in so much turmoil I would have thought it prudent to release some sort of statement. In the past we have taken this "batten down the hatches" approach, and that's fine, but IMO the current situation is not the climate in which to keep silent - it appears arrogant and uncaring about the future of professional football in this country. Everyone knows that Simon Pearce of CFG has been the prime mover in orchestrating changes at FFA, and we now have an ex-CFG executive at the helm, so IMO if you want your fans and supporters to keep faith with you some sort of media presence is required. 

FMD, we can announce a partnership with Laybuy, encouraging people to buy on credit, but we can't make a comment on the current situation? Not good enough in my view.

I think its quite possible that there's conflicting views between the clubs though, and for any one club to put a statement out sort of promotes the view that they're not a united front, which is probably the last thing the clubs want to portray publically.

I totally get its frustrating and that the radio silence lends itself to speculation, which often doesnt help anyone, but i also think if things were so simple as a press release then the clubs would just do it.

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Player payments are really nobody's business aside from the club, players and agents so I'm not going to bother speculating there.

In a more general view from the outside, it really does seem as though the A-League will be heavily stripped back next season. If nothing else, I can only hope that this gives everybody with real agency in the game in Australia the perfect opportunity to reinvigorate the league and shape the direction its to head in for the foreseeable future. For one, while the spectator involvement is so limited with Covid-19 doing its thing, I really hope the A-League heads actually develop a proper, well thought-out strategy to combat the startling decline in interest/attendances - particularly in active support, and bring it back to the amazing levels we reached in times past. I just found myself on a YouTube binge of old A-League highlights from the 2014-16 era and the atmosphere of the games was absolutely remarkable for our little league, a time when the Melbourne derbies really meant something and the passion had nothing manufactured about it. 

People can argue about money equating to quality all they want but the A-League has thrived with far shitter players plying their trade before the likes of Diego Castro, Ninkovic, Fornaroli, Janko, Diamanti etc. made their way over here. Even before the Del Piero/Heskey/Ono season of 2012/13, the league still had its heart and the atmosphere and support was alive. To focus solely on the lack of money circulating around the league as the primary cause of the league's woes at the moment is ignoring the other issues at hand.

I just want to see some effort put in to return this great competition with truly, captivating rivalries, stories, heroes and villains back to what it was and then beyond to what it could have been (from an off-field/in-the-stands perspective).

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Yep. The very first proper A-League Derby. The Christmas Derby. Both belonged to Melbourne Heart and always will. Events on the calendar. Those indeed were the days.

What the League did in general terms, and in Heart/City's case specifically, was to lose touch with the fans. We have ever really been at the discussion table.

Edited by jw1739
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On 17/09/2020 at 1:09 PM, Dylan said:

I think one issue we have in particular is the money we probably pay to AAMI to play there. I am not sure there is any alternative but if I were the club id be looking around

Fair comment. I also don't know why we have to persist with full-time professionals. Surely we could at least have some part-time professional players?

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There's a lot of hand wringing about the A League right now, but I suspect if we can get through this close season, we'll be through the worst. Not everyone has lost faith, there are very credible bids building for new clubs in Canberra and Tassie, for example, so there is potential to grow the game and the size of the league. I'm curiously optimistic. 

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7 minutes ago, fensaddler said:

There's a lot of hand wringing about the A League right now, but I suspect if we can get through this close season, we'll be through the worst. Not everyone has lost faith, there are very credible bids building for new clubs in Canberra and Tassie, for example, so there is potential to grow the game and the size of the league. I'm curiously optimistic. 

More than anything IMO the League needs to lay out a vison and milestones. We need new, sustained, local investment, but potential investors will hold back unless they can see what we're actually aiming for. As I see it the biggest problem we have is that we seem to stumble from season to season. IMO 16 clubs and 30 league matches per season is what we should be aiming for, but I don't believe promotion and relegation is feasible because it is hard enough to support one league and I just cannot see that a second national division can be viable. 

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23 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

More than anything IMO the League needs to lay out a vison and milestones. We need new, sustained, local investment, but potential investors will hold back unless they can see what we're actually aiming for. As I see it the biggest problem we have is that we seem to stumble from season to season. IMO 16 clubs and 30 league matches per season is what we should be aiming for, but I don't believe promotion and relegation is feasible because it is hard enough to support one league and I just cannot see that a second national division can be viable. 

You can't do both.

Promotion/relegation and also expand via selection/bids.

I think the only way would be that if a team is so shit then their license then becomes available. But unfortunately that removes any idea of a second division. 

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19 minutes ago, Jovan said:

You can't do both.

Promotion/relegation and also expand via selection/bids.

I think the only way would be that if a team is so shit then their license then becomes available. But unfortunately that removes any idea of a second division. 

Are you saying we should revoke Victory’s license?

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1 hour ago, Jovan said:

You can't do both.

Promotion/relegation and also expand via selection/bids.

I think the only way would be that if a team is so shit then their license then becomes available. But unfortunately that removes any idea of a second division. 

I think we can do both. Pro-rel isn't yet viable because relegation would destroy the relegated club, and those coming up would struggle to compete. But we can expand the A-League and create a second tier, because there is a demand from the big state league teams for a national competition, as well as demand for new A-League licences. If the second tier becomes strong enough, then Pro-rel can emerge over time. 

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16 minutes ago, fensaddler said:

I think we can do both. Pro-rel isn't yet viable because relegation would destroy the relegated club, and those coming up would struggle to compete. But we can expand the A-League and create a second tier, because there is a demand from the big state league teams for a national competition, as well as demand for new A-League licences. If the second tier becomes strong enough, then Pro-rel can emerge over time. 

This is my thoughts too, however this whole CF has made it impossible within at least 12 months and probably a whole lot longer.

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18 minutes ago, fensaddler said:

I think we can do both. Pro-rel isn't yet viable because relegation would destroy the relegated club, and those coming up would struggle to compete. But we can expand the A-League and create a second tier, because there is a demand from the big state league teams for a national competition, as well as demand for new A-League licences. If the second tier becomes strong enough, then Pro-rel can emerge over time. 

You have to convince me. Where is the money going to come from for a national second division? Already in the A-League, City are owned by CFG, Newcastle by the Ledman Group, Brisbane by the Bakrie Group, Sydney by David Tratkavenko, Adelaide by Piet van der Pol and associated interests, Central Coast by Michael Charlesworth and associates, and of course Wellington by NZ interests. Even to expand the current A-League is going to require more overseas money. Just cannot see where you all think the money for a second division is going to come from.

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1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

You have to convince me. Where is the money going to come from for a national second division? Already in the A-League, City are owned by CFG, Newcastle by the Ledman Group, Brisbane by the Bakrie Group, Sydney by David Tratkavenko, Adelaide by Piet van der Pol and associated interests, Central Coast by Michael Charlesworth and associates, and of course Wellington by NZ interests. Even to expand the current A-League is going to require more overseas money. Just cannot see where you all think the money for a second division is going to come from.

I share your caution in that respect. But if the interested second tier clubs can make it happen, good for them. But it is up to them and the FFA. There's no obvious advantage to the A-League in funding it. Meanwhile there is at very least some credibility for additional A-League licences. 

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