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TTIM: Cyclists who use the road slowing the traffic but when there is a perfectly good cycling path separated from vehicular traffic a mere 10m away. As far as I am concerned they are trying to commit suicide by car.

Melbourne has the largest population of Chilean born/1st generation in Australia. We just blend right in. Travelling through the Pilbara in WA back in the 90s and coming across families that were Chilean descent was surprising and only found out by accident. Also in SA there is a train station named in honour of a Chilen engineer who migrated early last century. 8000 Bollocks.

A sugar daddy that will bankroll a European/middle East training assuming that the clubs release the players+a local one.

That is insane! Are they the only sport that does that?

I thought that the Wallabies were a national team, just like the Socceroos. Otherwise what would stop Saudi Arabia buying the best players and call them Nationals?

Of course its a spoof! But it did leave me wondering what type of person Vidmar is.

I read that the first time but upon second reading, I am not entirely sure that Vidmar ought to be in the running for the permanent position. It is one thing not to be happy about a particular incident but it is completely different thing to say that the boss is never happy. The latter is demotivating.

‘We’re a football business, not a media business’: A-Leagues bosses explain job cuts By Emma Kemp February 5, 2024 — 7.49pm Listen to this article 4 min A-Leagues bosses have broken their silence on last month’s mass staff redundancies, taking responsibility for the lack of public communication and pledging to get back to basics by serving “core A-Leagues fans” while slowly building a financially sustainable organisation. Three weeks after the Australian Professional Leagues made almost half of its 80-odd workforce redundant, new A-Leagues commissioner Nick Garcia and independent chair Stephen Conroy have outlined the latest vision for the future of the country’s top-flight domestic soccer competitions. 0:31 Arsenal blow Premier League title race wide open Arsenal's 3-1 win over Liverpool has blown the Premier League's title race wide open, as wild celebrations ensued. “The overarching point here is we’re a football business, not a media business,” Garcia told this masthead on Monday. “We exist to create a great competition that our clubs thrive in and fans love to watch. The first thing about the A-Leagues strategy is it leads with a football strategy, and that is about being really clear about the sort of league you are. “In the men’s we’re a development league, first and foremost. In the women’s league we are potentially a destination league in Asia, but much more focused on retaining the great national team players rather than attracting international players. But over everything, we’re about developing stars of the future. ”That’s possible because seven years ago all the clubs implemented academy systems, and we’re seeing the crop of that come through right now. So Garang Kuol going to Newcastle United, [Nestory] Irankunda is going to Bayern Munich, and I think we’ve got some other exciting transfers coming up.“ Garcia believes the APL’s digital and content arm KeepUp, which featured content ranging from the domestic leagues to the European leagues and national teams, “did work, to a degree”. “I don’t think it was whether it worked,” he said. “I think, just at this time, it’s not commercially sustainable.” A-Leagues commissioner Nick Garcia (right) with Bill Foley, the owner of the incoming Auckland franchise.Credit: Getty Instead, the recently launched aleagues.com.au will focus on “talking to core A-Leagues fans, engaging them more and bringing them to our ecosystem”. “That new digital strategy will be about converting people,” he said. “KeepUp was always about circling the global football economy, and it did that to a degree. But now we’ve got these fans who want to be talked to through an A-Leagues product, and we have engaged them throughout what we’re doing.” Garcia said a 33 per cent increase in the average number of pages users clicked on during a single site session on aleagues.com.au proved fans were already responding. Garcia conceded he “probably should have engaged the media sooner” after closing down KeepUp, which sat at the core of its strategy under previous chief executive Danny Townsend. Stephen Conroy (right) in 2009 during his days as a minister in the Rudd government.Credit: Glen McCurtayne But both he and Conroy were bullish about the financial feasibility of the organisation, having “realigned parts of our business” to stem the bleeding after the $140 million cash injection provided by US private equity firm Silver Lake was almost entirely spent on KeepUp, the upheaval associated with COVID-19, loans to clubs, taking over Perth Glory (not to mention the Newcastle Jets, now owned by a group of individual club owners) and underwriting distributions to struggling clubs. They were equally adamant the $200 million, five-year broadcast deal with Network Ten and Paramount would not be abandoned until its expiration at the end of 2025-26, insisting the network was serving the leagues well despite criticism around its lack of promotion. Conroy said the APL had put off making positive announcements around flagged new Glory and Jets ownership, and the addition of a Canberra team to join the already-announced Auckland team in an expanded 14-team league next season, in favour of first trying to “deal with some of the more negative perceptions that have been out there”. Related Article EPL Ange versus the A-League? Tottenham in talks over glamour friendly The former federal minister referenced the NBL as an example of successfully finding its niche in a crowded Australian sporting landscape. “Part of what Nick talks about is what Larry [Kestelman] has been able to successfully do - create local superstars picked up in the NBA draft,” Conroy said. “And we’re starting to see that [with transfers overseas]. “I think we can learn from what Larry’s done at NBL - it was a basket case and he turned it around. Every football fan understands that we’re the global biggest sport, so they want to see it as the biggest sport in Australia. So we’ve just got to be patient.”

On two minds about this. Yes discipline is required, specially from senior players and what he did will hurt the team. But when Irankunda was red carded earlier the season because of the treatment that Jacob Farrel both Archie and Bruce Djite made a point that too many exciting and skilful players were being hacked without the referees intervening. Then on the weekend Rudan and Arslan reacted to the same issues. So at what point does the A-League become professional and begins letting decent players play? What will it take? Once is unfortunate, several hundred times, you lose the fans.

Well, Rudan and I agree that Adam Kersey is the worst ref in the league. How long is it before he retires? And he also echoed some of the comments made in this forum regarding the way the A-League treats their fans.

True. But still you have to be earning enough to be able to have the FBT come into play.

Re-watched the presser and you are right. He continually said "we". He also mentioned that what was on the training pitch was not shown on the playing pitch.

The debate is whether the coach publicly bagging players/team is useful/helpful or not. When a coach publicly bags a team, it may make some supporters feel better but the supporters are not on the pitch. On the other hand, the players may not respond the way you would hope that they will. My thoughts are that coaches should avoid publicly bagging the team or individual players. Why not a hard and fast rule? because there have been instances where the bagging has worked. BUT the coaches that did it, knew how to do it.

Who knew that 3 was a prime number. He is probably their best player.

No - definitely us. The way I read it that if you have ever registered with a local football club or just to check in on the socceroos, you are a member.

They would need to re-write the entire legislative package. Rudd did this during the GFC when taxpayers got either $800 or $1600 depending on the income. These tax packages designed by Morrison were meant to address bracket creep, except that he made sure that the bracket creep refund was bigger for those on higher incomes. The reworked package does not require complex legislation (as per stages 1 & 2) and more importantly Albo can still claim that the top earners are getting a redress due to bracket creep. BTW I am not sure that cost of living relief ought to be a goal - Argentina has been doing that for a century and the vicious circle that it got itself into does not show any sign of abating. Inflation exists for a reason and one of those is that you are living beyond your means. The problem with interest rate increases is that it does not necessarily combat the root cause of inflation.

And now, they had player data stolen as well as members info stolen not because a malicious user used some cunning way to break into their system but because they left clear text passwords on their web page.

doesn't the transfer windiw close tonight? Does this mean that no one is coming into the club?

I still think that they are and eliminating the club invites those thugs to join other clubs. The hard task is identifying them and ensuring that the law keeps them under their thumb. Alex Agelopoulus, aka Bucket Man, did not serve jail time but a community based order. I would have added a conviction (prevents him flying to many overseas locations), a ban from all sporting stadiums for five years, and to report on Friday & Saturday evenings to police at 19:00 hours at say Melton police station to enforce the ban. Same with all the other dickheads.

The fine was $550k with $100k being suspended and a 10 point penalty also being suspended, both for three seasons. BUT this only gets triggered if there is a pitch invasion or officials, including players or coaches, are assaulted inside the ground. Because this happened outside the grounds, I don't know that this would trigger the penalties. Having said that, I would not trigger the suspended sanctions. Instead, MVC must install cameras at AAMI so that all patrons entering the ground will be recorded and just make it easier for the police to identify them. It would also make it easier for the thugs to be handed down with a five year ban from all sporting stadiums.

Channel 9 news are reporting that MVC fans bashed Sydney FC fans including the marshalls walking the Sydney FC fans back to the CBD. The A-League are of course washing their hands of the matter.

Doesn't work. Chile tried that in the late 70s culminating with record bankruptcies, official unemployment rate of 26% and a an increasing foreign debt - all thanks to the disciples of Milton Friedman who two years before his death conceded that he was wrong. A U-tune was enacted but not enough which eventually led to the mass uprising against the constitution in 2019 (IIRC) which had embedded what you are asking for. Define hardship. Those at the bottom of the ladder have always experienced hardship - I have been seeing homeless people sleeping in the streets since the 70s. Nothing changes there. The opposite question is why was the Tesla the biggest selling vehicle last year? why is there a market for pick up trucks that are over $70k? why are massive utes such big sellers? Why are overseas flights booked out? This is not necessarily a cost of living crisis - this is more like a cost of luxuries crisis being experienced by people who feel entitled simply by existing.

Nah, keep it here. As for Arnold's comments when Spain won the World Cup, all but 2 of their squad played domestically and the back four were all team mates. This means that if you have a line of players continually playing alongside each other, the national coach does not have to do much coaching. National teams that have players all over the world, means that national coaches have to do a lot more work, not just Arnold. The descent of Brazil is that so many of their players now play in Europe compared to their hey day when most played domestically with a few playing in Europe. As for a longer season, sure I would like to see that but given the precarious nature of the A-League, its not going to happen any time soon. I will note that Australia, and that means you Arnold, has an inferiority complex by believing that any player who plays in Europe is bound to be better than the local product. Which is why he is keen to bring into the team people who have never set foot in Australia but are tied through some descendent rule - and when they find themselves without a club they snub offers from Oz.

Radioactive decay is also useful to produce a true random number generator. I worked with such devices in the 90s to produce unbreakable keys for IT equipment. These days they tend to use quantum optics.

I tend not to watch Sydney FC as I think that they are given too much of a free ride by the refs. Against my better judgement I watched last night's game. And the only thing I can say is that Adam Kersey has to be about the worst ref the league has ever had. He is so random that he makes radioactive decay look predictable.