The A-League is likely to become a 10-team competition next season, with the Gold Coast Galaxy and Townsville’s Northern Thunder set to join. The new clubs were officially approved by the FFA yesterday, though they are still required to meet certain financial criteria.
It’s good to see the FFA acting progressively to spread the A-League throughout Australia. It’s important for the competition itself to expand beyond the bare bones 8-team format of the first three seasons. New teams bring a new dynamic and a sense of excitement. And they prevent the A-League from becoming stale, something which can happen when teams playing the same narrow band of competitors over and over again.
Presumably, the expansion also promises a longer season, with six additional rounds to be played. Whether this means the A-League starts earlier or ends later, I’m sure fans will be pleased to have an extra month and a half of football to enjoy each year.
What do you think of the A-League expansion?
Source: Northern Expansion for A-League, The Age
5 comments ↓
I think it’s great, they are sticking to the formula and have done everything right so far. A longer season is great, we would have made finals for sure if there was an extra few games this season. Lets just pray that Lowy doesn’t deliver on his promise that a second Melbourne team will come, we don’t need one and it will be a disaster. I would however be willing to accept a second team in west Sydney as I think the FFA alienated a lot of Football fans in Sydney by dressing up Lowy’s old Sydney City NSL club in Sydney FC colours. They got it right in Melbourne so PLEASE don’t go screwing it up.
it will definately be good for the game in australia, and 6 more games a year, fantastic!
it’ll also put more presure on teams to perform more consistantly throughout the year and there wont be any of that 6 out of 8 teams capable of making finals right up to the last 3 or 4 rounds nonsense!
i think another melbourne team is inevatable(did i spell that right?) given the support down here already, and as long as its done properly, and by properly i mean a whole NEW team, then we should escape alot of the bullshit that was the NSL and still remains around today.
when we do get another melourne team, lets just all enjoy or football and what could be the biggest and best derby of the year for the whole competion!
Where is the market Brenton? If you create a brand new Melbourne team they would not survive. Who is gonna jump ship from Victory? I know I definitely wouldn’t and neither would anyone else. The danger will be that the new team will be supported by either Knights or Hellas fans depending on who gets the ticket and all of my friends who used to support those teams are happy to follow them in the VPL. A second team will divide the bipartisan support that we now have. I fear that a new team will create a Anglo vs Ethnic situation which only the meathead Vinnie-Jones wannabees will enjoy.
I think it’s inevitable that there will be another Victorian team, though I hope it ends up being a Geelong team – rather than another Melbourne team.
I agree with both of you that there’s danger in simply taking a current VPL team and making them a second Melbourne team. But if you don’t take an existing team, what’s the chance of gaining a fanbase, unless you delineate it along regional lines? Hence, I think the Geelong (or other region outside Melbourne) idea is probably the most likely and beneficial for the league.
I agree with the Geelong concept and I am all for a Victorian regional team joining. You are right that without an existing NSL team fanbase (which we must avoid) there just is not enough fans in Melbourne who don’t follow Victory. Geelong has enough of a population to support a team and they certainly don’t consider themselves Melbournians. Trust me I go to uni in Geelong.
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