Staff & Player Retention

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mcjules
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Re: Staff & Player Retention

Postby mcjules Thu Apr 16, 2020 11:50 pm

It's tough because the level of 'professionalism' is also what has been causing clubs to struggle so much (including ours, at times), and in future if we sink into recession there's going to be a lot less money to go around. If we keep running the A-League as is and clubs like Mariners go to the wall, what happens? Do we just keep shoehorning Western Uniteds and Macarthur FC's in to replace them? Where does the money for that come from?
Reverse engineering the system to get a shiny-looking product might have been what was needed at the start of the A-League but I think these are different times. The good thing is that now (as opposed to the end of the NSL) we have several clubs that have pretty big & consistent levels of support, and the things that are working well can keep on working well. I don't see that opening up (e.g.) expansion and promotion/relegation in a more organic way is about bringing down the standard of the league, but about making space for more growth. Raise the water level so all boats can float, or however that saying goes..
I don't really disagree with any of that.

Just giving a different point of view to the unfortunately pretty common one in aus soccer social media that denigrates some aspects of the A-League.

1. The franchise system has guaranteed us an Adelaide United to support for the past 15 years. By that I mean, there has to be a team in Adelaide (if you want the licence) and the teams name and logo and other IP are licensed to the owners. If we didn't have this system, AU may well have ceased to exist in 2009/10.
2. We need a league of sufficient quality to produce good players for our national teams. I get the romance of the grassroots idea but the gap back to that is far too high at the moment. There may need to be some concessions in the future to keep the league viable and they're probably overdue to be quite honest but minimum standards are required. I am hopeful with some things like a national second division we can work towards bringing the standards up and allow that organic expansion in time.

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