The FFV, National Premier Leagues and You

This post was submitted to us by one of our readers, a passionate, non-South Melbourne affiliated supporter of the game. The contributor has been involved in football for most of his life, as a player, volunteer and committee member. While we may disagree on certain issues, I have never doubted his passion and sincerity on all matters related to soccer in this state. South of the Border would like to thank the writer for their contribution, and I hope that that the readers of this blog enjoy this piece.


Why we must see this restructure for what it is
Two years ago, the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) announced a National Competitions Review (NCR) with a view to bring all top-tier state-competitions more or less in line with each other. They later announced the National Premier League, unveiling a flash new logo with David Gallop in tow for a photo opportunity. The NPL has already kicked off in Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania, the ACT and in South Australia (see here for state-specific information).

I'm not going to go into the differences between each state and their pros and cons - the bottom line is that these National Premier Leagues are 'what the FFA envisage as the future 'B-League' - or platform for promotion and relegation into the A-league. The fact that it doesn't state that fact or purpose in any of the proposed or accepted frameworks for the NPL should have alarm bells ringing.

Football Federation Victoria, the FFA-recognised organiser and promoter of the round-ball game in the state of Victoria has unfortunately, lost its way. So much water has passed under the bridge since the heyday of George Wallace and Michael Weinstein that it had me wondering recently if this was the vision they had for football in Victoria.

Let's quickly look at the NPL Victoria Criteria. The two key operational documents pertaining to the NPLV are the Participation Criteria and the Participation Licence. The Participation Criteria stipulate the process for which a club/franchise/other body will be admitted into the NPLV, while the Participation Licence outlines the more operational rules that will be enforced once the league gets off the ground.

The FFV Board of Directors announced the NPLV criteria at the end of April giving clubs just over a month-long window in which to fully research the ramifications of the NPLV, organise an Extraordinary General Meeting of all members and to submit an expression of interest form. Kind of gun-to-the-head stuff when you take into account that this is historically, other than the VASFA/VSF split in the early 1960s, the biggest restructure this game potentially will go through. Irresponsible?Unorganised? Deceitful? You decide.

The next step in the application process is to consult the 'NPLV Subject Matter Expert Contact List'. The alarming point about this is the distinct lack of real-world, on the ground knowledge among those lucky souls to be dubbed 'Experts'. I dare say that this is the fruit of shutting clubs out of the moulding process that was the NCR, relegating them to a checkbox in their 'Stakeholder Engagement' process. More alarming is the fact that every single one of the people listed are currently employees of the FFV who are meant to be fulfilling their duties to the clubs that pay for a level of service. I am of course referring here to the exorbitant, extortionist-like FFV imposed affiliation fees on clubs to enable them to compete in a league.

At the basic level, the FFV provides insurance for players and officials, fixturing and referees. That is the basic level of service that clubs demand and even then at the highest level they are unable to get referees on time, fixtures confirmed, wrong results entered into 'Sporting Pulse'... the list goes on. Instead the clubs receive services that are actually in competition with services the clubs offer. Club-funded FFV programs such as the NTC, Victory Youth and Women's teams are only the surface issues. Does anyone ask themselves what their full time employees do day-to-day? Have a look at the contact list and see for yourself the top-heavy organisation the FFV has set themselves up to be. Yet you have publications like GoalWeekly having to adapt to a non-Victorian specific market that was actually servicing the clubs, competitions and interests of all 'stakeholders (I hate that word) in a more than satisfactory manner. A few home truths printed about the FFV will get your funding pulled. Fair enough. At least they were principled in their approach and weren't bought off like so many other media outlets.

Clubs this year, more than any other, have felt a distinct lack of service over any other year. Well, now you know why - we are financing them to introduce a structure that is going to kill our heritage, our future and everything associated with it. Clubs don't even get their results in the paper on a Monday morning anymore, yet some obscure table tennis league played at Coburg Pools across the road from Pentridge can get a full results listing.

A packed Quarry Hill - will we ever see such a sight again?

Let's call a spade a spade. The FFV is inept. They are running the game in the interests of the FFV (commercial interests) and not in the interests of the game as a participation sport and another key 'stakeholder' they have forgotten about as a spectator sport. Had a look at SportingPulse recently? Or at the FFV email signatures? Both have had major edits to include an advertisement, yes a shameless plug – Get your NPLV application done before the 31st of this month! Shameful.

It is not a coincidence that crowds have declined dramatically in the last 7-8 years. The FFV in all its cunning, got through the biggest constitutional reform ever seen in Victoria where all the bigger (read: majority vote holding) Victorian clubs were asleep at the wheel and signed over all of their voting rights to the 'faceless ones', the zone representatives and chairmen of five standing committees. It was from here that they did and continue to do what they please. Exorbitant fines, concentrating on peripheral issues, being in competition with clubs these are only the small issues that every fan who has turned away from the FFV has felt on their own skin. Whether they will return is another issue, but the fact is that the FFV have a track record for being out of touch.

This brings us to our next point. Upon successful entry the applicant will have to sign a licence agreement. They have set themselves up as the organisation that gives out licences, meaning that they can just as easily take them away. That is the legal premise of a licence over a lease or affiliation agreement. The licence period has been listed as three years without promotion and relegation. This flies in the face of healthy competition and breeds mediocrity. Don't forget to nominate your three 'preferred' playing names (club/identity) to the FFV for ratification in your NPLV submission.

This is seriously beyond a joke and I haven't even touched on other contentious issues such as the Player Points System (PPS), recruitment zoning and intellectual property rights demarcation between the competition and clubs.

Juniors

An Applicant cannot enter senior or junior teams (including small sided football teams) in FFV community competitions. It can and should be encouraged to train the best junior players through a SAP or Academy program to prevent NPLV clubs from decimating community clubs of their best players at this level and also give community clubs a road or pathway for those players. Applicants are encouraged to include details of any such SAP program in its application.

Take from this direct quote what you will, but the bottom line is for clubs to be part of the NPLV, they must field a minimum and maximum of one team per age group in the boys competition (under 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18) whilst also fielding under 13, 15 and 18s in the girls competition, while also fielding a men's under 20s and men's and women's seniors. For example if you have four under 9s teams they will no longer play under you. They are effectively out on the street with smaller clubs, which probably don't have the facilities to accommodate them in the first place. They now have to pick up the slack.

This NPLV is envisaged to be 'the' development league for aspiring youngsters wanting to get into the A-League and overseas. Nowhere does it mention driving crowds to games or getting in corporate sponsorship dollars to offset the very real possibility of a large deficit when you take into account the coaching situation. Clubs must appoint a Technical Director who reports quarterly to the State's Technical Director Sean Douglas. The shortage of licenced coaches in Victoria is very real.

Courtesy of the FFV Memes Facebook page.

Those lucky enough to have such accreditation already have on the face of it, less real-world experience than the Peter Tsolakis and Andrew Marths of the world. They have rightfully been ignored by the top-level Victorian clubs for decades for being 'paper' coaches whilst they will now find themselves in a position of favour in getting well paying jobs under this new system. Will the 9 or so A-Licence coaches currently in Victoria demand less than $50 an hour? Translating into a simple calculation of training 5 nights a week for two hours plus a game totalling a weekly spend of $600 a week? What about the team's mandatory assistant and goalkeeper coach? This drives up the already high costs of playing soccer in Australia. All for an unproven system not tried, tested or established anywhere in the world. For the first time in Australian soccer history, we have now become smarter than the rest of the world without the results to back up such assertions. This has time-bomb written all over it.

Club fees for juniors are capped at $1700 for each player. Working off these figures it remains to be seen how clubs can offer the level of service expected by the FFV with accredited senior coaches, assistants and their goalkeeping instructors. Forget about pricing in the sports trainers, physios and doctors a prospective NPLV club will have to employ as part of the FFV's over-the-top scheme. Don't expect the NPLV clubs to be 'elite' in all senses of the word. The climate in Victoria more than likely doesn't demand such high standards in the first instance. Secondly, should the NPLV get off the ground, corners will be chamfered at every stomach-churning hook turn. How will 'elite' clubs afford a good level of apparel for their players considering their budget? No adidas or Nike for them. We'll go with Jako or Best n' Less.

In line with FFV's enforced constitutional changes upon clubs, new NPLV entities will have to recognise “all its key stakeholders...as members under its Constitution including registered players, coaches, administrators and volunteers." No longer are club members the people that actually pay a membership subscription, now you have employees of the club (players and coaches) having a say in the club's direction. For me this is not in the spirit of the game. If players in general wish to be members of their clubs nothing prevents them from doing so - an annual subscription fee to the club which in the current VPL structure hovers at around $50 for voting rights.

There are so many rules and regulations that are simply not in the interests of clubs, their players and members, that they are too numerous to mention. From business plans, financial auditing (A successful Applicant must make available to FFV or FFA any financial information requested within 3 days of receiving notice of an inspection.) all the way through to commercial exclusivity and veto rights of the FFV.

Let's get to one of the main sticking points: Facilities.
The Open Men's side of the NPLV club must play out of a Class A facility. These facilities actually don't exist beyond a sprinkling of State League 2 sides. And we all already know that the overwhelming majority of VPL and State League 1 clubs have rejected the NPLV framework as unfeasible. So where will these Class A facilities come from? Will the FFV gloss over their own rules stipulating minimum facilities as they have in the past? Will government invest in prospective NPLV club facilities?

Green Gully, one of Victoria's leading clubs, is not in favour of the NPLV.

The FFV have already been told in no uncertain terms what councils think of the proposed NPLV. Oakleigh and Green Gully have already been informed by their local councils that should they apply, they will lose exclusivity of their facilities. So where are they going to get these 'two clubs per zone' to constitute a competitive NPLV? In the western zone, the zone with probably the most registered players and clubs they have already hit a major bump in the road. The two highest ranked clubs, Melbourne Knights and Green Gully aren't looking to enter. So who has a Class A facility in the western suburbs that is willing to roll the dice? St. Albans, Altona Magic or Point Cook in State League 5? But alas, the FFV has made it clear that they will redraw its zonal boundaries to accommodate whoever applies to the NPLV.

Nowhere has the FFV mentioned that they have secured a multi-million dollar sponsor to run this league. Nowhere have they mentioned how they will drive attendances to games. Are they content in having a glorified under 25s competition? Definitely. Thus far their attitude towards the 'bigger' for want of a better word, more experienced top level clubs, has been, 'we don't care who we get, as long as we get them.' So far the two clubs that have publicly stated that they will apply are Surf Coast FC and Ballarat Red Devils. All well and good, but to be brutally honest, neither has the financial backing or experience to run an 'Elite' club, competition or teams.

This is the core of the problem. Taking away all other issues and contentions, the FFV is hell bent on ramming this reform down the throats of those expected to implement it. Clubs must take on all of the risk while the FFV take all the plaudits should it get off the ground. If it doesn't it will be the fault of the clubs.

The Community Leagues
Let's have a look at the alternative, the derogatorily dubbed 'community leagues'. Where is the criteria for these leagues you ask? Well... FFV haven't figured that out. What has been confirmed to clubs off the record is that the FFV will only run one semi-professional league in 2014. That will be the NPLV. State League 1 as we know it will be an all-amateur affair with clubs unable to register players as professionals.

When a club representative asked this question last week, the FFV replied that they will do all it takes to protect the NPLV. What that means in real terms remains to be seen but I'll give you my cynical opinion. The FFV will do exactly what they stated. Clubs will have no professional players that they will be able to demand compensation for. State League 1 will be dissected into North, South, East and Western zones to further dilute the quality of that competition. They might also remove the club's right to charge entry at the gate for senior games and parking.

I'm not against any club having their time in the sun, but the way that used to be done always ensured that clubs with community support worked their way through the levels, learned what it takes to run a club at each level and progressed organically. These days we have these queue jumpers that see this NPLV as a ticket to the top. To be honest, they can have their ticket.

What is for sure though is that the VPL and State League 1 clubs that will be brushed aside to the scrapheap of great FFV ideas (remember FootballAce?) will not take this lying down. Over seven centuries of combined history in the VPL alone does not count for nothing, no matter how often they bang their head against the wall and put us down to believe that we should be ashamed of the players that Victoria collectively produced under the 'old' system (it worked) compared to now. Apparently we're holding the game back or something?

What is important is that if you're heading along to your club's EGM to vote on joining the NPLV - vote a resounding NO. You never know what opportunity awaits around the corner.

And at the end of my rant I realise that I haven't adequately covered each document that I said I would. Unfortunately such is the passion against these reforms I find it difficult to calm my emotions; such is the game of football for those that truly love it and have its best interests at heart.

The FFV have lost touch with the football world, they have poisoned the well from which we all draw from and charge us accordingly for an inferior product. We will stand up for what is just even if it is unpopular. The South Melbournes, the Melbourne Knights', The Sunshine George Cross' and the Heidelberg Uniteds of this world still have some fight left in them.

Say NO to the NPLV.

FFA announces Claytons Second Division

It's the second division you have when you're not having second division.

Example of a squad list, under possible NCR guidelines.
I saw this last year at an FFV information evening. Click to enlarge,

There was a bit of excitement caused on the forums - and nowhere else really - about the FFA launching the findings of their National Competitions Review. As far as I'm concerned, there was no need for that excitement, but people in offices have got to lower their productivity somehow.

FFA Cup coming? It's been coming for years now, not that I see it as a priority. Promotion and relegation? In a few years, maybe, but we'll make it as hard as possible for A-League teams to drop and for state league teams to go up.

Again, no surprise and from me, no complaints. I don't care what the 'purists' have to say, but just because it may be 'traditional' in other countries, it doesn't mean it would work here.

The other thing to get some people in a flutter was stuff that was released last year, namely, the player points cap system to be used for the revamped state leagues. It got some people hot under the collar. 'What will happen to 42 year olds! What about club loyalty! What about our juniors!'

Some Sydney Olympic fans should seriously learn how to read through a document before predicting the end of the world. Maybe they should also take a leaf out of  Matthew 24:36

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only

The time to get more excited and panicky for South fans is when the FFV eventually gets around to releasing the criteria for its adaptation of the NCR. At the South AGM back on the Australia Day long weekend, we were told the FFV would release their criteria within a couple of weeks. We're still waiting.

Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

I hate our press releases at the best of times - this one's even more desperate than usual, so you've been warned.

South Melbourne FC supports the recommendations of the FFA National Competitions Review

Having said that, there is word going around - including from people not at South - that the eventual format of this new competition will not quite resemble the rumoured strictly patsy under 23 development pathway, nor even be as extreme as the recommendations seem to suggest.

The fact that the Melbourne Knights, who had been strongly rumoured to be completely uninterested in this concept, but are now allegedly at the forefront of this new setup says a lot to me. Still, a fans/members forum provided by the club would be worthwhile.

If there's chance that this could be a genuien attempt to help 'progressive' clubs (whatever that means) and punish the alleged money laundering, no junior playing, senior wage splurging clubs for their years of apathy, then I've always been in favour of that kind of arrangement.

Of course, it would have been nicer if we were to have had the V-League proposal get up back in 2006/07, with a certain grace time given for ambitious clubs to get their house in order and prepare. But that opportunity was squashed by the likely suspects.

No attempt at reform or improvement is perfect, but the thing to do is to at least try and make it as wholistic as possible. I'm not sure if this is even halfway to something sensible, but the current arrangement is going nowhere and nowhere fast.

Concerns about getting the board to focus on the disaster that is our onfield form this season are honourable, understandable, but also misguided. Yes, our season has been poor, but that should not preclude the club from attempting to look towards the next 3-5 years.

Either you karate do "yes", or karate do "no". You karate do "guess so", [makes squish gesture] just like grape. 

If there is one thing that afflicts Australian soccer, it is short term 'planning', and I use that word loosely. Genuine plans spanning a five year period are almost non-existent. Hell, even a season length plan is a struggle at many clubs.

That is not to say that there are no outside factors which prevent clubs from undertaking a long term strategic plan, but too many clubs are slaves to an operational cycle which lasts a mere two weeks, from one home game to the next.

At some point, certain (all?) South fans need to toughen up and take a stand one way or the other. No more hedging bets by bagging out the VPL and FFV as a death sentence for the club while whining about any and all attempts (other than farcical breakaway leagues) to make a decent effort at trying to adapt to the changing football landscape.

More Braindead B-League Banter

The B-League idea is the proverbial thing that will not die. Good to see also that the FFA's competition review is also still going. Wasn't it supposed to be released like six months ago? Or was that another review? And what was our input into this review? My goodness what a slow off-season we're in. This is from Adelaide's 'Advertiser'. 

Asia's demands would transform the competition

LYALL Gorman says a B-League is high on the agenda as the A-League prepares to manage soccer's biggest laws upheaval in two decades.

The A-League chief is keen to expand the game professionally with promotion and relegation.

Dino D'Ottavi, president of three-time national league champions Adelaide City, welcomed the incentive, "but the figures would have to stack up as we're establishing our home base at Oakden Central," he said.

Gorman is also preparing for FIFA to re-write the Laws of the Game. On the agenda is two extra match officials, goal-line technology and radio communication for match officials.

The changes are set to be endorsed by the International Football Association Board at a special meeting after the UEFA European Championships in July.

IFAB is the only body that can change the Laws of the Game. Its voting structure is made up of four FIFA representatives as well as the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish governing bodies.

Changes are likely to start in the 2013-14 season.

But before this occurs Gorman is devising an A-League strategy in the hope of conforming with demands put together by the Asian Football Confederation's Professional Leagues Project committee.

The committee is forcing the introduction of second-tier competitions across Asia's better men's leagues. The 14-point plan includes promotion and relegation, a Cup competition and the league to run as a separate entity rather than being controlled by Football Federation Australia.

Gorman said the FFA Cup - involving all of Australia's FIFA-sanctioned men's teams - was planning to kick off next year but was not set in stone, nor was there a deadline in place for the B-League.

"We've undertaken the national competitions review," Gorman said.

"It will be complete within six months and there's a time factor and infrastructure needed to make sure we can move to that." He said the game's second-tier competition was tipped to be aligned to a unified states' competitions calendar but the finer details were still in their infancy.

When the AFC issued the ad-hoc document in 2008 it also alluded to taking Champions League spots away if nations didn't meet the new second-tier demands by 2012.

"I don't believe the process would cost us a Champions League spot," Gorman said.

"We are determined to get the competition stronger all the way through, A-League, youth league, where we're helping to take that to another level."

Let's see what's in the news today (flips page)

Canada stalls on trade pact. Ok, here's the 'real' news. Brought to you by me, a 'real' person.

Item! Some grumblebum has convinced Jesse Fink to write of how said grumblebum's painstaking anorak research has been ignored by the FFA. Cue people with no interest whatsoever in the actual details of the research itself using it to score smug political points.

Item! Patrick Kisnorbo's Leeds United has knocked off Manchester United in the FA Cup 3rd Round. Cue the disappearance of smfcboard's Manchester United demographic until someone remembered that one of our own plays for Leeds. Based on this one good performance, he's now being talked up for a certain ticket to South Africa.

Item! Will SBS show the VPL? Unchecked forum guff is suggesting that SBS is considering showing games from the NSWPL and VPL for some reason I can't quite figure out. Cue look out A-League scum mounia FFA this that and other and B-League guff in the wake of this story.

Item! Summer sucks.

No matter what I do, bitterness seeps through

Warning: The following post may be interpreted by some as bitter and elitist.


So I went to the Australia - Japan match last night. Not under duress mind you. But it was a strange experience. But let's start from the top.

I had a fair few choices as to who to go with... but first in and best dressed was an Internet associate of mine from Perth via Adelaide... or is that Adelaide via Perth... nevermind. I'd delayed in purchasing a ticket for some reason, maybe to see if others wanted to join us, but they didn't. So Great Southern Stand about five rows back in what would normally be the Punt Road End forward pocket about 30 to 40 metres out. Tickets at $42 a pop.

But first things first. I arrange to meet with Chris at Federation Square, where he'll be with some of the Austadiums crew. They're friendly enough, even if the first call is 'no club colours' (lacking any Socceroo gear, I was wearing me South scarf and beanie) and one member asked to try to on my glasses (you wouldn't ask a paraplegic if you could try out his wheelchair... then again I don't know you, so you might - but I think you get my point regardless).

More than the flakes of ash landing on me from their cigarettes, what I found most interesting about this encounter was the lack of football talk that wasn't A-League related. It's winter, it's the A-League off season, so what else entered the discussion? Local soccer? Not one bit. The group, with members from five states, discussed mostly WAFL, SANFL, VAFA etc... and the myriad inter city politics of the Green and Gold Army.

I did get grilled though by one chap about why a club would choose to take up the role of outsiders by focusing just on one ethnic community. How to answer a question like that asked with the earnestness of the converted? I said they were treated like outsiders from the start so why wouldn't they choose to head down that path? And if this is a genuinely pluralist society, why should there be barriers on the existence of a diverse range of clubs, including those who choose to cater for a very small segment of the population? Historically these clubs have a shelf life of about 40-60 years - why not let it be on their own head if they fail due to the restrictive nature of their clientele? Mind you, he didn't seem to recognise the fact that ethnic clubs were obliged to change their names in the mid 1990s... and at various time before that too, but that's another story.

Some of us headed down towards the new Swan Street Stadium under construction. There's happy snaps of the sporting precinct, and jokes made at the expense of the legends of Australian tennis, who have bronze busts which often don't look very much like those who they're supposed to resemble - except for John Newcombe, but you could just make a bronze bit of his moustache and everybody would know who it is anyway. The stadium itself is an interesting work in progress. There's glimpses of what it might end up looking like that aren't an 'artist's impression', but I guess no matter how cliched it sounds, we'll only really know what it'll look like when it's done. A stadium unlike anything built in Australia thus far I'm guessing, not necessarily a bad thing.

We then end up at the Corner Hotel, where the Green and Gold Army have decided to decamp for pre-match drinks and stuff. It's not a hostile environment, but there's something alienating about the experience - there's boasting about trip made to countless overseas Socceroos matches and as based on mere extra sensory perception as this is - and I don't like that at all - the stench of newness. There is nothing old about these fans, it's all new and it all seems to have come out of nowhere. But that's impossible, they must have come from somewhere - but where? There's hints in the day's discussions and perhaps on the countless Internet forum debates about this but the university student in me is starting to kick in, and I want something empirical, not emotional and based on personal experience and observations.

There's an SBS camera crew floating around with Mike Tomalaris interviewing people - I ponder for a moment whether I should get up and try and get on tv with my South stuff, but I'm no media whore, and besides, would they have even included me? Opportunity lost perhaps but we'll never know, because I'm dragged back to discussion on South and the A-League and B-Leagues. What's in store in the future for South? I don't know, because soccer keeps changing in this country, but hopefully with the stadium redevelopment we can be in a great position to take on any challenge, a reasonable enough answer. A brief rundown of the history the V, B, Eastern Seaboard leagues and their viability, and what scuttled them for my Canberran inquisitor.

And then the question that everyone's been waiting for - why don't you support the A-League? I run through my list of justifications, about atmosphere, and culture and whatever else my feeble mind can dredge up - but the best answer is of course that it's not my club. I have a club. It's South Melbourne. It's been my club since I was about eight years old. It's not entirely because I'm Greek - because by rights I should have been a Heidelberg fan like my old man - but it's the club, it's my club. I did give the new thing a go - but it wasn't mine, it was someone else's, for those who didn't have something. I had something, I have something, why the need to take on something else? South Melbourne is sufficient to my needs, more than sufficient in fact. My initial curiosity notwithstanding, the fact that I already had a club was merely reinforced with my season long experiment. Did I get through to my opposite number, a former Northern Spirit fan for whom the politics of ethnicity and football are worked into seemingly neat little packages, and thus supporting Sydney FC is a logical conclusion? I don't know, but I think there's some sort of breakthrough, a small opening in the time-space continuum that separates us.

Chris and I then head out for something eat. We walk up Swan Street and decide on the Mexicali Rose. I like the vibe of the place, but the food is a little pricey for what they're putting forth, especially portion wise. My pollo con avocado is quite nice, except someone's over grilled the chicken so that it's tough as hell. Overall not a terrible experience, and we can't just eat pub and cafe food all the time, can we now?

We make the trek towards the ground, and we arrive well before kickoff. After just getting though the gate I get this text message from a mate 'Lol at all th cocks w footy gear on'. Our seats are good. Real good considering how late I bought them. And we get four or five Greeks in the row behind us, who happen to have a sense of humour as well as some sense of history - a discussion they have about the lack of Greek Australian players lets me rip out a reference to Eric Hristodoulou which garners some recognition, an occurrence far removed from everything else that day.

The game itself is by no means spectacular. Australia's first half is simply dreadful, and we're getting killed down our left hand side. Not that Japan is playing scintillating stuff, but they deserve their lead regardless. The 2nd half is a vast improvement from the Socceroos, but the old Verbeekisms are still in plentiful supply... little width, slow movement of the ball, hit and hope skied balls to Kennedy. The Green and Gold Army barely raise a whimper throughout most of the game - sure you could hear them, but it was hardly stirring stuff. The Japanese support was evident, but also not particularly amazing. The flares amuse some but not me. There's some members of the Fanatics to my right, but for once they are not the most offensive people in the stadium. That award goes the knobs on our left who grow weary of the game quite early on and start persisting with attempts at getting a Mexican Wave going. Timmy Cahill does what he does best and gets Australia out of another hole, though to be fair Australia's 2nd half was better than Japan's 2nd. The 70,000 string crowd seems mostly content, but I worry about taking that style and form to the World Cup. I train and taxi it home, try to keep my eyes open to watch the Spain vs Iraq match but I give in. Maybe that's what they want us to do.

It does my head in / What happened to the bigger picture?

It's all rather typical and generic. Everyone hates the same things and people. Sometimes different people and things. And sometimes they can even be convinced to change a previously held opinion, all because someone all of a sudden agreed with them, or did enough agreeable things over a period of time to sway that opinion to the other side. Or they get caught up in the emotion and half-eloquence created by someone who washes and learned how to spell.

What I am talking about? Well, in the lesser sense, football fandom and the ongoing Bitter/New Dawner trench warfare, but in a larger sense perhaps, Planet Earth. But there's humour to be found in it, humour and irony and sadness. Les Murray and SBS are despised for being pro A-League and forgetful of the old migrant and other NSL clubs, those that gave them their livelihoods for so many years. They are also accused of being anti A-League and everything that the new regime has tried to make happen. Mike Cockerill has gone from hated to loved, and loved to hated. Michael Lynch from love to hated and hated to loved, and to writing essays defending his coverage and lack of coverage to angry letter writers.

There are those who love the game above all, because without the game there is nothing. And there are those who reluctantly and not love their club above the game, for without clubs, there would only be nations, exhibition matches and park football. There are those from both sides who hate indiscriminately, and from who don't care what the evidence is. And there are those who put forth faux intellectual spins, Hephaestus inspired word and truth smithery. And then there are those caught in the middle. Those who embraced the A-League as their first true footballing love but who can see the Bitter side... and those Bitters who still attend their first love club but have an appreciation of the need to change. And we are forever painted in blacks and whites, ethnics and anglos, Bitters and New Dawners, reactionaries and other reactionaries.

Oh, and everyone being Against Modern Football, even though it's an inconsistent and never the same to two different people mix of terrace romanticism and excuse to bash the fuck out of whoever they feel like, because that's what real soccer support is all about, maaaaaaaaaan.

The broader fantasy land that is Australia, or at least huge swathes of it, says there is only one type of Australia. It is meat pies, it is kangaroos, it is Holden cars. It is Bradman, it is Digger, Aussie, Digger, Aussie, Dinkum and a flag with four foreign nations represented on it and the mistaken belief that we own the Southern Cross, or some neo-Nazi group does, or worse, Melbourne Victory fans. It is asking Asian people how long they've lived in Australia even though they were born here. It's not nearly illiterate factory wogs learning to speak different languages while working. Or babies brought up by neighbours of different ethnicities while you worked. It's not 25,000 at Olympic Park when the VFL was actively trying to kill off VFA clubs.

The NSL was, in its own typically bumbling fashion, so Australian that it was not Australian. It had the broadest range of people, and experiences, and food, and style, and all that tree hugging multicultural crap that we were told was an essential part of being Australia, that after many backward years of racism, the multicultural shift that had made Australia great. No. It was too Australian. Too pluralist, too ramshackle, too independent, too anarchic, too representative of everything the beloved mainstream didn't stand for, neat cul-de-sacs and sunny beaches to send back to the old country which was wasn't (but really was).

I'm sick of the crap and the hypocrisy, but I'm more sick of how it all misses the greater issues that this stuff taps into. That so many in this country have been duped into thinking multiculturalism means everyone acting the same, just eating different food. Reminds me of a line in a song, 'The New World Order is like the EPL; same old shit, just more expensive'. And if you stand a up like a nail, then you will be knocked down. And the Commonwealth Ban has sent me several important messages about my account through email, which is great except for one thing. I don't bank with the Commonwealth. And maybe doing Working Class Writing was a lot of fun, but it also made me even more negative. And maybe I saw or maybe I just thought I saw an old teacher of mine today, who believed in me and encouraged me, but I couldn't be sure it was him so I didn't say anything, and then came to the conclusion that if it was him, he didn't recognise me because of my hat and the fact that I was wearing a band t-shirt.

Which doesn't make any sense of course. And it's really tiring. And that looking at pictures of deepest space, or remembering lessons from Epicurus and Seneca derived from pop-philosopher/entrepreneur Alain De Botton... and thinking about a silly photocopied sheet of paper passed on to me by Mike Baylis who I haven't spoken to in 7 years and will likely never speak to again even though tracking him down is not an impossible task, from Lyle Stebbing, the aforementioned teacher, whose class I wasn't even in anymore because I'd done it the previous year, about existentialism... it changed my life, probably for the better, but it's taken a while for that fruit to ripen on that tree.

Few things to pad out a Tuesday entry

• Item! Why is someone like Michael Cockerill of the Sydney Morning Herald calling us to ask and publish our opinions about B-Leagues and such - remember he's in Sydney - and Michael Lynch and The Age - remember, they're in Melbourne, like us - seem to have missed the boat entirely on this one? Maybe there's no real story and Cockerill was bored... I'd hope for Lynchy's sake, and that of his reputation that was the case.
  

• Item! I was made aware last Saturday of a bizarre local practice of certain ethnic minorities building entire kitchens and dining areas in their garages, so they wouldn't scuff up the inside of their house. Not that I disbelieved it, but I did find it odd. And then we took a wrong turn somewhere in Dandenong, ending up in a cul-de-sac, and as we maneuvered our way out of it, we spied an open garage... with a full on kitchen set up inside... crazy!

• Item! The online football game Hattrick! has its first ever South Melbourne Hellas Federation. The brainchild of the Hellas fan known as 'Gate 13' for some unknown reason, it's managed to get enough members within a week (five!) in order for it not to be shutdown by Hattrick's authorities! Excelsior!

Stay focused, please

In Sagan's name, I wish I could ignore this, but it appears we're obliged to offer some intellectual rigour to it. I suppose Carl wouldn't have wanted it any other way


NSL giants back second tier

FOOTBALL Federation Australia's decision to investigate a national second-tier competition has sparked intense interest among the game's traditional custodians after years of being frozen out by the game's governing body.

The FFA revealed last week that it was forming an eight-man taskforce to consider the practical and logistical implications of a proposed "second division", which would derive the majority - if not all - of its teams from the existing state leagues around the country.

Those teams most likely to be in the running are those who previously participated in the old National Soccer League, many of whom have returned to their state league roots with varying degrees of success.

Since the demolition of the NSL and subsequent creation of the A-League in 2003-04, relations between the powerbrokers of "old soccer" and "new football" have been frosty to say the least, with many feeling the FFA had unfairly distanced themselves from the game's somewhat rocky past.

Until now, little effort has been made to end the stand-off but the FFA has recently shown signs of wanting to reconnect with the storied clubs of yesteryear instead of continuing with its policy of isolating the A-League.

A national cup competition might have been postponed but will almost certainly take place in the next year, while alterations to the transfer system - including removing the $3000 transfer cap for players moving from a state league to the A-League - are being considered.

As arguably the nation's most successful club, boasting four national and eight state league titles, South Melbourne initially felt aggrieved at being overlooked for the A-League but said they would love the opportunity to return to the national stage.

"We're definitely interested in playing at a higher level and the ambition of South Melbourne will always be to compete on that kind of stage," said South Melbourne director George Triantos. "It would be a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our great club once again. We've been part of football in Australia for 50 years."

While many clubs remain bitter about the nature of the NSL's demise, South Melbourne have gradually moved on and have tried to position themselves not only as a Victorian power but as a club willing to work within the constraints of "new football".

"We've always wanted to stay relevant, and we understand that means embracing a new direction. After all, we host Socceroos training here when they're in town, the Melbourne Victory's women's team and youth teams, so we think we're a part of it," Triantos said. "Look at how we compare to other Victorian clubs in terms of the number of full-time staff we have, the training and stadium facilities, the way we present ourselves in a corporate sense, in the media, with our marketing and so on. Many other clubs don't have that.

"Are we too big for the state league? I wouldn't like to say. But you'll find that the bigger clubs are looking for either reform or something else altogether."

Should such a competition prove to be financially viable, the biggest stumbling block to bringing clubs in remains the delicate prospect of promotion and relegation and whether there was a possibility of winning a place in the A-League.

"Most clubs would look at having promotion and relegation as very important," Triantos said. "Would we enter that competition if we couldn't get in the A-League? I don't know. .. You'll find most clubs aspire to play in the top level."


First up, can I just say that George Triantos is obviously enjoying himself in this little article.

Are we too big for the state league? I wouldn't like to say.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. The things we can and can't say, and the things we choose not to say, fascinating stuff. How convenient also that we could list all those things that we've contributed to pitching in for the New Dawn revolution... despite the displeasure of some people out there.

But the most important thing to remember in this situation is that this is all highly speculative, and the really big thing to do, that is being done, and should be done until it is finished, is secure the future of this club with the Lakeside redevelopment project, so that whatever happens, this club is in the best possible position to meet those challenges, and take those opportunities. B, V, E and Z Leagues are all fine and dandy, but there's no point in getting distracted by them at the expense of the main game.