What a difference a day makes

This was meant to be a blog about how the FFA have abandoned A-League player development in the last 12 months and how some clubs still work towards doing something genuine but in the last 24 hours we’ve seen some seismic movement in the items we talked about yesterday.

Let’s start with the big story.  The fate of the Wellington Phoenix and what appears to be a misguided attempt to manufacture a third club in Sydney.

The day started with support from the Phoenix coming from Social media and finished with half the A-League in open rebellion against David Gallop and the rest of the FFA.  The landslide started with Scott Barlow steaming in from the Cove end (yes I stole that from Twitter):

"A new team in Sydney, in the heart of arguably our most important region, would effectively cut our market in half.

"It would be a devastating blow for our club and certainly not what we signed up or agreed to invest in 11 years ago.

“We don’t agree with the way Wellington have been treated, they deserve more respect,” Barlow said.

Followed quickly by Sydney FC supporter group The Cove:

"Placing a team in that area in an ill-conceived attempt to replicate the WSW-SFC (Western Sydney Wanderers-Sydney FC) rivalry is doomed from the start.

"There is no pent-up demand, as there was in West Sydney, and nine derbies instead of three will simply take the special and make it commonplace."

Next off the block was Greg Griffin from Adelaide United:

"We are the major stakeholders, the clubs that is, and if you're going to take one of our group out it's extraordinary to do it absent our input," he said.

"I'm a great fan of Wellington and every chairman of every club shares my view that Wellington should stay," Griffin said.

"It's a decision that's been made without any reference to the clubs, which I find extremely disappointing but not surprising.

"I also feel very sorry for Sydney where [chairman] Scott Barlow is faced with the potential for a new Sydney team and you have a cannibalisation of his hard-worked market and that's scary for every club."

These were followed by similar statements from the Central Coast Mariners and Perth Glory expressing serious concerns about how this situation has been handled.

Maybe it is time the FFA fixed their own issues before looking to make major changes to the league.  With TV Audiences in freefall and a drop in crowd numbers over the last 2 years their talk of metrics to judge the Phoenix situation is laughable.

In fact the Phoenix have seen a 27% growth in the last 2 seasons as the overall league average has dropped 1%:

Av Attendances	Phoenix	# Change	% Growth		A-League	# Change	% Growth
12/13	6879				12659
13/14	8168	1289	16%		13477	818	6%
14/15	8713	545	6%		12528	-949	-7%

The next blow came in the evening when Melbourne Victory hosted Hume City in a much hyped FFA Cup semi-final match.  After earlier in the week pretty much locking in a Melbourne based final the crowd of 6.5k (a fraction of Victory’s membership) has surely added to the pressure on the leaders of the FFA.  Interestingly 4,100 spectators for the Perth Glory semi-final matched well against 5,200 members as opposed to the 6,575 who attended the Victory semi from 26,000 members

I imagine the metrics and the costs for this game were not exactly met with these numbers despite what appear to be quite exorbitant ticket pricing, but it gets better.   

The ticket prices are out for the final:

Category A - $80 Adult, $60 Concession, $40 Child, $195 Family

Category B - $60 Adult, $45 Concession, $30 Child, $150 Family

Category C (including Active Supporter Areas) - $40 Adult, $30 Concession, $20 Child, $99 Family

Really? How bad do you have to be at marketing to try and charge like that for a secondary cup competition the fans have clearly not engaged with?

So with feet lodged well and truly in mouth the FFA sent out some of the Fox Sports mouth pieces on Social Media to spread the party word.  By the end of the night Nick Meredith was blocking Twitter accounts left, right and centre as the party line was systematically pulled to pieces by fans and journalists on both side of the Tasman.

Where to from here though?  Do we just let the FFA truck on or is it time for something genuine to happen.  Ray Gatt has lead the charge for an independent inquiry into the FFA’s management and it’s hard to disagree with him but surely this should go further.

FIFA recommend that a nation’s top league is run independently of the national body so the interests of the league and the clubs is paramount.  With the current dictatorial leadership from a group that have clearly lost touch with the clubs and lost the confidence of the owners surely it’s time that the A-League takes control of its own destiny and a proper independent group takes over the running of this league.