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General A Leagues thread (Men and Women) 2025/26 season

Not sure if anyone on here saw from the Dub thread but speaking of teams disappearing, Canberra United (Michelle Heyman’s team) could be folding too. Their elimination final against Melbourne Victory could be their last ever game. Hope everyone in Canberra gets behind the girls even if it’s just for one last time. Really sad to see such an old club be in this mess.
 
LFC said:
I think you just explained our your Pro football without realising :)
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I would support pro/rel, but am open minded enough that it will not work properly in this country due to logistics and politics.

Example: after seven seasons we have in a 16-team league ,7 from NSW, 7 from Victoria and 2 from the rest, interest is out the door from the relegated sides and only 4 of 8 from the states and territories. That was only one of my many reasons.
 
Sutherlandbear said:
I would support pro/rel, but am open minded enough that it will not work properly in this country due to logistics and politics.

Example: after seven seasons we have in a 16-team league ,7 from NSW, 7 from Victoria and 2 from the rest, interest is out the door from the relegated sides and only 4 of 8 from the states and territories. That was only one of my many reasons.
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which season was that?

the 7th season i believe was in 1984 which had more than 16 teams

looking at previous seasons 1982 had 5 of the 16 teams outside vic/nsw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_National_Soccer_League,
same with 1983

1983 National Soccer League - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Of Australian teams today 7 out of 10 clubs are from nsw/vic anyway.

Former 442 poster voice of reason looked at the geographic spread of p&r and argued it does better for geographic representation than a closed system

adamhowardvor.wordpress.com

Embracing the Global Standard

There’s a lot of football discussion happening within the game around Australia at the moment, and it’s brilliant. Many issues from how to revitalise the Aleague to the high junior fees are on the …
adamhowardvor.wordpress.com adamhowardvor.wordpress.com
in the section "Representation- The first division will be only Melbourne and Sydney teams"

I'd be interested to look at geographic spread carefully, I personally don't put much weight on it but could see it as being politically important since all member feds get the same number of votes
 
NoMates said:
So is Western United back in the League next season??
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We haven't heard anything from APL about Western United returning to the comp, nor about what's happening with Canberra United heading into Dub season 2026-27 unfortunately so we may well end up having a 12-team A-League Men and 10-team A-League Women next year assuming that both teams fold.
 
grazorblade said:
which season was that?

the 7th season i believe was in 1984 which had more than 16 teams

looking at previous seasons 1982 had 5 of the 16 teams outside vic/nsw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_National_Soccer_League,
same with 1983

1983 National Soccer League - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Of Australian teams today 7 out of 10 clubs are from nsw/vic anyway.

Former 442 poster voice of reason looked at the geographic spread of p&r and argued it does better for geographic representation than a closed system

adamhowardvor.wordpress.com

Embracing the Global Standard

There’s a lot of football discussion happening within the game around Australia at the moment, and it’s brilliant. Many issues from how to revitalise the Aleague to the high junior fees are on the …
adamhowardvor.wordpress.com adamhowardvor.wordpress.com
in the section "Representation- The first division will be only Melbourne and Sydney teams"

I'd be interested to look at geographic spread carefully, I personally don't put much weight on it but could see it as being politically important since all member feds get the same number of votes
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I was hypothetically talking about the future.

How would the pyramid be structured ?
 
HonestSpursFan said:
Would you just rather have them not exist?
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grazorblade said:
Why is that? I would rather clubs survive even if they shouldnt have been born in the first place. There is a small community now attached to that club.
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Its really sad this is even a question. The AFL and nrl must be laughing their arse off they have completely killed the league. Ten years ago we were averaging under 13k. The lowest average was Wellington 6k now we're at the stage where we are advocating for a club that's lucky to get 3k
 
Sutherlandbear said:
I was looking more at level two, and who decide which state league is on that level.
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Well I guess it depends on whether you make me dictator or not

If I am dictator and don't have to care about politics, I make a victorian and NSW super league with a public criteria and open invitation for clubs from other states to join. Have promotion and relegation between the top vpn and nswnpl and the second division with one spot each. The initial clubs would be the f8 clubs plus the winner of this years vpl and nws npl to make an initial 10 teams. As clubs from other states join, give non nsw/vic teams protection from relegation for a few years until you hit 18 teams in a second division and you can have either a champions league or a conference league to buffer between the npl and nst where there is p&r. p&r between the a league and vpl from year 2 but some phased protections for a league clubs and a clear time table to phase those out so a league clubs can do the necessary prep to survive in different tiers.

If I was going for what was politically possible, I would just make public the criteria needed to enter both the A league and nst and see where the chips land. Making it transparent means that political winds can shift. Perhaps higher ups want criteria at a different level to what the grassroots want. If the criteria is public people can debate. If the public criteria has democratic legitimacy and we don't have an nst then at least clubs know what to aim for.
 
melbcityguy said:
Its really sad this is even a question. The AFL and nrl must be laughing their arse off they have completely killed the league. Ten years ago we were averaging under 13k. The lowest average was Wellington 6k now we're at the stage where we are advocating for a club that's lucky to get 3k
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Yeah I remember that, the big anti Nix Out saying they had low memberships, low TV rating and low crowds and was dragging the ALM down the toilet. Yet The FFA Let WU and the Bulls in which both have pathetic TV ratings and poor crowds and 1 that plays out of a paddock.
The good old metric days are long gone but really should they still count?
 
NoMates said:
Yeah I remember that, the big anti Nix Out saying they had low memberships, low TV rating and low crowds and was dragging the ALM down the toilet. Yet The FFA Let WU and the Bulls in which both have pathetic TV ratings and poor crowds and 1 that plays out of a paddock.
The good old metric days are long gone but really should they still count?
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All that matters is that the teams are getting results and continuing to bring in crowds, and it only becomes a problem for the APL if those crowds are non-existent or if club owners are running sides into the ground with their mismanagement.
 
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melbcityguy said:
Its really sad this is even a question. The AFL and nrl must be laughing their arse off they have completely killed the league. Ten years ago we were averaging under 13k. The lowest average was Wellington 6k now we're at the stage where we are advocating for a club that's lucky to get 3k
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I only cared about metrics when i thought big crowds meant better players in the long terms

I no longer think that and no longer care. Never cared what afl and nrl fans think

As a nrl convert i never thought about the nsl at all, apart from the same though id have about basketball, softball and egg and spoon races "did a team vaguely associated with queensland do better than other teams" when hearing about sports on the news
 
melbcityguy said:
Its really sad this is even a question. The AFL and nrl must be laughing their arse off they have completely killed the league. Ten years ago we were averaging under 13k. The lowest average was Wellington 6k now we're at the stage where we are advocating for a club that's lucky to get 3k
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If they actually tried getting people to go to games I could see Western United becoming a local community thing. Geelong only has one other major sports team (the Geelong Cats, who are admittedly insanely popular). While competing with the Cats is hard financially people watch multiple sports. Central Coast Mariners should be even easier to get crowds to. They don’t have any other pro sports teams on the Central Coast. Mariners should capitalise on that and give locals something to do on the weekend.

And yeah, fan engagement DOES work if done right. I know football is England’s main sport by far but hear me out. Arsenal Women have the best attendances in the WSL because they spent heaps of time and money on getting people to games after the Lionesses’ successes at major tournaments (they’ve won the last two Euros and were runners-up to Spain at the last World Cup). While Chelsea have clearly had more success on the pitch, Arsenal have annoyingly made themselves by far the most supported English women’s football club. It would be harder but I don’t see why a similar strategy couldn’t be applied here to get fans of other codes to also follow soccer in addition to other sports.
 
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