Will it be good knight New Zealand?

Australians and Kiwis have always had an interesting relationship, that perhaps goes back to ribbings given each way fighting alongside each other in the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).

When we dumped the National Soccer League (or NSL) and decided to form a new league, for reasons certainly the late Johnny Warren couldn't comprehend, we allocated one of the 8 new licences to New Zealand. Some relevant points:

• since the formation of the A-League and granting the licence to New Zealand, Australia departed the Oceania Football Confederation to join the Asian Football Confederation - due, mainly, to the more vigorous and likely assured qualification path to World Cups from South Africa in 2010 onwards - and also the financial windfall of sponsorship potential in Asia;
• historically in the OFC the World Cup / world youth championship qualification would come down to a showdown between Australia and NZ teams, being the two strongest - and often this would be the toughest game by far either team faced, but still a long shot in quality from what awaited the winner (eg Uruguay x 2);
• in the 2006 World Cup qualifying, NZ failed to finish second in the Oceania qualifiers, leaving the Socceroos to face and beat the Solomon Islands for the right to play the 5th-placed South American team (Uruguay);
• New Zealand bombed in their first A-League season, winning only one match (I recall);
• Australian leagues have been accomodating to NZ: the National Rugby League includes an NZ team (the Auckland Warriors), the National Basketball League includes the New Zealand Breakers (interestingly, they added the Singapore Slingers this year which would not work in the AFC but nonetheless shows what is possible);
• the old NSL had the equally inept Auckland Kingz or Football Kingz;
• the Super 14 Rugby series comprises Australia, New Zealand and South Africa teams so is a little different to compare with the A-League;
• NZ players are considered foreign players for the Knights because they are playing in the Australian league;
• attendances at NZ Knights games have been pitiful by comparison with the rest of the league, sometimes less than 2,000 and averaging about 4,000 (and that might be generous);
• the Knights have a "sister club" / academy relationship with English Premier League club Charlton FC - who sacked manager Alan Curbishley earlier this season and presently sit bottom of the EPL, eg trounced 3-0 at home by Liverpool over the weekend;
• the Knights have been criticised for failing to sign young NZ talent and their team is a multicultural mix of Africans, Chinese and old English players;
• last Thursday the A-League revoked NZ' licence for "multiple" breaches of their licence agreement. The A-League offered to NZ Soccer (the national football federation there) the opportunity to take over for the rest of the season, which it seems to have reluctantly undertaken
• this season the Knights have won 2 games (from memory) and languish again at the bottom, their most recent result a 4-0 away loss to runaway league leader Melbourne Victory (though, it seems, player revolt over contract uncertainty after Thursday's activity, led to some players not boarding the flight and hence a depleted squad
• the Players Association has taken up the cause for New Zealand's players, who apparently had contractual rights through to June 2007 which are now seemingly forfeit with the A-League stepping in. Interestingly (for a convert to football from AFL), Cameron Schwab has been at the forefront in player negotiations, a former Australian Football League (AFL) players' representative - and we have the new Football Federation Australia (FFA) led by CEO and former AFL operations manager Ben Buckley (replacing John O'Neill) running the FFA now, so perhaps Schwab will call in some favours for the Kiwis?

I only assume NZ Soccer felt duty-bound to support a club bearing their country's name, if only to save face and see if a positive can be salvaged from the situation. I have posted here before my criticism of the Knights and called for their axing.

Sadly, it seems, Wollongong and North Queensland - the potential 2 licencess should New Zealand fall over - both complain they are unready for the 2007-2008 season. To thrust them in for the 07-08 season would surely require a dumping of money into the chosen franchise.

There are problems to the West as well. Perth Glory FC - once the league flagship and champion, on and off the pitch - is under the FFA's administration and languishes out of finals contention in 7th place, only above the aforesaid Knights. Perth's inglorious fall has been dramatic, considering that clubs like my beloved Adelaide United Mark 1, and after Perth and Adelaide's mutual success in the last season of NSL, then later the Victory and Sydney FC after them for A-League Mark 1 last season - were modelled on the Perth model of abandoning multi-cultural ties and going for a new, patriotic one-team, one-city model. Queensland Roar were the only arguable offenders for choosing orange as their team colour, not a colour associated with Queensland and argued to be representative of strong Dutch ties in the club ownership.

Why do we have the financial difficulties that are crushing New Zealand and Perth? It costs a lot to be in the A-League and, even as it is, players are opting for wages far lower than what they could earn in, say, Europe or even elsewhere in Asia. The A-League want an excellent product and that it has been, supported by massive momentum from the Socceroos' 2006 Germany World Cup performance (I think the 50,000 at Telstra Dome for Melbourne v Sydney owes much to the Socceroos). Excellency comes at a price, and it seems the NZ operators (now in limbo) were about $5m in the red and still not coming up with the product.

Lawyers lurk like the horsemen of the Apocalypse over New Zealand and hopefully the pain is not to be felt across the A-League.

Socceroos Assistant Coach and Adelaide United manager John Kosmina has called for a youth league, as our younger players are forced to look to Europe or else the poorer-quality (with all due respect) State-leagues before getting a crack at the A-League.

Ben Buckley, the FFA and the A-League supremos have a lot on their plate. Some Christmas this is going to be.

So, I wanted to record the foregoing to offer some solutions. Disclaimer: this from a fellow who still thinks there's too many Melbourne teams in the AFL!

1. Kiss the NZ Knights goodbye. Fans already see the writing on the wall and don't show up to games. If they survive until next season, it will surely be their last - so why would anyone go and watch? The gate takings will be down and it will save money in airfares by having players going the lesser distance (apparently only in Russia is there a longer road trip for two teams in the same domestic league, Vladivostok v. Moscow or something);
2. (Subject to the Mother of All Hail Maries, see below), Open up Wollongong as the replacement. Scott Chipperfield will be the key, being a national hero for his World Cup heroics and, as so many pundits describe him, "a former bus driver from Wollongong". He is apparently already central to the plans for the franchise. Wollongong ought to be able to glean some fans from Sydney FC, whose attendances have been down a tad. The A-League will need to throw money at the 'Gong though to get them up and running. I choose the 'Gong over North Queensland as they have national league heritage (the Wolves won a title in the dying years of the NSL), whereas NQ does not. Frankly, I think the Wolves is a decent name for the side, though they'll probably come up with something ice-inspired like "Wollongong Wonder"
3. Keep open plans to open the league to 10 teams in 2008-2009. This keeps the gate open for NQ with, perhaps potential for a 9-team A-League with the requisite and unattractive bye. Overseas Leagues are familiar with disjointed fixtures due to competing Champions League fixtures. If you keep the 10-team plans on the shelf, you can then encourage consortia to get together for, perhaps, a second Melbourne franchise (unthinkable after the Victory's low placing and poor crowds in 05-06), or a Canberra franchise. No doubt supporters of surviving NSL clubs like South Melbourne and Adelaide City will be running the mobile phones hot considering a ramping-up of plans to get back in the top-flight after the New Zealand collapse.
4. Try and come up with a youth league / development strategy as soon as possible. The problem with a youth league is flying the young players around, eg to feature in youth fixtures before an A-League game. We are not a small populous country like the UK - Australia is a large, sparsely populated country! This adds to airfares and administration costs (ie extra coaching staff, opening and staffing match venues earlier). To keep younger players in Australia, surely the clubs need to have bigger lists and ability to have them on the payroll even though they are running around in the State Leagues. They could become protected species also, with guarantees of game-time and compensation to State-League clubs for running them around at the expense of their own players. Failing that, perhaps clubs will need to do what the Brisbane Lions have done - run their own "reserves" team in the local QFL.
5. While I am being comprehensive, I might as well mention promotion - relegation. Our long distances make it hard to run a league that way and its hard to foresee such a system, the way the A-League has been set up. Clubs have been guaranteed 5 years exclusivity in their markets (so long as they don't Do a Knights and breach their licence) and also the opportunity to brand themselves as "the State team". I find it hard to see how a South Melbourne / Adelaide City / Queensland Lions / Marconi can capture a supporter market after all that hype. It also invites back, potentially, the ethnic ties the A-League sought - successfully, it has to be decided - to detach from. This leads me to think that you have to leave the State-Leagues as the pinnacle for state clubs, and let them get the cream of the youth talent playing there if they are not able to get A-League games.

What is the Mother of All Hail Maries? (I am talking in American Football terms, the throw to the end zone hoping someone will catch it, no disrespect to Roman Catholic brothers and sisters).

Hand over the NZ licence to the OFC. We saw in recent times a rugby code trial a "Pacific Islanders" representative team. I know this will fly in the face of my view that we leave behind Oceania ties, but why not have a "Oceania Islanders" side? Perhaps call them the "Pacific Power", "Pacific Breakers" or "Ocean Swell"? This would let these young men play in a league
(indeed, the A-League) far greater in standard than their own leagues in the Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia etc and potentially launch big careers.

The side would be based in New Zealand still, playing out of Auckland - but play the occasional home game in Honiara, Port Vila, Port Moresby and/or Suva (security permitting!). Whilst
it would be no fun for the Islanders to be living in Auckland so they can train with their team-mates, in my view it would be a microcosm of the Australians-in-Europe situation we see now. Australia retains a national interest in supporting the Pacific Island nations and this would foster that interest. No doubt Kiwis would form the strong backbone of the team, but could Oceania knock back the opportunity to develop its best players against tough opposition? Having an Oceania side would rule out the need to rush Wollongong or North Queensland in, and they could then participate in the anticipated way in 2008-2009. In fact, there'd be common sense in North Queensland playing the "Islanders" in Port Vila etc - not far to go to play!

There is precedent for a confederation setting up a representative side at short notice: Adelaide United Mark I. When Adelaide City went belly-up, Soccer Australia (as it then was) approached the South Australian Soccer Federation (as it then was) to form a representative side to fill the void for the forthcoming season (only months away, from memory). Adelaide United was born, and it scooped up a number of Adelaide City players plus called back some SA-based players plying their trade interstate. Oceania, in my view, could answer the call similarly for the start of the 07-08 season, picking up uncontracted NZ Knights players if necessary.

So that's my - well, in Australia we say "two cents worth" - but surely its more than that? Or perhaps this Blah Blah is only worth that much after all - who's listening?