Too many problems for Football in Australia: 1: Too many presidents of clubs lining their pockets. 2: Registration fees for kids are ridiculously high. 3: A lack of quality coaching. 4: The poor quality of refereeing. 5: No relegation and promotion into the A league. 6: At state league level u20's jumps straight into first grade, it should be u23's. 7: Too many sports to choose from makes it harder to compete on the world stage. 8: The over focus on Womens football at the expense of mens football. 9: VAR in the A league 10: The lack of support A league fans have from their clubs and the league. 11: Not respecting the ethnic clubs and their contribution to the game. 12: Supressing the passion of the fans. 13: Overbearing police officers at A league games. 14: Banning flares at A league games. 15: Not investing into Aboriginal communities with the round ball. 16: Not supporting young migrant children (let's be real poor kids are much more likely to be successful than rich kids). 17: Too many presidents sons and sponsor daddies paying for kids to play at youth league level. 18: Politics in Football. 19: Football Australia. 20: A lack of quality coaches, teaching the C licence courses. And the list goes on.
Australia is falling into the same problem of the USA where the academies are the only institutions that produce "competitive" players. There are talented kids never discovered by scouts because they play in local clubs in regional areas. And eventually these kids leave the soccer for another sport or they get older and loose their "golden age" to become a professional soccer player.
Robbie Slater at the 13th minute mark RE:the game in Australia is ‘top heavy’ with the very few people in power who have their own self interests and won’t let go of that power.PING:Heather Reid and John Tsatsimis.
Well said gentlemen, it’s about time we start doing something about the situation we’re all in. It’s important for the game, especially our kids future.
Until registration fees and fees in general are AT LEAST halved keeping kids in the game will continue to play a season or two before it is too expensive for parents. The initial participation numbers are always great but they aren’t sustained. That’s not even talking about the issues of talented younger players who don’t get look ins at rep. Squads, in academies and NPL clubs because they can’t afford fees, don’t know or aren’t close to the “right” people. The A-League and culture which it has built also fails up and coming players. Coaches and managers do not look at youth players, old has beens and never was’ get recycled and signed before an u/21 gets a look and decent run. In recent years there’s been an alarming amount of young players stuck in academies who have to chance it by going overseas and end up being good enough to play at clubs and leagues that are a much higher standard than the A-League, yet couldn’t get a game here. In the end fans don’t get a chance to see these players and build a connection to them here before they make it in Europe and then they “suddenly appear” in a squad for the NT.. and then they rot on the bench because Arnold doesn’t think people exist below the age of 30.
You make some good valid points. As someone who spent a lot of time at grassroots level of the game, I don’t think we’ll ever get to half the registration fees & I agree that a lot of clubs charge way more than they need to. As an executive member of a few clubs you need to factor in the things you need to cover as a club- many out of the control- such as Insurance, capitation fees, referees fees (all at Association level, local, state). We need to ask those entities the reasons they go up every year! Then there’s club born costs - equipment, parks fees, lighting expenses. I could go on further but I think you get the drift. Lastly I’ll say that clubs have been charging extra to offset their senior costs forever - not something I necessarily agree with but to survive most clubs need to. The solution - we need a national body that can do a full change of direction. Adopting the AFL’s model of top down funding as opposed to our current bottom up approach would be a good start. And this won’t be easy as you need big donors that already feed the top sports in the country. Can it be done - I’d like to think so but it will never happen with the people currently in charge of the sport.
@@ozzyace71 Yes. That correlates with the personal experiences I have had and those I know. The amount of money which goes to the various administrative associations and federations is the main issue, clubs and players don’t know where it goes, how it gets used or more importantly who it goes to, because it’s certainly not being reinvested into grassroots and local level. I played both Australian rules and football, been around both environments. How is it that the price of fees for 1 season in football is (or was when I still played) worth 3 season of Australian Rules fees? While a number of senior players and coaches (Aussie rules) are getting paid $20k+ per year at local level and the clubs have decent playing surfaces, equipment and facilities, while fairly prominent football clubs have rundown facilities, torn up pitches and barely running.. let alone the average clubs? None if it makes sense, outside of incompetence from those at board level and sheer greed at administrative level.
@@Loose89 nice to hear your experiences & perspective on this. Wow I didn’t realise AFL fees were a third of soccer’s? Maybe it’s similar in AFL (to a lesser degree) in that what holds soccer back is too many people in power that don’t have the game as a whole as a priority over their little patch (Club) I know for sure that’s rife in soccer. I’d like to hope that if more money was invested in grass roots football (soccer) that these issues would disappear but somehow I don’t think that would change a lot ! It’s very sad for me whose been involved in soccer at all levels (except National) for over 30 years
As a dad who takes his son to a see Sydney FC every week, when we watched Socceroo’s vs Lebanon it was very disappointing that the squad didn’t contain a single A league player. It was like watching an exhibition match with players we didn’t know. Really disappointing. As an Englishman who has watched a lot of lower league football in the uk, I can tell you there isn’t much difference between league 1 or the SPL than the a league.
Not having lights or toilets at an over 35s female game has absolutely no relevance to saving football or developing better footballers or better coaching. Kids in Brazil and Argentina street football they don’t need pitches
I’m glad you guys finally caught on after 1 and a half years since I inboxed all of you on Instagram. Adam, I remember your response was “you might as well ask the postman to help the situation”. So you finally realised that you actually have a platform🤦🏽🤦🏽.
30-40 dollars a training session is going the same way as the US The best football players generally come from working class backgrounds where money is tight and 3k plus a year is never affordable. It might be alright for your budget Boz 😳
What I can’t understand is that at the amateur participant level, football is the biggest sport in Australia, by a country mile, yet most of these amateur players don’t attend A-League games.
Need to look heavily into these elite coaching clinics and clubs tons of people falking up to 3k a year for their kids who are less than par on average so they can tell their fellow workers their kids are in an elite team…. It’s now an obsessive madness….. go back to your club and learn from your senior players 👍
Grass roots football will always grow because by the time us lads reach 12 or 13 we get tired of being stomped on by big Samoan and Tongan kids in rugby 😂
The fact you guys are talking about the Matilda’s demonstrates how poor the sport is in this country. I know one name in the Socceroos, but I know about 3-4 names in the Matilda’s. The mainstream media will keep this sport in the dark as much as the corrupt administrators
How can you afford to go to the aleague games when you’re a parent. Im not a parent however I have relative and friends who have kids and when you’re paying $1500 a year to play for a fed club then you’re paying $500 a term to play at a academy and you’re basically spending 5 days dedicated to football. When you do have the time or funds to watch aleague? All fed and academy only see $$$ when they see kids. It’s never about the kids it’s always about $$$. It’s funny I’ve seen better quality kids playing in non fed youth teams then actual fed youth sets up.
I’d assume that the 95% of parents who don’t watch a-league watch European football instead, especially the EPL or EFL cause the quality of A-League football is shite, and there’s no history or reason for anyone to watch A-League games, especially with so few teams and no relegation/promotion. Not enough teams and not enough infrastructure to accommodate teams.
Not enough stars to wach. I've seen the final in 2023 and i remember that the teams were kicking the ball from one side to the other side of the field.
You do not know what you are talking about. Go to a match and see that the quality is fine with excitement and very enjoyable games . I watch EPL and enjoy very much.
First off I will say this is coming from a non ethnic Australian keen football watcher. My opinion for what it's worth is if you want passion and crowds to return the clubs need to be aligned to ethnicity. The true passion in Australian football comes from European ethnicity. If you want crowds you need tribalism as they have in Europe and South America and the only way is to align with the local big ethnic clubs. The fools will say you can't because of violence. Well they deal with that in Europe so why can't our law enforcement deal with it. Anyway the violence is a minority no different to AFL or NRL.
the atmosphere and passion supporters had during the NSL days shit all over the current format. The powers that be destroyed all of that when they broke up the NSL
Facilities have to be paid for - and local councils only have a finite amount to spend on recreation - for all sports - not just soccer. So councils will not spend on one sport alone re a facility - it has to be multi-purpose to house a number. That is sound economic policy and then parents don't want to pay for anything. Soccer is a user pay sport. And its commercial worth is very limited. Setting up a political party - against the big two parties - is a total waste of who's money? and the game is so split with its ethnic power bases - such a political idea will never ever work.
There's never been more government money spent on the sport than now. The problem isn't the taxpayer funds spending, its the management of the resources.
Tim, don’t forget the government spend $46M on the World Cup bid. USA spent only 10M to miss out s well. The mismanagement of the game continues year after year
Whilst we have adult men getting paid to play in competition below the ALeague level and the cost of junior football is subsidising these guys getting paid it is a complete joke
Actually based on a some misconceptions. Firstly soccer is huge but has very loose definition of participation. 2 million participants is particularly fluffy. There ain't that number playing competitive club soccer. Secondly participation is declining, it's ridiculously costly AND the disgraceful behaviour of the association's keeping the fees during Covid alienated so many
We must remember a lot of parents came over from other countries where our football is by far the first and foremost sport. All I ever played in England was football. In Australia, yes we have lots of kids who play the game, but not to the extent kids from Italy, Greece, England etc. Here in Australia kids play different sports so their football upbringing is diluted. Hence, the quality is not there.
@jackthelab6755 said all anybody can say. Socceroos performances at the last two world cups have been s###house! Long balls, long balls, long balls. The only good style of play was under Gus Hiddink. BALL TO FEET, MAKE SPACE, PLAY TO SPACE, TAKE ON THE OPPOSITION. What Australia plays is 1970s rubbish.
I’m happy to slag Robbie Slater off sometimes but I appreciate him bringing up some valid points about the struggles at a grassroots level. The disorganisation in some of the FAs in this country is insanity. FQ is a massive example. It was almost enough to drive me away from football. I do feel for the volunteers that tremendously help the lower leagues operate.
As far as A-League games are concerned I do not attend. Why? Because of the culture set up by Melbourne Victory and Kevin Muscat in particular. I always remember the start of one season where Del Piero, Shinji Ohno and Emile Heskey featured in preseason friendlies against Melbourne Victory and not one of them started the season for their clubs having been butchered by Victory players in those friendlies. Look at the games now and the brutality stands out a mile because that season Victory won the competition on those standards.
