Herald Sun football journalist Matt Windley says the A-League needs to be “more creative” with fixturing, particuarly during the holiday period where crowds are at a season-high.
Speaking to the Daily Football Show, Windley entertained a few strategies in which the A-League could implement to improve fixturing, particularly when up against the Big Bash which has been highly successful.
“The A-League, apart from the Christmas Eve and New Years Eve games, offers nothing except it’s Friday night, Saturday and Sunday offerings,” he said.
“There’s some real creative things you could do to jazz up the competition at this time. Most teams are attracting their biggest non-derby games of the season and it’s because everyone is on holidays.”
“Every A-League club should be playing at least 2-3 more games than what they are in the period between before Christmas and Australia Day weekend. It’s a great time to build momentum for the rest of the season.”
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Discussing his article for the Herald Sun in which he penned these ideas, Windley said simple strategies like a whole round of matches in a marathon day (similar to Boxing Day football overseas), a game each night over the festive period and even simultaneous matches similar to the FFA Cup could be little flickers of momentum the league needs at this time of year.
“Why can’t we do it here? We’ve got the time-zone to play from Wellington to Perth. Back to back to back and we could do it on the 27th of December which is still a public holiday,” he said.
“You’ve just got to try new things instead of going back to the well with the same old teams, the same old fixtures. It gets tired with a 10-team competition. It’s the same old, same old.”
Further to fixturing, Windley said locations were super important.
“The Geelong idea is great but it’s a week too late because of a lot of people have gone back [to Melbourne] at that time. Why are Sydney playing at ANZ Stadium in Western Sydney Wanderers heartland? Why not play that game in Wollongong where people go down the coast? Go where the people are.”
‘It’s no surprise Central Coast have their biggest crowd of the year on New Years Eve because everyone is up on the coast.”
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