Outside90’s David Votoupal continues our examination of how the history of Australian sport, as well as football competitions abroad will influence the A-League’s quest for expansion.
Japan and USA: Replicating traditional football models or emulating other sports?
The J-League and MLS are competitions with certain similarities and differences. The similarities lie in the formation of new professional leagues in environments where they face-off against other sports. The J-League displaced the JSL in 1993 as Japan’s elite competition and in over two decades has become one of Asia’s premier leagues, and a nursery for talent (some of it exquisite), thus cementing the place of football in Japanese culture and society. The 100-year plan in Japan has seen football clubs planted throughout the country with a view to establish blanket coverage along traditional ‘European’ lines, which means three professional divisions and the semi-professional JFL. This presents a very different, seemingly more ‘organic’ type of expansion that means Japan has a national league system with similarities to England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.
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The MLS, on the other hand, was established in the wake of the USA hosting the 1994 World Cup, and came over a decade after the previous attempt at a professional league in North America, the NASL, floundered. Like its predecessor, the MLS attracted ageing imports and featured numerous gimmicks to attract fans, the latter at least has since thankfully disappeared. They experienced some teething problems in expansion and consolidation – for instance, the disappearance of the MLS from Florida by 2002, followed by a complicated arrangement in 2006 that saw the owners of San Jose Clash transfer to Houston, while leaving the legacy for a resurrected team that came in 2008. Expansion has been steady, seeing Real Salt Lake (2005), Toronto FC (2007), Seattle Sounders (2009), Philadelphia Union (2010), Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps (2011), Montreal Impact (2012), New York City and Orlando City (2015) all enter the league. Atlanta, Minneapolis and Miami are among the next scheduled candidates, whereas Rochester has been touted in the past.
The North American league system, encompassing the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico (and temporarily Bermuda) has certain parallels with Australia, where New Zealand has involvement in the A-League through Wellington Phoenix. There has been a recent restructuring of the lower-tiers of the professional game, which is of itself a legacy structure that emerged in the collapse of the original NASL. Indeed, a number of MLS and lower league clubs claim to be spiritual successors of the original NASL clubs (even using the same nicknames), particularly Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. To add to that, Portland and Seattle have developed an intense rivalry with both cities embracing their teams. The NASL moniker has been revived for the new second-tier competition, while the USL is now a third division. There is no promotion and relegation between the leagues, but the NASL and USL contain clubs whose owners ultimately aspire to MLS status. Both of these are likely to grow. Significantly, NBA star Carmelo Anthony is the owner of a club in Puerto Rico that now competes in the NASL.
The MLS has had to draw on the lessons of the NASL debacle which led to a long and barren period for the game in the USA. A failure to develop American talent of the requisite standard was one of those, despite which the USA still qualified for the 1990 World Cup, albeit without two of the country’s best players of their generation (Rick Davis and Hugo Perez) featuring in that tournament. This has been addressed in an MLS that continues to supply players to a USA national team that has performed well in the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. The MLS still has challenges to overcome, but is finding its place in a competitive sports market.
A-League – lessons heeded or not?
The A-League’s record with expansion since inception has been mixed. The replacement of the pitiful New Zealand Knights with Wellington Phoenix was a given, but many areas had been crying out for A-League coverage – not least the crucial Western Sydney market, with Sydney FC not quite establishing the kind of support in its city that the Victory did in in Melbourne – at a time when the NRL has consolidated itself after expansion and the AFL has been more aggressive in tapping new markets. Both Gold Coast and Townsville had long been touted, and received their clubs in 2009. Gold Coast United were quite successful on the field in their first two seasons, but their lack of support and well-known off-field shenanigans blighted the A-League, which led to their ultimately un-lamented demise. North Queensland Fury had a respectable debut season, but fell apart completely in their second time around.
The inclusion of Melbourne Heart in 2010 came after many questioned the wisdom and viability of a second Melbourne club, with the argument that Sydney needed more attention, although now as the renamed ‘City’ it is looking more likely that Melbourne is the area with two football clubs that are serious forces. The collapse of Gold Coast and the need to respond to AFL expansionism presented the FFA and A-League with an opportune moment. It is truly remarkable in retrospect, yet arguably inevitable, how it occurred in such a short time that Western Sydney Wanderers was born and immediately showed signs of capturing imagination. The result of this is that the A-League, having rectified one of its most serious flaws, now has genuine cross-town rivalries and clubs with cast iron supporter bases.
The reformation of the Fury as Northern Fury in the state league means that Townsville cannot be considered a closed case. However, Wollongong and Canberra are areas the FFA cannot ignore indefinitely. Both hosted clubs in the NSL, with Wollongong being quite successful. Both cities have a strong football tradition and have developed homegrown talent. Canberra is quite unique in that it is a town with an arguably equally strong tradition in all four of the country’s football codes, although the Canberra Raiders have not captured their pre-Super League war glories, while the AFL’s GWS play some games in the national capital, amid murmurs that relocation there cannot be discounted.
Talk of adding more teams in Sydney and Melbourne must be dismissed, as it is simply not prudent to add clubs that will potentially weaken the city’s established teams. For one, Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers have the two largest membership totals and the largest fanbases in the country. Indeed, the Wanderers’ faithful not only covers diverse regions considered to be part of ‘Western Sydney’, but quite possibly beyond it as well. If the addition of second Sydney and Melbourne clubs added a new dimension to the league, then the addition of clubs in large regional centres can add another.
Likewise, talk of a promotion/relegation system must also be questioned. There is a complicated legacy to overcome with regards to ex-NSL clubs, who must be realistic about the fact that they are unlikely to be admitted into the A-League. The steps that need to be taken for state league clubs to become fully professional would be considerable. It is likely that these clubs will serve a vital purpose for the competition as a feeder or breeding ground, and talk of a second division is yet another premature (to say the least) suggestion that can only jeopardise the stability and viability of the A-League, unless there is a concrete plan along the lines of Japan to establish a European-style national system.
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