Yesterday saw the announcement that NPL Victoria side Sunshine George Cross has formed a partnership with League One side Swindon Town, in what is an encouraging move for the growth of Australian football.
The partnership aims to improve the standard of coaching and to form pathways between the clubs through player trials with Swindon and developing the senior team. It is something that seems straight out of Football Manager, but it is a very smart move and one that needs to be occurring more in Australia.
Currently only two A-League clubs have ties with more senior outfits overseas. Melbourne City is rather obviously linked with the rest of the City Financial Group of clubs – Manchester City being the centerpiece – and this has already shown benefits, with the team travelling over to Manchester in the 2015 offseason to utilize their training facilities and coaching, while players like David Villa have been able to put the shirt on for the club as a result of their ties to New York City FC. The other A-League club connected with a more senior side is the Central Coast Mariners, who in February 2015 announced a partnership with Everton. This move saw the Toffees able to send their younger players on loan to the Mariners to gain first team development, while the Mariners are able to utilize the coaching experience and facilities that Everton have.
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These links are ones that are vital for the improvement of Australian football as a whole, not only on but also off the field. Obviously any ties with a more senior club that has a wealth of experience in their coaching ranks will no doubt help the players that get to experience that, and this will in turn improve the quality of the play on the pitch, something which is required if Australian football is to progress. But there is also the chance that these links could help to drawn in some new fans who may not necessarily be following Australian football themselves. A person who only follows the English Premier League may be enticed to watch their A-League equivalent as a result of the relationship shared between the two clubs.
There is also the opportunity for players of larger profiles to play in the A-League, naturally helping to increase the marketability of the competition as a whole and also the specific club’s reputation. As mentioned earlier, Villa is a key example of this. During his guest stint at Melbourne City in 2014 – which was organized through the City Financial Group link between Melbourne and New York City – Villa helped to draw large crowds for the club and bring significant media attention to the league. Despite this, his guest stint was largely seen as a failure due to the lack of games played – only four games out of his 10 stipulated – yet the fact is he helped massively to draw crowds for Melbourne and the league as a whole.
However, a lot of these arguments also have an inverse as to why they could hurt the development of Australian football. Players being sent from other countries to play in our league in order to develop their own skills means that we are essentially doing another country’s job for them, spending our own resources in order to help the fortunes of another league. Though this line of thought fails to realize the impact that moves like these would have not only on the competitiveness of the squad, but also on the continued development of the A-League
Another argument that has more legs is that the league could essentially turn into either a ‘farm’ league – where players who fail to make the first team at the parent club are sent out to pasture here while they look for another higher level team to play for – or a loan league, where most of the teams are made up of loanees from parent clubs. However, while both of these moves are something that would not be ideal for the long term, they would be ideal for the short term growth. Even for a team like the Mariners, getting players like Ryan Ledson or Jonjoe Kenny on loan from Everton would provide a small boost to the club, as even though they are not hugely marketable names, they still have a small level of buzz about them within certain footballing circles.
All of this is not to say that every club in Australia should go out and secure a link with another side immediately. Discretion needs to be used in order to secure the best possible partnerships, as ones that only work in favor of the parents club would hurt Australian football more than help it grow. However, as the profile of Australia as a footballing nation continues to grow, there needs to be a question as to how the next step is going to be undertaken, and linking with overseas clubs can help massively improve the playing quality on our own fields but also expand the network of Australian football throughout the world.
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