I've just finished watching the launch of the new national competition on FoxSports.

Anyone else catch it?

There was quite a large crowd at the launch, which is a positive sign.

Whilst a lot of what Frank Lowy, John O'Neill and Matt Carroll had to say was repetitive, I was interested to hear O'Neill describe the transformation of "old soccer" to "new football". Interesting.

The Auckland-bid representative said that they were considering a name change - a move I'd strongly welcome. Qld Lions are also going to re-brand.

Terry Venables is going to be involved with Newcastle United, and according to the Newcastle representative, whatever Terry says goes.

I hadn't realised Hyundai had such a significant involvement with football around the world. They were involved with the 2002 World Cup and will be again in 2006. They were involved with Euro 2004 and they also underwrite a K-League club. Their association with the ASA has included the World Cup qualifiers in 2001 against Uruguay and this year’s matches against the Solomon Islands as well as the games against Turkey. Now they're the naming rights sponsor of the A-League.

The A-League logo looks flash, and illustrates the brand the ASA is trying to market. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it looks good. The Melbourne representative pointed out that the top piece in the logo is big V that stands for Victory, and thanked the ASA for supporting their club!

If anyone saw the launch this morning, you would've seen the video they played at the end. It found it a bit nauseating.

Jeffles, I read on the A-League website that the Newcastle club will be known as, wait for it......

The JETS.

When are full club details announced e.g. Jerseys, Logos, Home Grounds et cetera

They said at the launch that each team would be making announcements over the coming weeks (or was it months, I can't remember).

The A-League websitelists the following stadiums...

Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide
North Harbour Stadium, Auckland
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Express Advocate Stadium, Gosford
Telstra Dome, Melbourne
Energy Australia Stadium, Newcastle
Members Equity Stadium, Perth
Aussie Stadium, Sydney

The Lions have said they'll have a new name, strip etc. finalised in February or March. Don't know about the other clubs.

Seems like a pretty good set of stadiums.

I caught the launch... which was pretty good considering I was busy getting ready to hand in my last piece of written Uni work for the year today!

I couldn't decide.... but I think "New Football" means non-ethnic. Thats all I could take away from it.

Were my ears deceiving me or did John O'Neill say at least twice that the A is A-League stood for excellent or some other word starting with E? I'm probably deaf... but I swore it was an E word. According to the website it stands for... Australia, A-class, aspirational, action, appealing, artful and authentic.

Now to the stadia...



Suncorp, Telstra Dome, Aussie. They are kidding right? Broncos can't turn a profit at Suncorp, Telstra Dome effectively killed the Melbourne Storm and the second most recognised brand in the NRL are being killed by Aussie. They talk about the 8 team competition being modest beginnings. Well why not be modest about it? I cannot possibly see how they can either justify or turn profits at these stadia for a start-up comp expecting an average crowd of 10,000.

James wasn't their a more suitable thread to put this in rather then create a new one

Great to see the launch being a success...its likely that D'Avray will not be coach of the Glory rather a technical director.

Should be an awesome comp, can't wait till Anzac Day 2005 to watch my first A-League match...only 5 months away.

Glory get floated on the stock exchange in February...I will deffinately own shares into the future.

All looks bright for soccer in this nation.

Lang Park - The Lions have said they'll block off entry to the top tier and I think have some sort of agreement with the stadium that will lower the cost of rent.

Docklands Stadium - Agreed. While Lang Park is around the same size at least it's rectangular and seats are generally closer than normal to the action.

SFS - Because of its design, I don't think the amount of empty seats will be too much of a problem in terms of atmosphere. I expect Sydney FC to have one of the biggest average attendances in the league and 15,000-20,000+ should get a good atmosphere even though it would still be half empty. My main worry is the quality of the pitch with the Roosters and Rabbitohs playing there (as well as at least 2 NRL finals) in the first two months of the A-League.

Egan, this deserves a topic of its own.
Some people have to work! So I didn't see it live, but recorded it. I received the media release from ASA at 12:30pm on the dot. And straight away did some work on SoccerHut. Take a look: www.soccerhut.net/home/a-league.php
And www.austadiums.com/sport/comp.php?sid=10

Good to see lots of people and great media attention at the launch, held at the Imax - Darling Harbour. It was live on Fox Sports & Sky News Australia. SEN covered it live here in Melbourne on the radio, did any other radio networks cover it? And all the news (except for 7) had pretty detailed stories on it, especially 10.

HMS, John O'Neill did say the A-League stood for excellent. I think what he meant was like marks on a exam for example, where A is the top mark and equals excellent.

I'm holding my breath still.

I honestly think that a Newcastle AND a Central Coast team may be too much. The CC will rely on Northern Sydney for a crowd and on a fortnightly basis, that may be difficult.

It will be hard for soccer to gain a foothold with winter finals in September and the barrage of Cricket in December and January. COuple the latter with massive school holidays. However I do thin soccer has a place in this country. Good luck to them.

Yeah, very good...

The other thread was sooooo "old soccer". But as Cam said, I felt it deserved a thread of its own.

HMS, the first time O'Neill said it felt embarassed for him, but then he said it again and realised he meant A grade.

Cam, the austadiums page looks great - the A-League logo leaps off the page! I guess you'll have to update the clubs' logos as they come in.

There was good coverage on the news tonight, despite the Melbourne Cup. It will be interesting to see the newspaper coverage.



Hopefully they'll figure out how to move the lower-tier seats in before the competition kicks off. I've got some WD-40 if that would help!

- http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11255177%255E2883,00.html

Interesting.

Good point... How can the ASA justify no team in Western Sydney but two teams in the Northern Sydney Basin?

As to the A is for excellent.... it just doesn't make sense.... there are plenty of a words around. I understand the a means a-class therefore excellent argument, but that is a bit of a stretch isn't it?

As to the stadia... still not convinced. If they want a humble start with 8 teams, why put the teams in three major, certainly not humble, stadia that they have no hope of coming close to filling?

I do agree, the Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney venues are hardly humble. Using those stadiums instead of Ballymore, Olympic Park (although they'll probably end up using it), and Concord Oval illustrates what I think O'Neill means by "new football". Suncorp Stadium, Aussie Stadium and Telstra Dome are high-profile venues for what is anticipated to be a high-profile league. They're trying to project an image to the public of credibility.

It will look bad though when the stands are less than quarter full!

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The report in The Australian today refers to the Sydney A-League team as the Sydney Blues. I had only heard them referred to as Sydney FC before now.

...

John O'Neill mentioned yesterday the addition of teams from other cities, say, Hobart, Canberra, Townsville, after five years. What interested me is that there appears to be no plans to add further teams from the existing cities. That must really get up the noses of fans in Sydney and Melbourne.

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It was also reported in the paper that down the track the ASA will look at taking the A-League from a domestic league in Australia to a Super 12-style regional league involving countries from Asia.

But doesn't the Asian Football Confederation already have a Champions League-style competition (I use the UEFA competition as an example because I don't know what the AFC competition is called).

Why can't the ASA just work towards having A-League clubs admitted to the AFC competition? Why try to reinvent the wheel? My guess would be that the ASA wants ownership of the competition.