Bad journalism. Nothing new in Oz soccer.james_ wrote: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.
Maybe he doesn't want to upset the Sydney FC and Victory owners just as the league's starting to get off the ground.james_ wrote: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.
Agreed, poor direction. I'm not even sure if it can be done. The Football Kingz are allowed into the NSL/A-League as they would officially still 'represent' Australia, but I seriously doubt if Asian clubs would like to do the same! Unlike NZ, they've already got decent leagues to play in and have no need to compromise themselves by representing a foreign country. I doubt FIFA would allow such a large league (geographically) to happen as well.james_ wrote: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.
As you said, the answer is to get into the AFC-run Asian Champions League, not form an ASA-run Asian league!