tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52568678517261048992024-03-06T03:00:01.529+11:00Matt's Football BlogArticles about football, specifically Australian football. I hope that most of what you read on my site will be fairly unique. You won't find comments on all the big football issues that you hear about in the mainstream media, my aim is to address issues that are often not looked at in such depth by other sources.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-40075396919439864102010-04-06T00:02:00.001+10:002010-04-06T00:15:54.215+10:002018/2022 World Cup Bid - MCG<p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7niQmc_w4I/AAAAAAAAAU4/EKoYLl27MWs/s1600-h/logo2%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="logo2" border="0" alt="logo2" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7niRxMJsAI/AAAAAAAAAU8/PGSbx45tcSE/logo2_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="194" height="221" /></a>Australia’s bid to host either the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup is gathering momentum, the bid is capturing enormous media attention with one of the key issues being stadia that will be included in the FFA’s ‘bid book’, to be completed next month.</p> <p>I wanted to have a look at one stadium, sure to be included in the book, the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The MCG is an icon of Australian sport and, while probably no longer the favourite, is a chance of hosting the World Cup final. Many stadia will be upgraded, rebuilt for the tournament (should Australia win the hosting rights), but little has been said about what may be done to the MCG. Half the ground is fairly new, being rebuilt for the 2006 Commonwealth games, however the Great Southern Stand is now close to 20 years old, and could use replacing. Extending the new stand right around the ground would turn the MCG into a modern world class venue. Some would criticize the current look of the ground, with an old stand on one side and a new stand on the other making the ground look a bit ‘patchy’, quite different from some of the World’s best modern stadiums, which were built together, rather than in several stages. This would of course bring enormous benefits for AFL and Cricket fans, whom most frequently visit the stadium, as well as fans who attend World Cup games at the venue.</p> <p>A large discussion point, surrounding the MCG and the World Cup bid, is it’s suitability to football. I would also like to see this addressed. Installing retractable seating would immensely improve the viewing experience for fans at the World Cup, and would create a football legacy of sorts, with the possibility of using the retractable seating for Socceroos games and other football matches in the future. Some have suggested a temporary conversion of the MCG to a rectangle for the tournament, I would favour this option which also has long term benefits.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nrhgiNHuI/AAAAAAAAAVs/EhYYxDi6nso/s1600-h/mcg1%5B12%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="mcg1" border="0" alt="mcg1" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7ns1KXy7GI/AAAAAAAAAVw/qo8kScsTu8E/mcg1_thumb%5B8%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="384" height="325" /></a> (Current MCG)</p> <p>So, my plan:</p> <p><strong>- Upgrade Stands: </strong>Extend the modern stands on the North of the ground right around the stadium, at the same time, make the ground slightly smaller, bringing in the Southern boundary line. The ground would now be more oval and less circular:</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nkKPlkA3I/AAAAAAAAAV0/IswiaUgH-b4/s1600-h/mcg2%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="mcg2" border="0" alt="mcg2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nmHkhTIkI/AAAAAAAAAV8/84wAQJ-8Wgg/mcg2_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="384" height="325" /></a> <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nmOoorZ8I/AAAAAAAAAWE/a9zJ_3Orlk0/s1600-h/mcg3%5B6%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="mcg3" border="0" alt="mcg3" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nmVPsgqwI/AAAAAAAAAWI/f_IQbgBFk3A/mcg3_thumb%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="384" height="325" /></a> </p> <p><strong>- Retractable Seating: </strong>This plan borrows from the proposed “Stadium WA”, which was to be a new stadium for Perth, but has not yet become reality. The stadium was to have a modern kind of retractable seating, where stands would pivot around fixed hinges – see this link for more info: <a title="http://www.dsr.wa.gov.au/assets/files/Major%20Stadium/The%20Stadium%20and%20the%20City%20Vol%201%20The%20Stadium.pdf" href="http://www.dsr.wa.gov.au/assets/files/Major%20Stadium/The%20Stadium%20and%20the%20City%20Vol%201%20The%20Stadium.pdf">http://www.dsr.wa.gov.au/assets/files/Major%20Stadium/The%20Stadium%20and%20the%20City%20Vol%201%20The%20Stadium.pdf</a></p> <p>My diagram is fairly rough, but you get the idea. The lower tier of the MCG would need to be completely rebuilt, with the lower tier divided into 12 sections (8 which would be used for the rectangular seating). This system could see the MCG transformed into a world class rectangular stadium using only retractable seating:</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nmcSvtvNI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/nyxfSlMy5QA/s1600-h/mcg4%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="mcg4" border="0" alt="mcg4" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht0pMACN_lnaDF-rpmqEKxVmtVqiLaKTtuBNRun7pKSqoOZqgHNXl2bxSn3NoTYv_3mvBiPcXnPJtl3bUXRrm2RsREe55vTenCK1NFfx9kxW7zWlQ-sbifDUOuENJI5ko0AlKZGfFz-VZU/?imgmax=800" width="384" height="325" /></a> (AFL Mode)</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nm8mwA3dI/AAAAAAAAAXA/u6h0SuEwjeA/s1600-h/mcg5%5B4%5D.png"><strong><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nm8mwA3dI/AAAAAAAAAXI/Q4BuB3jfCW0/s1600-h/mcg5%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="mcg5" border="0" alt="mcg5" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xp_FDO-L-lIjR2xzJd14_q7ejIL2wCOwPjQtG5ZNPdzLr2TmpWxCQQqwg5xxygJAtodQGEqRrL_KMB-5Pp1zJmxeXcGJaXrEL5M0yFEUXsUuxhllerZz5a11nJl6I3DPuxi-pE6oTj_5/?imgmax=800" width="384" height="325" /></a></strong></a><strong> </strong>(Stands Pivot to rectangular mode)</p> <p align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg09VoVGH3zWroCq7840mWLLzAs4moHqLdpzVHpqTvSStYYXNflL37R1yse2lgkCUuqXCPeuNVrUYHq0WrpyHGB8k3XeOodfySGQHVCf4a_8i9bfrUQ9Bxn3hpp5jLYpRqtNDMS5HKJ5DOG/s1600-h/mcg6%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="mcg6" border="0" alt="mcg6" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7ntjV_ilyI/AAAAAAAAAW4/fDzQbZCiJIc/mcg6_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="384" height="325" /></a> (Football Mode)</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nwjawg_gI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/VceA9o1qgfM/s1600-h/mcg1_2%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="mcg1_2" border="0" alt="mcg1_2" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S7nwmKdk4DI/AAAAAAAAAXU/2q0UajYV4mg/mcg1_2_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="384" height="243" /></a>   <br />(The result may look something like this)</p> <p align="left">The large capacity of the MCG (100,000) ensures it will be part of Australia’s bid. I believe work should be carried out regardless, as a stadium of this quality would help ensure a successful tournament and would provide a great legacy for Melbourne.</p> <p align="left">Matt</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-42795345711822078582010-02-04T23:55:00.001+11:002010-02-04T23:58:54.003+11:00Australia’s 2010 World Cup Kit<p>Here are the rumoured home and away shirts that the Socceroos will wear in South Africa. Judge for yourself, but I’m happy they’ve tried to mix it up a bit. It does look a lot like a Cricket or Rugby shirt though:</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S2rDvm34lvI/AAAAAAAAAUs/LbrSjHsFU6o/s1600-h/aus20105%5B6%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="aus20105" border="0" alt="aus20105" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/S2rDxUDBP5I/AAAAAAAAAUw/PfmaTHRpG7k/aus20105_thumb%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="402" height="278" /></a></p> <p>Higher Res: <a title="http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/5711/aus20105.png" href="http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/5711/aus20105.png">http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/5711/aus20105.png</a></p> <p>The kit is expected to be worn from 2010 until 2012. It will probably be worn first in the farewell match that will be played at the MCG in May.</p> <p>Matt. </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-5918906612870621552009-12-07T16:08:00.001+11:002009-12-07T16:08:42.550+11:00The Reason Australia Needs the World Cup #1431<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SxyJpWXfiII/AAAAAAAAATs/1r52pbszss8/s1600-h/AFL-1612AFL211212Ball-1251120764%5B7%5D.jpg"><img style="display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px" title="AFL-1612AFL211212Ball-1251120764" alt="AFL-1612AFL211212Ball-1251120764" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SxyJqGlT5uI/AAAAAAAAATw/rpYj2PxRMKQ/AFL-1612AFL211212Ball-1251120764_thumb%5B5%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="200" height="200" /></a> Ah AFL – not a sport I really dislike. For any readers who are not from Australia, AFL is a football code which “uniquely embodies the Australian spirit”. It’s a sport that was created <strong>by</strong> Australians and <strong>for</strong> Australians – hence it must be the greatest sport in the World – If I were to argue against that I must logically be un-Australian, right?</p> <p>There’s no question that AFL is currently the most popular sport in Australia. For those who run the AFL this is something that must continue to be the case. If it wasn’t the biggest sport in Australia, then it wouldn’t be the biggest sport anywhere and then it would be confined to the history books, and Australia would cease to have a game that we could be proud of. It might even be the end of Australia as we know it – how else can we be proud of ourselves as a people if we don’t have a sport to call our own?</p> <p></sarcasm></p> <p>The CEO of the Australian Football League, Andrew Demetriou, has come out today claiming that if Australia’s bid to host either the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cups is successful, the AFL may have to take a season off, potentially causing several AFL clubs to fold. His reasoning is that some of the stadia used by the AFL are also earmarked to be used for football games as part of any Australian World Cup, and may be ‘out of action’ for a couple of months.</p> <p>Let’s ignore the fact that the AFL neither owns or payed for these facilities - while they have on occasion invested in stadium redevelopments and construction the funding for the facilities the AFL uses has come almost exclusively from state and federal governments. The same governments who know and understand the financial benefits a World Cup will bring to Australia.</p> <p>The simple fact is, Andrew’s not telling the truth. The AFL have plenty of other stadiums and facilities that could easily enable them to have a season in 2018/2022. In 2006 the AFL played for much of the season without the use of the MCG due to the Commonwealth Games, this was relatively painless and the AFL were more than happy to allow this to happen, of course the AFL doesn’t consider Athletics to be one of it’s competitors.</p> <p>Even if, as suggested today, the MCG could be out of action for several months as it is temporarily converted into a rectangular venue, some creative scheduling would ensure the AFL would be able to continue. Potentially the AFL season may have to take a break of 1-2 months, but there should be no problem with the AFL season extending into late Spring.</p> <p align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrfVwaZ-ke04w60-1Z9vQVES0BoLNwbkk5A_3xKUL4lcbERrrEL9VG6HANyk3UR_2gdrAgyMWlX6pbRK1pHRGv_rrgUut3TsAp3b1uZF4pPRH4E9mdOu2XOjr8Ac-88TDtMPiau6mskniJ/s1600-h/mcg1%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="mcg1" border="0" alt="mcg1" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SxyN0c8lPmI/AAAAAAAAAUA/QMsI3GQO3h0/mcg1_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="400" height="252" /></a><font size="1"> <strong>MCG as a rectangular venue?</strong></font></p> <p>Whatever the solution – you can be sure there is one. There are at least 9 years for the AFL to prepare for the World Cup, ample time to work out alternative arrangements. And Demetriou is suggesting that AFL clubs could die because of this? Laughable.</p> <p>So why did Demetriou come out and make these comments? There are two possible reasons – the first is that he is trying to make the AFL appear hard done by and over exaggerating the financial impact that a World Cup could have on the AFL and AFL clubs – trying to increase the amount of compensation that the AFL will receive. </p> <p>He could also just be trying to derail Australia’s bid. On reading the headlines many an Australian sports fan will be shocked. They probably had nothing against a World Cup up until now – but now it seems their favourite AFL side will ‘cease to exist’ if the Cup is played on our shores.</p> <p>Whatever his motivation – you can tell that the media’s on his side as well. Australia’s newspapers are filled with sports journalists who would be without a job if it wasn’t for the AFL. This is the motivation behind many of the sensationalist articles you might have read today. Melbourne’s Herald Sun even ran a poll on it’s website - “Would you accept scrapping the AFL season to ensure Australia hosts the soccer World Cup?” – time to declare your allegiances Australia – it’s either the game we’ve grown up on and the game that identifies us as the greatest nation on earth, or it’s the World Cup – not both.</p> <p>I was following the results of this poll this afternoon – noticed a pattern – the “Yes” votes seem to occasionally disappear. Could be a technical glitch I guess, but it seems a little suspicious to me:</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SxyN1b3giTI/AAAAAAAAAUE/vfasdta2l7A/s1600-h/heraldsun%5B10%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="heraldsun" border="0" alt="heraldsun" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SxyN2Wq82PI/AAAAAAAAAUI/tnEIIUuD7q4/heraldsun_thumb%5B8%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="420" height="160" /></a> </p> <p>There are a lot of people in this country who will do whatever it takes to make sure Australia remembers that AFL is the Australian game, and the only game that a ‘true-blue’ Australian can support. We need this world cup, we need it like North Korea needs democracy.</p> <p>Matt.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-33248963839247763042009-08-06T00:33:00.002+10:002009-08-06T15:48:56.173+10:00Bundesliga comes to Ten’s ‘One HD’<p>Channel Ten have revealed that their 24-hour free-to-air sports channel, One HD, will be covering Germany’s top flight football <img style="border-width: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;" src="http://www.adrmonline.com.au/images/media%20release%20photos/nmr_090423_one_hd_logo.jpg" align="right" border="0" height="137" width="240" />competition, the Bundesliga, this season. Starting with a game between newly promoted Nuremburg and Schalke at 11:30pm this Saturday night - One will show a Bundesliga game live in High Definition every week.</p> <p>Until now, I have been quite critical of One’s apparent ‘no-football policy’. It was quite poor to see a dedicated sports channel showing everything from AFL to paintball, but leaving out the world’s biggest game. In their defence, this may have had something to do with the rights to most football around the world already being held, but in any case to see them spend some cash on European football is a very good sign (just how much they would have paid is an interesting question – Setanta, who would have agreed to sh are their Bundesliga rights, are desperate for cash at the moment). Let’s hope we see even more football on One HD soon, the way Ten announced their coverage as ‘our first major European football league’ certainly suggests there may be more to come.</p> <p><img style="display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;" src="http://www.germanyandafrica.diplo.de/Vertretung/pretoria__dz/en/__PR/2009__PR/05/Wolfsburg3,property=Galeriebild__gross.jpg" align="left" height="192" width="276" />A lack of football coverage for those without pay-television has long been an issue in Australia, but consider what football will be shown on free-tv in the next 12 months:</p> <p> <br /> <br />One HD: <br />- 30+ Bundesliga games <br /> <br />SBS: <br />- 25+ UEFA Champions League games <br />- UEFA Europa league <br />- FIFA Club World Cup <br />- FIFA Under 20 World Cup (and other FIFA tournaments) <br />- A selection of other football, with many games on Sunday afternoons <br />- Not to forget next year’s World Cup… 64 more matches <br /> <br />ABC1: <br />- W-league <br /></p> <p>In fact, there will probably be more football on FTA TV in the next year than there will be any other sport. Pretty impressive considering how much more football is on pay-television.</p> <p>Of course the obvious problem is that Socceroos matches and the A-league are still exclusively on Fox Sports. Bundesliga matches late on Saturday nights will be great, but I still look forward to the day when we see local football on FTA TV during primetime. Perhaps with One HD showing some interest in football, the money that the FFA gets from TV rights will significantly rise when they are next negotiated. I’m hoping that with a high price, comes some level of FTA coverage.</p> <p>Matt</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-58261865680791705222009-06-12T21:25:00.001+10:002009-06-12T21:25:17.998+10:00Gold Coast and Brisbane 2009-10 Shirts<p>The last remaining kits, not previously leaked, for the upcoming A-league season have recently been revealed by Gold Coast United and the Brisbane Roar. Pictures are below. </p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhERmYNOhdEJQcRXjGCy5-t8xwJG6Ju9tJ2tfhhWZm6X7E9MsIwVqbj8ljfE_-pjPzV3JfZnKPu8cCI_d1ExN0-va0bmrEZMTO410PF_ZPTcYhqpdTbhLehWkJcj8uUP3h2EI_HMTDhUuoZ/s1600-h/88439298_10%20%5BDesktop%20Resolution%5D%5B7%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="88439298_10 [Desktop Resolution]" border="0" alt="88439298_10 [Desktop Resolution]" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SjI7Ehxis2I/AAAAAAAAASw/dnL7Vc4u2Kk/88439298_10%20%5BDesktop%20Resolution%5D_thumb%5B5%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="386" height="297" /></a> </p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SjI7F6RQjjI/AAAAAAAAAS0/HJtE8LHHwo0/s1600-h/Image1%5B5%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image1" border="0" alt="Image1" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SjI7HNiEa4I/AAAAAAAAAS4/u1681Hc85tw/Image1_thumb%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="386" height="315" /></a> </p> <p>One interesting point is how the Gold Coast’s kit clashes with that of the Central Coast (see previous blog: <a title="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/2009-10-league-kits-released.html" href="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/2009-10-league-kits-released.html">http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/2009-10-league-kits-released.html</a>). As mentioned in that blog, a few kits seem likely to cause problems when certain teams come up against each other this season. When the Mariners travel to Skilled Park, they will have no suitable clash strip to wear for the game. It is likely that this will force the Gold Coast to wear their white strip at home.</p> <p>It’s all well and good that the Mariners came up with a striped kit as their home strip (incidentally, what are the odds that the FFA were the ones that pushed this, knowing that the Gold Coast wanted an all-yellow strip), and to have a yellow away kit, but these two strips really don’t clash. Perhaps a 3rd kit would have been a good idea for them (and maybe a couple of other sides).</p> <p>Still, Reebok have definitely improved their kit designs a lot this season. Might have something to do with their contract expiring next year.</p> <p>Matt</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-43051713829836720782009-04-18T15:46:00.001+10:002009-04-18T15:46:54.500+10:002009-10 A-league Kits Released<p>Last Week, 8 out of the 10 Hyundai A-league clubs new kit were released. Still no word on Brisbane or the Gold Coast’s kits – but here’s a lot at those that were revealed:</p> <p><strong>Adelaide:<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuMc8pocsKgg8TdtHpgixP2zCE6dYHnJzRfsAdD5Nv4aD8_gyhX8q5DW0nhNFHTFTbOwzCr8BCtsaG-I2qBPGloinm8ClB7nwtzitqYhrX0OKgLNUUsYrVpfhag8jNPLoWZavcYfY1vf5/s1600-h/Image37.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="Image3" border="0" alt="Image3" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtSSo8ZafDKTIbZgwpod-lij8UV1LtEQ8hyphenhyphensQKyQihtWnpgvUAvQE9ttE9GvAPTLsl17FUFP02-cCUYoWrgXLL2d19HZU4acaSAeVhIEOljaJVOj5WDVuPTx0DFyj8J9ybfTLnjONlLO_D/?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a></strong>Adelaide’s home kit is fairly similar to previous years, although there does appear to be some sort of pinstripe pattern – hard to tell from the low res images though. Looks good though. The away kit is a little retro, but is a nice change.</p> <p><strong>Central Coast:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/Selop6Pwh0I/AAAAAAAAARE/Go1ABVmMdfw/s1600-h/Image25.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="Image2" border="0" alt="Image2" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SelorK-Xk3I/AAAAAAAAARI/SkRR8Teo_vw/Image2_thumb3.png?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a> No surprise here, we have already seen this kit. They really should fix the back of the home kit – the player name looks silly going over the stripes. They should really just make the top half of the back of the kit plain yellow, with a blue name and number. (similar to Perth’s kit – see below)</p> <p><strong>Melbourne:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SeloutPjjsI/AAAAAAAAARM/I0YoFW8npwg/s1600-h/Image211.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="Image2" border="0" alt="Image2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/Selow00-eLI/AAAAAAAAARQ/ZO3aXL9ykGA/Image2_thumb7.png?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a>Melbourne goes with a fairly standard strip, the V looks a little thinner than it used to, which is good. The little v’s running down the side are somewhat odd, but shouldn’t look too bad on the final kit. The away kit is white, rather than silver – looks good though.</p> <p><strong>Newcastle:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SelozelsNtI/AAAAAAAAARU/-rLyPt58CgM/s1600-h/Image2%5B6%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image2" border="0" alt="Image2" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/Selo0lDB8hI/AAAAAAAAARY/9AdzZIQWjvA/Image2_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a> Newcastle will not use their Champions League kit in next year’s A-league. Their kit will, in fact, be very similar to their kit from last year. They’ve gone with a blue away kit, which looks good although I would have liked to have seen a blue/red away kit.</p> <p><strong>North Queensland:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSUEf_040duxZqnk5G2WCEp_ttV52hft7yR2yTkrUQSGNV4kNC3I51032onL17xJZ2Ijpe6VmZwXpGdcL9z4LPZKDEzROCJ-q4HliRUoxf6FqY2ozs56-QHcKu25z7z9T65JBcjdOzUgEo/s1600-h/Image2%5B12%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image2" border="0" alt="Image2" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/Selo5sVlDDI/AAAAAAAAARg/9cM4yW5JZaQ/Image2_thumb%5B7%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a>North Queensland kit was leaked last week. This design looks quite bright, but I think the actual kit will look better than this looks on paper.</p> <p><strong>Perth:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/Selo9RKehrI/AAAAAAAAARk/DUeUH-nIGsk/s1600-h/Image4%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image4" border="0" alt="Image4" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/Selo-sQWd6I/AAAAAAAAARo/toxrNirTMnE/Image4_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SelpALlg31I/AAAAAAAAARs/nhR-GV4Qzqg/s1600-h/Image5%5B7%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Image5" border="0" alt="Image5" align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4RlWep2tXliSTVVNF8NlMEVKlGt5YzZ3jO2rzNi9IoLendmi2pKFqKp39IxYx1VUfjKwTcpVyp82ZTFcsorW39ZUvD1RKn87ZsxaIGSi9UiqRL43g5mUE4qTM6JUb5BfjQVQFkus8KNm/?imgmax=800" width="156" height="231" /></a> Perth have gone the vertical stripes for next season, while I would have preferred hoops (just because we already have a couple of other teams in vertical stripes), this kit looks great. Again, I expect the actual kit to look better than the kit does on paper, because this design is quite bright. I think this is more accurate to what it will actually look like:</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Sydney FC:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNgAmxyfwzVVtDzc-OtE8lv7x-x-KA5lCVLMvbALb33qF0gXaw1pYmnW6VxC0zXc3MZr_w6WlQI-RLXkPGbM-Ih10LQS01wT56G2CK0Dqe92cTjNHB4KslQVyPT6xKiELq6kydA40zQQRw/s1600-h/Image3%5B7%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image3" border="0" alt="Image3" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SelpF_9kjDI/AAAAAAAAAR4/k-WCqpq-8SY/Image3_thumb%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a> Sydney’s kit is fairly standard, but it certainly looks good. You can’t have everyone wearing an ‘interesting’ kit.</p> <p><strong>Wellington:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwGTJyfPnCLpCFRXD7D0gQ7LWplnDI9onbxNlrUvOfR2u6YvG6vrbsbYebl-Z70ezSuDkRm6r6M47DUKeOMzMaMmaKwPepYpBD-cADSO8CjtIULT4Gr_sWbZUgamiubDPmEcCiBs6j8FdS/s1600-h/Image3%5B13%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image3" border="0" alt="Image3" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioc28VZ6I3gutvi24jVMLQWpJTw-gWiKpD8fHMLEW03UUaP_3h7qiw-bkttdJz25luj3p-O76-92UgTQ7nA6gD6QfH4mvlTTaBUwkazH0e2kLGLIrIhxcuP23XZXg0VxujpcOyzXUZ7CW-/?imgmax=800" width="306" height="204" /></a> Wellington’s striped kit looks excellent. Their away kit is very nice as well. They have done the same thing as Central Coast with their player names going over their stripes, which is the only problem I have with this kit.</p> <p><strong>Gold Coast, Brisbane:</strong></p> <p>These are the only two clubs yet to have their kits released, the delay for Brisbane might be related to their name-change from Queensland, while Gold Coast evidently are still working on theirs.</p> <p>Here’s a couple of mock-ups I’ve done, I have a feeling that Brisbane will go with the maroon, while I think the Gold Coast might go with a predominantly yellow kit – although I prefer the teal.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SelpOPBJTII/AAAAAAAAASE/JhINzWSWLOM/s1600-h/Image2%5B18%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image2" border="0" alt="Image2" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SelpP0azE9I/AAAAAAAAASI/vfJ9vD6Cv2M/Image2_thumb%5B11%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="356" height="255" /></a> </p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3-KYCjSM6Dp47VtkFkZgc9nFnDAMdGh9HO6zixNBAF71sMV7tDmAaZMo0cLMLMMJcanzmuHPCb8HcFhpWZMeyJnS0ZTC0dy7cAzin9kaZ9DoIQKwPIn2pFsUVDkC3O9wG6s1DoxaFvvsg/s1600-h/Image3%5B19%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="Image3" border="0" alt="Image3" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SelpS4-j3XI/AAAAAAAAASQ/a01EsOLtH64/Image3_thumb%5B12%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="356" height="255" /></a></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p><strong>Clashes:</strong></p> <p>One interesting thing to consider about the new kits is potential clashes. I imagine that most sides will wear their home shirt as much as possible, with their away kit ready as an alternative when required. Consider some examples though – what happens when:</p> <p>Wellington hosts Central Coast? <br />Central Coast plays Newcastle? <br /> <br />Interestingly the only solution to these clashes might force the home team to wear their away strip. This is why, in Europe, a lot of sides (especially those with stripes) have to have 3 kits, to ensure that they can always provide an alternative strip to the home team. I wonder what the solution will be for the A-league?</p> <p><strong>Summary</strong>:</p> <p>It’s great to see A-league clubs without the standard template kits this season. I also look forward to seeing an away team that isn’t wearing white.</p> <p>These kits will likely be unveiled officially on Monday, when the A-league draw is released.</p> <p>Matt</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-2110460517487792322009-04-01T00:10:00.001+11:002009-04-01T00:10:06.610+11:00North Queensland Fury Kit Revealed<p>North Queensland’s inaugural A-league kit has been leaked – here’s my mock-up of it (from the low resolution pics that were leaked):</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm_y_AeZ0iOtucFIaYLDyMwVeajIVcdxLEFd98apT7ielk20MXwvTXOwr9pyPLzEsQYXoTdSV8zZKtObryZUyB6OWjaojLSa2cnHTGm7nnMnMOJECyCSkt1FPu5f2lQtEStLAB5daVzh_W/s1600-h/NQ%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="NQ" border="0" alt="NQ" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SdIWLHfeBpI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/mkzbkUXaSwo/NQ_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="402" height="295" /></a> </p> <p>It looks a little odd, but I like the combination of light/dark green. The back of the kit is mainly light green.</p> <p>Matt</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-72562609315400554092009-03-19T01:07:00.001+11:002009-03-22T13:53:31.305+11:00Australian Football Broadcasting Update<p><img style="display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px" align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowG5Bji0yYh9sTAuC8jmjHpQJHkxhTbEd55Qe6ggUveed9rf-uuoytsvkLIZvjNucDH08iKFrE1n6A_cOAvUPeb9p2gAShQgUfWhaTUpjv4iyiT540eNRrJrMZX6fGPFchQqE-lLt-Yfd/s320/tvcoverage.png" />It’s been about 8 months since I finished my (mammoth) series of blogs regarding TV Coverage of football in Australia. I looked at football on <a href="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/football-broadcasting-part-1.html">Free-to-Air Television</a>, then wrote about football on <a href="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/australian-football-broadcasting-part-2.html">Subscription Television</a>, and finally looked at <a href="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/australian-football-broadcasting-part-3.html">the future</a> of football on Australian TV. This will just be an update on the situation, there have been a few interesting developments since my last blog.</p> <p><strong><u>Pay TV:</u></strong></p> <p>Let me talk about Pay-TV first. While there haven’t been a lot of improvements made to the amount of football coverage we get lately, there have been a few things worth noting.</p> <p><em>Fox Sports:</em></p> <p>Fox Sports have pushed ahead with their High Definition football coverage this season, many A-league games have been shown in HD, as well as all Socceroos games and heaps of games from England. I haven’t got access to Fox Sports HD myself, but from all reports the quality has been very good. </p> <p>Recently Fox have shown a bit more Asian football, including every one of the final round of Asian World Cup qualifiers. Unfortunately though, many of these games have been shown on delay, and viewers choice hasn’t been utilized.</p> <p>One of the problems for Fox, when it comes to Asian football, has been finding commentators and producing the coverage. Fox prefers to provide it’s own commentators for games, which is fine, but the problem with this is that they have been reluctant to broadcast games unless they feel that it is worth doing commentary and doing good coverage.</p> <p>The Asian Champions league, which is going on currently, is a good example. Fox would gladly broadcast all games from the Champions league, if it was as simple as just putting them on TV. But it would be very hard for them to provide commentary and to produce every one of these games. As I’ve said previously, the solution to this is obvious – they need to share the load with other Asian Broadcasters. Perhaps the AFC should spearhead this, but if the recourses of Fox, Star Sports, and other English Language Asian networks were combined, you could have good quality coverage of all games – and viewers all over Asia (and the World) could benefit.</p> <p>Still on the topic of Asian football, I received a bit of an exclusive yesterday when I had confirmation from Fox Sports that the J-league will be shown on Fox this year. At this stage it will likely just be a highlights show, but at least it’s something. Expect to see this starting up in the next couple of weeks. </p> <p>It would be awesome to see live coverage of the J-league one day, especially as games are shown at a perfect time for Australian viewers, and it would be a perfect competition to fill the void left by the lack of A-league during Winter. Again, though, it’s hard for Fox to commit to broadcasting the J-league live, as they would likely have to produce and do commentary for the games themselves (unless they could use the coverage that Eurosport do in England).</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/ScEAIqLCVjI/AAAAAAAAAQs/Ln1BuL5qNEI/s1600-h/Image1%5B12%5D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="Image1" border="0" alt="Image1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/ScEAJxoJSpI/AAAAAAAAAQw/swCB90UkeAo/Image1_thumb%5B10%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="420" height="173" /></a>  <br />(Incidentally, I’ve seen a few J-league games online this season – it really is a high quality league, and great to watch – I recommend checking it out if you have a good internet connection)</p> <p><em>Setanta:</em></p> <p>Setanta Sports still suffers from many of the problems that I talked about last year. They have heaps of rights, and plenty of good coverage, but no where near enough airtime to show live matches. One recent edition to Setanta’s coverage is the Russian Premier League. I quite like that they are showing this, as it’s one league that is well suited to Australian viewers, with games on a bit earlier than other European leagues. They desperately need more channels, or maybe some viewers choice system though.</p> <p><em>Other:</em></p> <p>I talked last year about the possibility of new channels coming to Foxtel, which could improve football coverage. While this has not happened yet, I have heard strong rumours that 3 new sports channels will be available on Foxtel before the end of the year, most likely from October 1st. I’m confident that Eurosport will be one of these channels, while Sky Sports News might be another. It also leaves the door open for that Fox Sports football channel, which is still a possibility.</p> <p>(These channels will be just a few of the 20 channels that will be launched before the end of the year, also expect to see Foxtel convert all it’s subscribers to the Foxtel IQ. There should be a few other improvements as well)</p> <p><strong><u>FTA:</u></strong></p> <p>Unfortunately there isn’t a lot to report regarding football on Australian FTA TV at the moment. Most football coverage is limited to SBS, who continue their dedication to the World Game.</p> <p><em>SBS:</em></p> <p>They did try something different recently, introducing an extra show on Tuesday nights. The concept of “Extra Time” was very solid – a recap of the weekend’s football, with all the goals from the EPL and the A-league. Unfortunately making the show only half and hour long, and putting it at 6pm meant it was doomed to failure. SBS has said that it will be back at some point, hopefully they put it on Monday nights – maybe at 9:30 – and let it go a bit longer, so that all the big European leagues can be looked at in detail.</p> <p><img style="display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px" align="right" src="http://www2.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Adelaide+United+v+Gamba+Osaka+FIFA+Club+World+Gl7_BW4MKYCl.jpg" width="240" height="192" /> One thing that was fairly significant late last year for SBS was the FIFA Club World Cup. Firstly, it was the first time SBS had ever shown games involving an A-league team. Their coverage was solid, and the ratings were good. It was also significant because, for the first time, SBS used their extra digital channel to show football. They had Adelaide’s 5th/6th placed playoff as well as the Gamba v Manchester Semi-final exclusively on their digital channel. Hopefully they use this channel again for their coverage of the Confederations Cup and FIFA Under 20 World Cup later this year.</p> <p>The other regular football that we see on SBS is the UEFA Champions league. We still do not know, however, if SBS will have the rights to this competition beyond this year, but hopefully they will, as there really isn’t enough football on FTA TV at the moment. </p> <p><em>ABC:</em></p> <p>It was good to see a FTA channel other than SBS getting in on the football action this Summer. ABC did a good job covering the W-league, and followed it up with coverage of two Matildas games early this year. Considering the timeslot and the quality of the football, the ratings were very good. Hopefully the ABC might start broadcasting other womens/youth football in the future – this was something I mentioned as part of my ‘ideal scenario’ in a previous blog.</p> <p><em>Other:</em></p> <p>You can expect to see some of the other commercial broadcasters taking football more seriously when the A-league/Socceroos TV rights expire in a few years, but for now these channels seem very reluctant to broadcast any football whatsoever.</p> <p>One thing that might change this is Channel 10’s introduction of a 24hr sports channel, One HD. Now the merits of this channel are a matter for another blog, but surely with a dedicated sports channel on FTA some football will be shown? You’d think that, wouldn’t you?</p> <p>Ten has bought rights to various sports events from around the world, although mainly from North America. They have been promoting their channel as '”full of sports from all corners of the globe”. It seems a bit silly that they would say this, and then not broadcast any amount of the World’s most popular game. In fairness, they aren’t showing any rugby either, maybe it is not football that they are reluctant to broadcast, but anything that might be a serious threat to AFL.</p> <p>For the immediate future, it looks like football fans will still have to rely on pay-TV if they want to watch any serious amount of football. I do hope that changes (at least to some degree) one day.</p> <p>Matt</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-38129871705383613962009-02-16T00:57:00.002+11:002009-02-27T19:05:08.042+11:002009-10 A-league Kits<p>A couple of weeks ago we heard some good news about the kits for next season’s A-league. Firstly, each club will have new kits next season – both home and away. Not only that, but Reebok (who still have exclusive designing rights to the A-league strips for the next two years) will finally allow clubs more freedom when designing their strips.</p> <p>The good news just keeps coming, as it has also been confirmed that the FFA’s policy of white away kits has been done away with. Finally, although I’m not sure of this one, clubs are likely to be allowed to wear their home strips for all games, except when avoiding a clash with the home team.</p> <p>I called for many of these changes a year ago, in my blog: <a href="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-attempt-at-better-league-kits.html">'A-league kits could be improved'</a>. After hearing this latest news, I thought I’d do some new mock-ups and do some speculation on what we might see next season:</p> <p><strong>Central Coast:</strong></p> <p>The first kits for the new season have already been revealed, with the Central Coast Mariners releasing their kits for the 2009 AFC Champions League, which they will also use in next season’s A-league. When the first images of this kit were released, Mariners fans were a little disappointed at the lack of yellow, however I think (with the back of the kit being yellow), the kits will look a lot more yellow at matches than they did when the initial press images were released. Here are there home and away kits:</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPM9pq57qmZiSmJNiZK32TEeNuBtTTPAk4UHA6S9IPRUkPF6UI57-iTN5sSM5QMG8LEGEyof56Il6erVt_SrsTE0NCPmcT6UCA5mz8ZXKcwmXNWAvKRJtXN07nELatQe7XnqOIclNLxL2/s1600-h/Image1%5B11%5D.jpg"><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image1" alt="Image1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SZgfC6tSe1I/AAAAAAAAAPs/B9OEbHEK6ME/Image1_thumb%5B9%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="396" height="301" /></a></p> <p><strong>Adelaide United:</strong></p> <p></p> <p>Some details of Adelaide’s new kits have already surfaced. Apparently the home kit will have some sort of ‘knitted effect’. This sounds a little weird to me, but I think I’ve made a pretty good guess at what this will look like. Also, United will have a black away kit next year, which I’ve done as well:</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image2" alt="Image2" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf0nZ4U8NhKHKvd0XNDQ7oi7RtqYp-iHF2mFEWli48OxeFqXo6ohdWrz3R9Ljfyqid15yZ6SGRmHkw91S_XSsPuYFZjUG9pBZNQXHuF6R201M0V9xZSjwR_OpVGU7qCIyOTezvTyeoHB38/?imgmax=800" border="0" width="396" height="302" /></p> <p>For the rest of the clubs I’ve only done home kits, hopefully the FFA will no longer require teams to wear alternate kits for every away match next season, so we will mainly only see home kits anyway. (perhaps there will be a part 2 to this blog)</p> <p><strong>Gold Coast United:</strong></p> <p>The Gold Coast’s home uniform will be yellow and blue, while their away strip will be white. I’d like to see them use the ‘aqua’ blue as their main colour for their home strip – something like this would look good IMO:</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image5" alt="Image5" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJpFknwwmfGBZQNgKsAt9fQpaQG8UXc-TeXSWZAVp-3UJMzwKX_4Lxw2ipYJ182WFvnTyY6r1jam92zCThYN98c0Gn6lbkUBc7o9VKlsIgZj1lrbgbDYHBUh_l_0VroQDQyqbETkgBMgps/?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p><strong>Melbourne Victory:</strong></p> <p>You certainly won’t be seeing the ‘V’ disappearing from the Melbourne kit any time soon, I think this one looks a little better than their current uniform though:</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image6" alt="Image6" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SZgfFIPUYjI/AAAAAAAAAP4/RJVrfwEkK2E/Image6_thumb%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p><strong>Newcastle United Jets:</strong></p> <p>Newcastle’s AFC Champions League strip will be revealed fairly soon, this is what it will look like (apparently). Whether or not this strip will also be used in next seasons A-league is still unconfirmed.</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image7" alt="Image7" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SZgfF3R3DsI/AAAAAAAAAP8/sQOjqiLq2Aw/Image7_thumb%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p><strong>North Queensland Fury:</strong></p> <p>North Queensland Fury (a name that may yet be changed before they begin their inaugural season – fingers crossed), will use green and white as their colours. I’m very happy to finally see a little green in the A-league, something like this would look good:</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image8" alt="Image8" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SZgfGRPRUJI/AAAAAAAAAQA/ChKaKIFLx-U/Image8_thumb%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p><strong>Perth Glory:</strong><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SZgfGxhi16I/AAAAAAAAAQE/ZeudcmpsjjU/s1600-h/Image8%5B5%5D.jpg"></a></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>I used the idea of having white horizontal stripes on the Perth kit in my blog last year. The info I’ve seen says that this is quite likely to become reality next season. For my mock-up, I've tried to be a little more subtle with the horizontal stripes, making them only slightly lighter than the dark purple.</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image9" alt="Image9" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-yJE8wrLwcQIqX1SoH_0UKSjWE4enoZXRmv4H5LQEV6dalOQ2X5w1XHA-eLjYdkjcFd5CDxyB0Dx-HyEfqtwvNfm5tEv9PmVuJrTVax2AENuZ_VuXlW-niNZV7378GcpixiwFoT6-gJks/?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p><strong>Queensland Roar:</strong></p> <p></p> <p>Some fans have been calling for a maroon strip next season for Queensland. I still like the idea of Queensland in orange, so I decided to go half-and-half. I also brought back the blue shorts, which Queensland had in their first couple of seasons.<img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image10" alt="Image10" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11Avxg7T6tNPrqpY8-ANyOi9jWeKAKV4Ga6OK6FSWTOJbrl7YIP1Zq_uFwd5cDEtaJ2v2x_Tz7OLXmZm57P3TKhs2JM9VUO7l9Fs5nUDAXS27JXHLWF48917sXlvlEzFX5wlzjwFRj2-T/?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p><strong>Sydney FC:</strong></p> <p>Sydney will apparently have a much plainer sky-blue kit next season. Will probably look something like this:</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image12" alt="Image12" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQk6b38DTmmuXWXwYQGtb767Qb54dAtJkEx9AB2pZZglgg-ylCvASKwMTObUrK5LACJn4kH-IT44inIt98FHVY8lRMyagnY_XEaXIaYR1f55m7sYLdWNvYMbHCx2vsMRCYschlfaQsQU6A/?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p><strong>Wellington Phoenix:</strong></p> <p>Wellington will finally be in yellow and black stripes next year. Frankly, I think there’s very little chance this strip will look bad. My mock-up has more black than yellow, which I think keeps the kit looking a bit darker - like their current kit.</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Image13" alt="Image13" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh55jBfmxfFGL62KGOiXEzZNRmvk4wr6ohrYEbXwwmpRzrcyZDx_pzSyv_Z45pWDdtWr_mFdE-nsa8XsD2hFwq87GUYx9FnFKvcf2VEkcLOCUva8IqsvuLKJjPfdtG8FMMuJ7CwiBbHeLbB/?imgmax=800" border="0" width="226" height="336" /></p> <p>Well, there you go. I’m pretty confident that next year we’ll see a dramatic improvement in A-league kits. Even just the fact we’ll see games where neither team is wearing white will be a big step forward.</p> <p>I can’t wait to see all the new designs.</p> <p>Bye for now, <br />Matt</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-16494532137934385442008-11-28T15:28:00.001+11:002008-12-12T20:50:20.940+11:002018 FIFA World Cup – Australia? (Part 1)<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisu4o504ASWXaoBT3Wk6rXBuqohJIc67mzo7v3w-cZksv6nNmT3FPj3HAphOOIkDdzqFbuBuosJLE6gGr0ykev1y2USfy2bKuzDYwIl2PuATX8jn3c0MqnoDUSrC9gfeNqFqT6QmJpeXI9/s1600-h/logo216.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 15px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="logo2" border="0" alt="logo2" align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-b5kggA0Gb9avwwPoEt5SOhThG0i_9wARMS7FN_e2tQMo3BTwubIDik2IrxwC7v1h7khn8w5Or2-a5-Tc7NKLYbVjd50JwntKpmc_BfRR_rGK67Hr7WPcuPrvnUUVudQE-DIVAZxMZfo3/?imgmax=800" width="194" height="223" /></a>For a couple of years the prospect of the World’s largest sporting  event coming to Australia has been talked about amongst Australian sporting circles. Some would have you believe that Australia is no chance of ever hosting a FIFA World Cup, others think it will be an easy task to win the bid.</p> <p>There is no doubt about the impact the event could have on Australian football. Aside from bringing the FFA massive amounts of money, hosting the tournament would likely mean new stadiums for A-league teams and could generate a surge in interest that could finally propel football to the top of the Australian sporting landscape. But is it going to happen?</p> <p>Over a couple of blogs I’m going to try and answer that question. First I will ask the question about whether it is logistically and financially possible for Australia to host such a huge event. Secondly I will look at our competitors, and try and make an assessment about whether or not we can crawl through the “seedy” political mess of FIFA to win the hosting rights.</p> <p><strong><u><font size="3">Part 1 – Logistics/Stadiums</font></u></strong></p> <p>One of the major issues with the logistical side of hosting a tournament like this is the cost. In 2006, just under $3 Billion Australian Dollars were spent on stadiums, but that number is dwarfed by how much the German Government estimates they got back – close to $30 Billion.</p> <p><img style="margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline" align="left" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/53/110241754_d78ef787f3.jpg" width="205" height="155" /> Much of the money made from the tournament is due to a massive surge in tourism. The 2006 tournament drew 3.5 million people to Germany. It is difficult to predict if Australia could expect similar numbers, it is a much longer journey for fans from Europe and the Americas. However I think this could be cancelled out by large numbers of tourists from Asian countries. The 2006 tournament was held in Europe, yet more fans came from Japan than most  European countries – only England, the USA and Germany itself beat the Japanese in terms of total number of fans.</p> <p>Money will also need to be investment in transport infrastructure – I am certainly no expert on the subject, but new airports/railway stations would just be another way that the FIFA World Cup would be of benefit to Australia.</p> <p><u><strong><font size="2">Stadiums</font></strong></u></p> <p>When discussing Australia’s World Cup bid – this is something that gets talked about the most. Where are games going to be played? Is this stadium going to be good enough or big enough for World Cup matches? Will that satisfy the FIFA requirements?</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYgf08FkQS9YnqMHUzKL6P2j3isLRimS2Z_LfC93BT9mtGqJCmR2fYatvT-CPPjOCwBIa0YPdz_tdsVcpcY31SVgDtVxXZN9SeyuKWpnRvuRQ-yryUi3m7lxJ5VMQ_aViPvcZuzu29ipqn/s1600-h/Image6%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Image6" border="0" alt="Image6" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9xWBMRJhI/AAAAAAAAAKA/KdA-6qRMIws/Image6_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="200" height="141" /></a> Firstly, what are these FIFA requirements? What conditions does a stadium need to satisfy to be included as part of a World Cup bid. Before I go on, let me say that FIFA is FIFA – they make the rules, they can bend the rules, and really there is no such thing as a FIFA ‘requirement’ for a World Cup stadium. There are standards that FIFA would like stadiums to meet, but if they think a stadium is appropriate, they aren’t going to get obsessive about details. The FIFA ‘requirements’ are really just guidelines that a country can look at as it plans a World Cup bid.</p> <p>Here is basically what you need to look at while thinking about World Cup venues:</p> <p><strong>- Capacity:</strong> Stadiums should be able to hold at least 40,000 people, and should be all seated. There should be at least 3 stadiums that hold more than 60,000 for semi finals and the World Cup final.</p> <p><strong>- Viewing Experience:</strong> Fans at the stadiums should be able to get a good view of the game from any position. FIFA do have specific details about maximum distance from the pitch, but as long as all fans get a decent view, the technicalities will not matter.</p> <p><strong>- Location:</strong> Generally FIFA has a one-city, one-stadium policy, however exceptions to this have been made in the past. Something that gets thrown up a lot is that FIFA will allow one city to have multiple stadiums, but no more than that. I have yet to find any sort of official source for this, and I expect it may not be true. Going back to my earlier point though, FIFA are not stupid – they aren’t going to enforce a bunch of rules just for the sake of it. It could certainly be argued that, because Australia is a country with a lower number of large cities, we are a different case to many past FIFA World Cup host countries. Another thing to consider is the distance between host cities – something that may be of concern for Perth.</p> <p> <strong>- After-tournament Use:</strong> FIFA likes stadiums to leave a ‘legacy’ for football for years to come. This makes a lot of sense, and we have already seen how much the Korean K-league and Japanese J-league have benefited due to<img style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; display: inline" align="right" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3167/2734768721_967c6722fa.jpg?v=0" width="278" height="191" /> modern stadiums after the 2002 World Cup. This is important for the government as well, it’s a lot easier to spend money on a stadium if you know it will have lasting benefits.</p> <p>At a basic level, that is really it. Other requirements are technical things that can be done at a relatively low cost (a completely flat pitch is one example) – and as long as you have a good stadium these should not be an issue. The minimum number of venues needed is 10, and with good upkeep of grounds (ensuring quality of turf etc.) no more than this should be needed – although it would be beneficial to bring the tournament to as many cities/towns as possible. Maintaining playing surfaces may also be a little tricky in the middle of Winter.</p> <p>So let me go through where I think World Cup games could  potentially be played, when and if Australia ever hosts a FIFA World Cup. I will do an estimate of how much might be needed to be spent upgrading or building a venue, to try and determine how easy it would be for Australia to afford this tournament. Let’s start with venues that will definitely host games:</p> <p><em><u>Definite Host Venues:</u></em></p> <p><strong>- Brisbane –> Suncorp Stadium</strong></p> <p><strong><strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivknAAa_P8cfXrYZKX4-D-GqMDXjYId60J6S-HmJE-vDhzhtKGwp4vkVa8d5Hu4A3dmycN4wPL4JR01WfL5deZinXUiHI78vtRIvuZye63Bb4fuWqRh9Ye1pVSwOETM-6Y2OXr6Y9h1pM3/s1600-h/Suncorp6.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Suncorp" border="0" alt="Suncorp" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9xiYFB5dI/AAAAAAAAAKI/XiSMm80U5DM/Suncorp_thumb4.png?imgmax=800" width="425" height="169" /></a></strong></strong></p> <p>Capacity: 52,500 -> Upgrade to ~ 60,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $120 Million</p> <h6></h6> <p>Suncorp Stadium is an obvious choice for a World Cup venue. Really it would need no money spent on it at all for it to be a perfect World Cup venue. Although a little could be spent upgrading the capacity a little, so that it is an option for a semi-final. For this and any other small improvements I have allocated $120 million.</p> <p><strong>- Newcastle –> Energy Australia Stadium</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9xoDjS2BI/AAAAAAAAAKM/qgRXv9ce5zg/s1600-h/Newcastle2%5B1%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Newcastle2" border="0" alt="Newcastle2" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIjAyqTAr9p3FLerSDGbTpPmpiY5mu7oQbXHg7-cm0EE8N_zS2NIYZ3M8igibTSy1Ejj0GuxC8DSLN_RUu6s1Y6psjRyNv0_coH5oIlukiUdynXvdgk0iyETWaoRjgUjoT1RA30PMG3EXC/?imgmax=800" width="425" height="116" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 27,000 –> Upgrade to ~ 45,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $120 Million.</p> <p>Newcastle is, in my opinion, also a definite host venue. Newcastle is Australia’s 7th biggest city, and will be needed if we are to get the required number of venues. Energy Australia Stadium is already undergoing upgrades to give it a capacity of around 35,000 and there are already plans in place to get the capacity to over 40,000. A lot more work needs to be done to make it a world class venue, but I have no doubt that will be done. My guess is it might need $120 million.</p> <p><strong>- Homebush –> ANZ Stadium</strong></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9xufO2iuI/AAAAAAAAAKU/9G9A4X5QpfI/s1600-h/ANZStadium36.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="ANZ Stadium" border="0" alt="ANZ Stadium" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9xxNZRl_I/AAAAAAAAAKY/gd2NbhH1Q8w/ANZStadium_thumb34.png?imgmax=800" width="425" height="160" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 83,000 –> Slight Capacity Upgrade to ~ 85,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $50 Million</p> <p>Another obvious choice, Stadium Australia in Sydney is a truly World class venue. The only slight problem with the venue is that it is not completely rectangular, although the view for fans at ANZ stadium would be far better than at most oval venues. Homebush would probably host either the Final or the Opening game. Capacity could potentially be increased a little, I’ll allocate $50 million for some minor upgrading. </p> <p><strong>- Sydney –> Sydney Football Stadium</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9xyUht5lI/AAAAAAAAAKc/LP_-kGSU2n0/s1600-h/Sydney%20Football%20Stadium.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Sydney Football Stadium" border="0" alt="Sydney Football Stadium" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQGadqHb1Gh8RZRX8j5LUHIgUaMqKlltCal5hG-J71SORlgFf750nMOX1fmg4sephjz3H9XWNDbgfCxWeFpj5yDEr4jsFW4EC7EsCItb2IPKp_aUdl-QZ7uISKGRSV40HQMq475fjeude/?imgmax=800" width="425" height="151" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 45,500 –> Upgrade to ~ 50,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $50 Million</p> <p>In my view, the Sydney Football Stadium will be a definite World Cup venue. It is a second stadium in Sydney, but with ANZ Stadium in out in Sydney’s West, a venue in central Sydney would make a lot of sense. The facilities etc. could use a bit of work, and expansion to around 50,000 would be possible, so I’ll allocate $50 million.</p> <p><em><u>Probable Host Venues</u></em><em><u>:</u></em></p> <p><strong>- Gold Coast –> Skilled Park</strong></p> <p></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKgNnL8hChmxTVSYVfzUcw-_0QlBOpXvIxnrIEpqCRp2waJY2e8AXcOYK7TOSyH0CGfkUfUJHixrvYZjE74HSaaaCm-7N1eSX-Q51BGHzuyqizgiTtHgJIUtum6d2dHD-DLKv9nDXMhx4/s1600-h/SkilledPark25.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Skilled Park2" border="0" alt="Skilled Park2" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9x_1SikpI/AAAAAAAAAKo/Vx5qnabQQs8/SkilledPark2_thumb3.png?imgmax=800" width="425" height="126" /></a> </p> <p></p> <p>Capacity: 27,500 –> Upgrade to > 40,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $150 Million</p> <p>Australia’s 6th largest city is very likely to be used in a World Cup bid – and Skilled Park is a very nice, modern stadium that is likely to be used. Expanding Skilled Park could be a little tricky, but as long as the Gold Coast’s A-league and rugby league clubs are successful, an expansion to over 40,000 will be quite feasible. I imagine that a second tier would need to be built on one (or both) sides of the stadium. This would likely cost close to $150 million.</p> <p><strong>- Canberra –> Canberra Stadium</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9yGikyrmI/AAAAAAAAAKs/tVMGCokgh-w/s1600-h/canberra1%5B6%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="canberra1" border="0" alt="canberra1" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9yLTsewiI/AAAAAAAAAKw/0y5QkwuuUFU/canberra1_thumb%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="425" height="162" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 25,000 –> Upgrade to > 40,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $200 Million</p> <p>It seems likely to me that the nation’s capital will be used in any world cup bid. With NRL and Super 14 clubs, and hopefully an A-league club within a few years, Canberra stadium is in a good position to argue that an expansion is warranted. It would need to be a fairly significant upgrade though, as the ground would need a lot of work.</p> <p><strong>- Melbourne –> MCG</strong></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRSEI2a8_zz0aI-cLlMPIUg-q3Nwpx6dy4kqdpMI9S_2-69MISHE7Dws_C3Y-1VzOI2YmXzd6CGK2DAZF3se2ZaGkvKAhNCg1UmLFGyRhEECQ8FqYE9MRw-i2LPSios04tFLvIi-7Hfnus/s1600-h/MCG3%5B1%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="MCG3" border="0" alt="MCG3" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9yWY4XLdI/AAAAAAAAAK4/mUFRDzrSPWY/MCG3_thumb.png?imgmax=800" width="425" height="138" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 100,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $20 Million </p> <p>Despite not being the best place to watch football, I expect the MCG will end up being used if Australia ever hosts a World Cup. The capacity of 100,000 is too hard to ignore, and really the view that fans get at the stadium is no worse than you get at places like Nissan Stadium (host of the 2002 World Cup final). If it does get used, it is likely to host the World Cup final, which FIFA will insist should be played at the largest stadium. I’ve allocated $20 million for general upgrades.</p> <p><strong>- Adelaide –> ???</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9yZOaWC2I/AAAAAAAAAK8/PFMAuvfEiuQ/s1600-h/New%20Adelaide%20%28Frankfurt%29%5B8%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="New Adelaide (Frankfurt)" border="0" alt="New Adelaide (Frankfurt)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9ybUP-2cI/AAAAAAAAALA/EfrSJfr3ucE/New%20Adelaide%20%28Frankfurt%29_thumb%5B6%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="425" height="102" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: Build with ~ 65,000 <br />Build Cost: $800 Million</p> <p></p> <p>Currently Adelaide has no venue that is a chance of hosting World Cup games (although it would be possible to upgrade either AAMI Stadium or Adelaide Oval, but that would basically require knocking down the stadium and starting again anyway). However I think we can be virtually certain that games will end up being played in Adelaide. There are really two options for Adelaide – a rectangular stadium, which would hold a little over 40,000 - or a multi-purpose venue that would hold, maybe, 65,000. Obviously the only use for a rectangular venue would be Adelaide United games, as well as maybe the occasional Socceroos match and a couple of rugby games. A multi-purpose venue could be used for AFL as well, which would make it a lot more viable. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen. Depending on which option is chosen, something like $800 million could be needed for the new venue.</p> <p><strong>- Perth –> ???</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9ye7B6LZI/AAAAAAAAALE/EczfWt3LrqU/s1600-h/Stadium%20WA%5B7%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Stadium WA" border="0" alt="Stadium WA" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRC15KhAYt8ZN_xUZ0WrT7WQP_4B6Cs3xI5s279DHZOx5lWL_XNx0M6EcBAcs62L42xajUYHDSWy0ahRW4Z7IcQDWuQ-za4U9BgFP4rrfnqO2mN0Jamx7PFOCFktlKtwZ4HsSWeR99ux8c/?imgmax=800" width="425" height="154" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: Build with ~ 60,000 <br />Build Cost: $1 Billion</p> <p>The planned new super-stadium in Perth, which would have been a perfect venue for World Cup matches, is currently in limbo. Around 12 months ago, the venue was ‘confirmed’, but now with a change of local government it appears unlikely to be built. Perth also has another major disadvantage, in it’s location. If Perth is used for World Cup matches, it is doubtful that it would see any matches beyond the group stage (asking a team to travel across the continent for a single crucial game would put them at a disadvantage). My guess is that Perth will end up building a suitable venue, and that it will be used to host one group during the group-stage – there is some chance that Perth might not be used at all though, so the local government will need to be willing to get a new venue built.</p> <p><em><u>Possible Host Venues:</u></em></p> <p>With 9 venues so far, only one more is really needed (although it would be nice to have 12 venues, the same number as were used in 2006).</p> <p><strong>- Townsville –> Dairy Farmers Stadium</strong></p> <p><strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9NkqFAP62kxyhhR9QoRZd1Is6YCkxTFhKDvht93mq4_PFhgdMkXa3G6t5tPMkcJJ2SQPRICqRIu56O-guLzzyCheWY0Zl8C-Xc-zeXw4mud4hiGDfqQbBO9ltdcg-l6wvtp06zLb4Mi88/s1600-h/(possible)%20-%20Townsville%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="(possible) - Townsville" border="0" alt="(possible) - Townsville" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfBWVXQ46DW_FRD9uHNtX3hROtD1CcsaeyKgKGGBBh8uR5ntRpN8qNbD7-HCY9kdBwKqcs4NlM50v0kWMqcvXJQpv0qv49Jhr8AytDhDsyLEl186b08iXyB8fzRjEf2t2ihAoJqPX8kS_k/?imgmax=800" width="425" height="120" /></a> </strong></p> <p>Capacity: 27,000 –> Upgrade to > 40,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $150 Million</p> <p>With NRL and A-league sides, it could be argued that Dairy Farmers Stadium would be a good candidate for an upgrade. Townsville does suffer from the problem of being quite a distance from any other venue, so if it were used, matches in the knockout stage would be unlikely. The North Queensland Fury (who will play during the wet season) could certainly benefit from giving fans undercover seating.</p> <p><strong>- Gosford -> Central Coast Stadium</strong></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkZ79vSrVlstx8I8hKNnJn2uaRWbavCMgx8AHOl9NYQ33a468ULkgOAH-F1x3WwIGe5OlCK4Pxi2zb-TFZvGCW4aBYVw5eccM9JdZm1b-UN_h5B5T4QDssiSpLfRBQqsT2fMkzOXLX_tfu/s1600-h/CentralCoast%5B9%5D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="CentralCoast" border="0" alt="CentralCoast" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9yvWH1OTI/AAAAAAAAALY/U9XvO8UQ82Q/CentralCoast_thumb%5B7%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="425" height="164" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 20,119 –> Upgrade to > 40,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $200 Million</p> <p>This one strikes me as an unlikely host stadium, partly because it only has one permanent home team (Central Coast Mariners), and also because expanding the stadium may prove difficult, due to the stadium’s location (they don’t have stands at one end of the ground because there is no room between the stadium, a road, and the sea). It might be possible to get the capacity up to 40,000, but unless the Mariners start getting huge crowds that warrant the increase in capacity – I can’t see it happening. Could definitely be a good training/warm-up match venue though.</p> <p><strong>- Melbourne -> Swan Street “Bubble” Stadium</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9ywewxMHI/AAAAAAAAALc/43n4jCP0i-4/s1600-h/Melbourne%20rect%5B7%5D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Melbourne rect" border="0" alt="Melbourne rect" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOG5xtSggoQ-42gkdCY52kwTQ0NMX-mDakT2UZWj_k4X4q784XknWKm66ekzkSoTkY_xSUpj9mjQp54-OeeyBqirlSCHA4wk8nV0wswkWGyE7jpYumKpuOH8s0qRuzBTkl3Ne84kKlHG_7/?imgmax=800" width="425" height="175" /></a> </p> <p></p> <p>Capacity: 33,000 –> Upgrade to ~ 50,000+ <br />Upgrade Cost: $150 Million</p> <p>Currently under construction, Melbourne’s new rectangular stadium will only be used if the MCG is not able to be used (if it’s decided that it is not spectator-friendly). The “bubble” stadium was built with expansion to 50,000 in mind, so that would certainly go ahead if the stadium was to be used. If it was to be Melbourne’s only venue, I’d wager that the authorities would make sure it was expanded to over 60,000 so that a semi-final could be played there. If not used for the World Cup itself, it would certainly be used for warm-up matches and/or a training venue.</p> <p><strong>- Docklands –> Etihad Stadium</strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9yykmrROI/AAAAAAAAALk/JL0NfwjvjOs/s1600-h/Telstra%20Dome%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Telstra Dome" border="0" alt="Telstra Dome" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9yzuUmx6I/AAAAAAAAALo/MxOpcwHhmS8/Telstra%20Dome_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="425" height="110" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 56,000 –> Convert to ~ 50,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $10 Million</p> <p>If Melbourne is to have a second venue, it will be Etihad Stadium (FIFA won’t let us use both the ‘bubble’ stadium and the MCG, given that they are so close to each other). The “dome” is<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/ST8YbHhLYMI/AAAAAAAAAMg/8CEZUy-I8ck/s1600-h/Telstra%20Dome2%20ut%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Telstra Dome2 ut" border="0" alt="Telstra Dome2 ut" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9y1xKGFGI/AAAAAAAAAMk/4yQICieYm1M/Telstra%20Dome2%20ut_thumb%5B4%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="240" height="180" /></a> beautifully modern, and if it were to be used for the World Cup, the stands could be slid out (and temporary stands built in the corners) to use the stadium in rectangular mode. No real upgrades would be needed, but I’ll allocate $10 million for general upgrades, and to temporarily convert it into a rectangular ground.</p> <p><strong>- Geelong –> Skilled Stadium</strong></p> <p></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvQm7z6DaXr0e-pTaI-A_BaoVcdKw42xmrSA96gnyJVKdLdaKS9kdLFsdGqdCQMwmvGNf8Tp32U_ntoqYJLJ_WlvZMZtVH5cOrr34rf3hE60zTx9oB1t9oOC6z5prEmQx0pBqFMPP5-JTR/s1600-h/geelong%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="geelong" border="0" alt="geelong" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9zAVYYwoI/AAAAAAAAAL4/YRHD-G0iRGk/geelong_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="425" height="161" /></a> </p> <p>Capacity: 28,000 –> Increase to > 40,000 <br />Upgrade Cost: $200 Million</p> <p>Skilled Stadium in Geelong has a few significant advantages. Firstly, it’s nice and close to Melbourne. Secondly, an expansion of the stadium to 40,000 would definitely be viable, given the fact that all home games played by the Geelong Cats (an AFL side) are always packed. It is an Oval stadium, but it is quite small and thin for an AFL ground. The big problem would be upgrading the stadium, as it is currently of quite poor quality, so a lot of money would need to be spent (probably $200 million). Personally I don’t think Skilled Stadium would be a bad option.</p> <p><u><em>Unlikely:</em></u></p> <p>There are a few more venues that I could have mentioned, but I don’t think there is any realistic chance of any of these venues hosting matches:</p> <p>Tasmania – At the moment Tasmania doesn’t even have any  sides in any national football competitions. I certainly hope that Tasmania United are successful in their bid to enter the A-league, but even so I can’t see a 40,000 seat stadium being warranted. Some might think that upgrading Launceston’s AFL ground (Aurora Stadium) could be an option, but Aurora’s field dimensions are the same as the MCG’s, without the huge stands – I cannot see any possibility of a Tasmanian venue hosting matches.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9zIbCXYSI/AAAAAAAAAL8/Vqi2BbcNF_M/s1600-h/win%20stadium%5B5%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: 0px" title="win stadium" border="0" alt="win stadium" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9zKPEKQfI/AAAAAAAAAME/EMKxJ04p6cs/win%20stadium_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="240" height="173" /></a>Wollongong – If Wollongong was to secure an A-league team, then an upgrade to Win Stadium might be a possibility, but I can’t see it being expanded to hold 40,000.</p> <p>Northern Territory – I’ve heard a few people suggest that Darwin should host a couple of games, but this isn’t going to happen – Darwin is not big enough for a decent sized stadium, and it’s too far away anyway.</p> <p><em><u>Cost:</u></em></p> <p>So that’s it - if you think there are any other options, then let me know - but I think the required 10-12 stadiums will have to come from the 14 I’ve mentioned here.</p> <p>Now – how much will this cost the country? If you add up the total amount I estimated for all 14 venues, it comes to around $3.2 billion dollars. That’s a lot, but when you consider that this number includes two brand new stadiums, and is for 14 venues rather than the required 10-12, Australia wouldn’t need to spend any more than Germany did in preparation for the 2006 edition. Of course with the current financial worries of the world, it’s hard to predict if this number might need to increase a little, but nonetheless I do think that it is financially viable for Australia to be bidding for the World Cup (perhaps that is why the federal government has been so supportive thus far).</p> <p><u><em>My Choice:</em></u></p> <p>So here is my choice for an ideal world cup. I’ve included which games I think each venue would host (remember that a World Cup is comprised of 64 matches – including 48 group stage games, 15 knockout games, and a 3rd place playoff). I’ve also tried to ensure that each ground is not overused, so no ground has more than two knockout matches etc.</p> <p><strong>Match Venues:</strong></p> <p>1. Melbourne – MCG – 100,000 <br />> 4 Group Matches  (inc. 1 Australian game) <br />> 1 Quarter-Final  (Australia’s likely path) <br />> World Cup Final</p> <p>2. Homebush – ANZ Stadium – 85,000 <br />> 4 Group Matches (inc. Opening Match + 1 Australian Game) <br />> 1 Round of 16 Match <br />> 1 Semi-Final (Australia’s likely path)</p> <p>3. Adelaide – New Multi-purpose Stadium – 65,000 <br />> 4 Group Matches <br />> 1 Round of 16 Match (Australia’s likely path) <br />> 1 Semi-Final</p> <p>4. Brisbane – Suncorp Stadium – 60,000 <br />> 4 Group Matches  (inc. 1 Australian Game) <br />> 1 Round of 16 Match <br />> 1 Quarter Final</p> <p>5. Perth – New Stadium – 60,000 <br />> 5 Group Matches <br />> 3rd Place Play-off</p> <p>6. Docklands – Etihad Stadium – 52,000 <br />> 4 Group Matches <br />> 1 Round of 16 Game <br />> 1 Quarter Final</p> <p>7. Sydney – Sydney Football Stadium – 50,000 <br />> 4 Group Stage Matches <br />> 1 Quarter Final</p> <p>8. Newcastle – Energy Australia Stadium – 45,000 <br />> 4 Group Stage Matches <br />> 1 Round of 16 Match</p> <p>9. Gold Coast – Skilled Park – 42,000 <br />> 4 Group Stage Matches <br />> 1 Round of 16 Match</p> <p>10 Geelong – Skilled Stadium – 42,000 <br />> 3 Group Stage Matches <br />> 1 Round of 16 Match</p> <p>11. Canberra – Canberra Stadium – 40,000 <br />> 4 Group Stage Matches <br />> 1 Round of 16 Match</p> <p>12. Townsville – Dairy Farmers Stadium – 40,000 <br />> 4 Group Stage Matches</p> <p><strong>State-by-state breakdown</strong>:</p> <p>Queensland – 12 Group Games + 2 Round of 16 Games + 1 Quarter Final = 15 Games</p> <p>NSW/ACT – 16 Group Games + 4 Round of 16 Games + 1 Quarter Final + 1 Semi Final = 22 Games</p> <p>Victoria – 11 Group Games + 2 Round of 16 Games + 1 Quarter Final + Final = 15 Games</p> <p>South Australia – 4 Group Games + 1 Round of 16 Game + 1 Semi Final = 6 Games</p> <p>WA – 5 Group Games + 3rd Place Playoff = 6 Games</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9zSDwzH8I/AAAAAAAAAMI/pPEQASNhk0A/s1600-h/mcg%5B4%5D.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: 0px" title="mcg" border="0" alt="mcg" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9zVEIXHvI/AAAAAAAAAMM/RjMOPq7Tcz4/mcg_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="240" height="180" /></a>I think that is pretty fair on all states. Victoria only has 15  games, but that is made up for by having the final. NSW/ACT have 22 Games, which is to be expected. Queensland gets 15 games, which is good for them, although the last game in Queensland is a quarter final. South Australia only has 6 games, but gets a semi. Western Australia misses out a little, but due to their isolation I didn’t want to make any teams travel there for a knockout game – they host 1 group, but you can’t play all 6 matches from the 1 group at the same venue, as the last 2 games are played simultaneously. I also gave Perth the 3rd place play-off, which the two teams could travel too on their way home.</p> <p>Another interesting point of note is how many Oval/Rectangular stadiums are used. Although I’ve never seen anything official, FIFA may have some sort of requirement limiting the number of oval stadiums used:</p> <p>Rectangular Stadiums: Suncorp, SFS, Newcastle, Gold Coast, Canberra, Townsville = 6/12</p> <p>Oval Stadiums: MCG, Geelong = 2/12</p> <p>Semi-Rectangular: Homebush, Etihad Stadium = 2/12</p> <p>Unknown: Adelaide, Perth = 2/12</p> <p>I call Homebush and Etihad Stadium “semi-rectangular”, because that’s what I believe they are – this picture of Homebush demonstrates that:</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9zXkQYGfI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/cT38NPCr05k/s1600-h/David_Beckham_-_La_Galaxy_Vs_Sydney_Fc_002%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="David_Beckham_-_La_Galaxy_Vs_Sydney_Fc_002" border="0" alt="David_Beckham_-_La_Galaxy_Vs_Sydney_Fc_002" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8mMpYalgEgOCP-x1fTtkwj9ygcRAqI4cfklx5Je-hjuUKcucF0IZ_O4N8inThfFjL0ErOsLoLDjit9BNCiufm4-KxB_TW02qGJ31hBEGg0Db_oZeKFC0JY25M3UjPjJJoITxWIq8R1PwC/?imgmax=800" width="425" height="204" /></a> </p> <p>I think, to ensure a good quality World Cup, Etihad Stadium needs to be used in rectangular ‘mode’, while the new Perth and Adelaide Stadiums must be built so that they can at least be ‘semi-rectangular’.</p> <p><em><u>Training Venues:</u></em></p> <p>One final thing I quickly want to look at is ‘training venues’. When 32 countries arrive in Australia, they will want to play warm-up fixtures, and to have good facilities to train at. This is a good opportunity for the Football Federation to explore upgrading some A-league grounds, that may not be included in the actual World Cup bid. Some potential venues may be:</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NnDUfI6t9WE/SS9zZoV2yJI/AAAAAAAAAMY/du1UJDveJj0/s1600-h/adelaide%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: 0px" title="adelaide" border="0" alt="adelaide" align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsHzOaq-0xtyrzdezM_TgH10iuA1pqK3tPHK7Gx3jR4r8b7Q1qw5uqHzHWzrUp4zM-q8vxPIU4iogLhLfZ_cnOO7y7N0SS5w5VrQapRaJMdV1riNKyXNEe1JYqSdwqJwHvptECivetxW1a/?imgmax=800" width="184" height="240" /></a>- Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide – perhaps an upgrade to 25,000? </p> <p>- Members Equity Stadium, Perth</p> <p>- Central Coast Stadium, Gosford (Already Mentioned)</p> <p>- Swan Street “Bubble” Stadium, Melbourne (Already Mentioned)</p> <p>- Parramatta Stadium, Sydney – if a West Sydney A-league team is playing there</p> <p>- Hobart Stadium, Tasmania – if a Tasmanian A-league side ever gets into the A-league.</p> <p>That’s it for now, in my next blog I will look at the politics of our bid: How easy it will be to stop the AFL/NRL seasons for a month in June, and what sort of competition we have for the hosting rights.</p> <p>Bye for Now,                                                                  Matt</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-7446967173489612572008-10-10T00:14:00.027+11:002008-10-10T14:45:49.540+11:00Hindmarsh Vs AAMI - ACL Final Venue<span style="font-family:verdana;color:#666666;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS-TajtfabBMQaqqmXSMcK8zdXjAMYCSX1ZklU0gmS8GRgeCdEJbej_g8kHaMOC3dJOm6NyMeOVinvQkvCxKo5oL5hI9jflsBrvh6SL9XzE2cUPGfP6iMb4s4VGu3JGFo__HG7SEWAhXOW/s1600-h/blogtitle.png"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 209px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 173px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255177596278644130" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS-TajtfabBMQaqqmXSMcK8zdXjAMYCSX1ZklU0gmS8GRgeCdEJbej_g8kHaMOC3dJOm6NyMeOVinvQkvCxKo5oL5hI9jflsBrvh6SL9XzE2cUPGfP6iMb4s4VGu3JGFo__HG7SEWAhXOW/s320/blogtitle.png" width="194" height="183" /></a>Adelaide United are in with a huge chance of being the first A-league club to make a final of the AFC Champions League. After a 3-0 victory in the first leg of their semi final on Wednesday night (what a result!) they only need to prevent their opponents, Bunyodkor from winning the second leg by 3 clear goals and they will be through to the final - and will qualify for the Club World Cup.</span><br /><br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It's been a brilliant run, a brilliant story and a happy ending seems very possible.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">One big issue that has come up, is where Adelaide United should play the final match, should they get there. If Adelaide beats Bunyodkor, they will host the second leg of the Champions league final - against either Urawa or Gamba Osaka of Japan. On the surface, it would appear there are 3 options - Adelaide's traditional home ground, Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide Oval (where Adelaide have played a game in the past) or AAMI Stadium, the home of AFL in Adelaide. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Hindmarsh Stadium has been sold out for both Adelaide's Quarter and Semi final matches, which demonstrates the interest this tournament has generated in the city. The final would potentially draw a huge crowd, I would anticipate that even AAMI Stadium, which holds 52,000 people would be sold out for the final. Especially when you consider that we could have 10,000 fans coming from Japan for the game.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">May would suggest, the best option would be Adelaide Oval. United have played there before, the venue is right in the heart of the city and it has a capacity of over 30,000. Unfortunately the Asian Football Confederation does not like grassed areas, so these may be unavaliable for the final, taking away the Oval's capacity advantage. Add to that, it is cricket season, and the pitch would not be in good condition for such an important match. Unfortunately, Adelaide Oval is out of the question.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">What about AAMI Stadium, then? Is it a real option? I'm going to compare AAMI to hindmarsh, and try to outline all the advantages/disadvantages of AAMI, compared to Hindmarsh.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><strong>AAMI Stadium</strong></span><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 381px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 155px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255179344050056290" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKhTo19mqZF0c_LL8Cr71B2HJeCBLYqbB7u1Rl86pZ78FQ9pc-VwhA_CWw1uw-cBJOTZM26bEWZdnc-fzrnSJJSOpVUfbVzJyIZutYUfn5aeqKrNtnux1nJxldNmIl8MweCDFjiMFZ4neW/s320/1428851608_65290c86ca_o.jpg" width="335" height="127" /> <span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">AAMI Stadium is the home of Australian Rules football in South Australia. For many years it hosted SANFL matches, and more recently has hosted all home matches played by the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide in the AFL. It's an oval venue, it's stands have a gentle slope, and it has a second tier on one side, extending along one corner of the ground.</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It's a poorly desinged venue in my opinion (why they built a second tier at the Northern end before putting a second tier on the outer side is beyond me). Even for AFL, the view for spectators is not good. If you attend a game of AFL at AAMI, you get used to watching half the match on the big screens. Not only that, but it is poorly located - crowds are definately affected by the stadiums location in West Lakes. The added drive time, plus the fact that there is not much to do before/after the game in West Lakes definately takes away from the experience of attending matches there. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Of course, if it's not a good venue for AFL - it's a terrible venue for football. The stands are quite a way from the action, and with a venue like AAMI you can't have the intimacy you get at Hindmarsh. The size of the playing surface isn't actually that bad. I used Google earth to compare AAMI's dimensions to a typical stadium with an athletics track (used commonly in world football) - this is the stadium I compared AAMI to, it's Miyagi Stadium in Japan, which hosted 3 world cup games in 2002:</span><br /><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 350px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 257px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255177911312709378" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmVB8oqisgwFV8-_KNWXVjSyeE7IWNoEE89MdhTn7Xg_eJbPKkQAIvLyF-nr9i1FwQDWUoNE29Wp0yFfXpzCqHrjb0k8bTjY0D70IZuFx-B0xJ-xARc-w1f7cHZaKz27666H9rpCHH3NK2/s320/miyagi.jpg" width="342" height="246" /> <span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">The Miyagi stadium is about 10 metres longer than AAMI, and 2 metres narrower. If anything, AAMI should be better than Miyagi for football. Here are some dimensions of other oval grounds that have been used for football (all measurements are taken from the front row of seating):</span></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"></span></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"></span></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"></span><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">AAMI Stadium: 143x182m</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Ataturk (2005 UEFA Champions League Final Stadium): 130x190m</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">MCG: 148x177m</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Olympic Park (Melbourne): 112x178m</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Athens Olympic Stadium: 123x184m</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Of course this doesn't take into account the slope of the stands, AAMI's stands have a very gentle slope, while most of the other stadiums have stands that rise steeply - so that those at the back are still fairly close to the action. Also, most stadiums with athletics tracks have the stands raised by a few metres, so if you are in the first row you are about 5m above the playing surface and still get a good view. </span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#ffffff;">.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Still, AAMI doesn't seem all that bad to me - certainly no worse than the MCG, and not that far behind stadiums like the Telstra Dome or the Miyagi Stadium. I decided to try and 'visualise' what it would be like to attend a football match at AAMI, unfortunately I couldn't find any pictures of football matches which have been played at AAMI in the past (Argentina played Saudi Arabia at the venue 20 years ago - there has been an NSL game there as well), but this is what it would be like to watch football at AAMI:</span><br /><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 385px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 239px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255178479802435362" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnO0FMnHE_j6mqlEV_VA0iEw4iTRFVjz6uSks5RmuLtA8jGrPkk9FnV0FeAPoLMT19VoGxCYhbcPtoosydMwd2-Yo5Ff4K_OFENZd1MG69cW3MnPX9u8ojd_NlhUW6ahwjxUc9V4P_0ukl/s320/aamisky.jpg" width="335" height="195" /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 387px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 289px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255177320741612306" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvi_O9hLEOvwtRkJAQ7cQyFjhcXoNbWtPYCFruRZlhRqGgK034NpDvjTp7JDl0OthU-N-FSgo0axa_UVR9DN-hhbwAoRB879Tmfg2Bd_He4apYnRbqKvqZKJqbf8uu6JgGi2KhGZwdDqkN/s320/aami2.jpg" width="358" height="270" /> <span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Doesn't seem all that terrible, does it?</span> <div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Of course there are other things to consider. By moving to AAMI stadium for one match, Adelaide United could have part of their home ground advantage taken away - a big home crowd could go part of the way towards making up for this, but I'm sure Aurelio Vidmar and the United players would ideally like to stick to familiar surroundings. Prehaps, if AAMI were to be used, United could hold a few training sessions there, to help with this.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Another thing to consider is the playing surface. It is not AFL season, so the turf at AAMI would be perfect, however one potential problems is that the surface at AAMI is not completely flat - the center is around 1 metre higher than the edges of the ground. This could be frowned upon by the AFC.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Overall though, AAMI doesn't seem like that bad a choice to me. Assuming the AFC allow it, we would make more money out of a game there (even though some of our money would probably have to go to the SANFL, who own the ground), and a lot of new supporters would get to see Adelaide United. It would also ensure that the hardcore fans (of both Adelaide and the away side) would not miss out on tickets. It would be good for the game to have 52,000 fans at the Champions league final.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><strong>Hindmarsh Stadium</strong></span></div><div><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 390px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 108px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255178932107590066" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJNkZCscsowyIUEYp2exgiA0b92QTRx9wyzeL6n3BNGnizkgHCQFO6OV6ooiETvJRyjWHOdB55ouYc5fHFjErH0gL1gkOADpio9DojBNnFGw53Mv32glLrX28aaBt-k_ATspeyDwLo2iB/s320/hind.jpg" width="347" height="71" /> <div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">On the other hand, we have Hindmarsh Stadium. Hindmarsh is United's home ground, and is a great place to watch football. You are nice and close to the action, the atmosphere is good (which happens when you have intimate venues), the surface is perfect and the general facilities are also good.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It does have it's problems - the ground is not that easily accessible, parking is hard to find, there is limited public transport to the venue and of course it only holds 17,000 people. All these problems are caused by the fact that Hindmarsh is situated quite close to roads and other businesses, meaning potential for expansion is very limited. Prehaps one day the surrounding properties could be bought, transport and parking could be improved, the ground could be expanded, and United could have a perfect home venue, but for now, this is irrelevant.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It has been suggested that temporary seating could be erected for the match - which was done for the Olympic football in 2000, but even if this could be organised in the few weeks we have untill the game, it would only allow another 3-4000 fans to attend.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">If there's one major advantage that Hindmarsh has in this debate, it's the fact that it's United's home ground. The ACL final may well be very tight, and having a ground that the players are used to, may just be the difference. If we were to win the champions league, we would get an extra $200k in prizemoney (compared to coming second - of course we would probably gain more money than that from ticket sales if the match was played at AAMI), plus we would get an easier draw at the Club World Cup, and we would claim the title of Asia's best club. If United does end up playing the final at Hindmarsh, it should be for these reasons - if it wasn't for this, I think AAMI would be the obvious choice.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi1lhDIiubWn7ZwT1UIyq4hC5OzL86eLhIMeoqjrMqDBdLGdeCcPfZT5Gr7zwTu2Q6bzsif1HsegmgtGHKDvJuUUskb5BCQAKsu4iaxRORToG6x_7bLkfXAKPGFUFLkizV8kdrWSKOBMqP/s1600-h/cl.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 296px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 201px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255180445183919426" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi1lhDIiubWn7ZwT1UIyq4hC5OzL86eLhIMeoqjrMqDBdLGdeCcPfZT5Gr7zwTu2Q6bzsif1HsegmgtGHKDvJuUUskb5BCQAKsu4iaxRORToG6x_7bLkfXAKPGFUFLkizV8kdrWSKOBMqP/s320/cl.jpg" width="315" height="212" /></a>I think it would be a great shame, and maybe a little embarassing to have such a huge game played infront of only 17,000 fans. Not to metion the loss of income, when there are many who won't be able to get tickets, and many Japanese fans who won't travel to Adelaide, even though they would like to.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">I would hate for dedicated supporters to miss out on seeing the game, and I do feel that it's better to have a ticket, than to have a perfect view.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">For these reasons, I hope Adelaide United strongly considers AAMI Stadium as a venue for the ACL final, and I hope they do decide to hold the match there. Most of what I have read and heard in the press suggests that Adelaide United do plan to play the match at Hindmarsh (although there were some reports that they would look at AAMI stadium), but there is still time to reconsider.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">In my opinion, the best thing to do, would be to use AAMI. Make the decision now, get into AAMI and install some good quality player benches, ensure the pitch is in as good condition as possible and try and get a good deal with the SANFL (so that the profit from the game goes to football, rather than AFL). It would seem appropriate, that United's biggest ever match, would be played in front of 50,000 fans.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Bye for now,</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Matt</span></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-5725828831502175202008-07-10T16:05:00.028+10:002008-09-28T22:15:18.960+10:00Australian Football Broadcasting - Part 3<span style="font-family:verdana;color:#666666;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowG5Bji0yYh9sTAuC8jmjHpQJHkxhTbEd55Qe6ggUveed9rf-uuoytsvkLIZvjNucDH08iKFrE1n6A_cOAvUPeb9p2gAShQgUfWhaTUpjv4iyiT540eNRrJrMZX6fGPFchQqE-lLt-Yfd/s1600-h/tvcoverage.png"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; FLOAT: right; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240243111669867058" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowG5Bji0yYh9sTAuC8jmjHpQJHkxhTbEd55Qe6ggUveed9rf-uuoytsvkLIZvjNucDH08iKFrE1n6A_cOAvUPeb9p2gAShQgUfWhaTUpjv4iyiT540eNRrJrMZX6fGPFchQqE-lLt-Yfd/s320/tvcoverage.png" /></a>Having talked about the current state of football broadcasting in Australia - on both free-to-air and subscription television - I'm now going to talk about the future. This blog will contain a lot of speculation, some rumors, but mainly suggestions as to how the current broadcast situation could be improved to benefit football fans.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Let me say first, that I don't believe the current state of football broadcasting is that bad - if you have read my previous blogs on the topic, you will have read a lot about this. The arrival of Setanta Sports onto the scene last year - coupled with coverage of the biggest football leagues on Fox Sports and ESPN, has meant even hardcore fans are now fairly well catered for.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">There are definately 'gaps' though - areas for improvement - important football matches being played, but not being shown. As well as this there is also the matter of Free-to-Air coverage. Pay-tv is always going to be the only place for the dedicated football fan, but it would be nice to see a little more football coverage on the FTA networks. These are the two topics this blog will be addressing - how hardcore fans can be catered for with more comprehensive coverage via pay-tv, and how some basic level of coverage can be provided for those without foxtel. Here it is, the 3rd, and final, part to my blog on Australian football broadcasting.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><strong>Part 3 - The Future</strong></span><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000000;">Free-to-Air Football:</span></strong><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Anyone with pay-tv will know how great it is for football fans. From watching 5 EPL games at once on Saturday nights, to guranteed live coverage of every A-league game. T</span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">here are some, however, that truly cannot afford pay-tv. While for others, it's not a priority. There are plenty of 'casual' fans out there - who may only be interested in watching a game every now and then, it's completely understandable that you don't want to pay $50 a month, just for that.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Pay-tv also suffers from not being as accesible as FTA. You can pay to have Foxtel installed in your house, but if you happen to be on holidays, at a friends house etc - then there's no guarantee you will have access to foxtel. You can't just plug an antenna into a TV and start watching. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Therefore, I believe that one way football broadcasting in this country really needs to be improved, is through more FTA coverage. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">So what coverage of football would be best suited to FTA television? I've talked previously about all the advantages pay-tv has when showing football, and about the problems with FTA. This is why I would suggest that, rather than showing extensive live coverage of football, FTA networks should get hold of highlights packages.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">This would be the best way for one of the big commercial networks to get a piece of the A-league. Coverage would suffer if games were shown live on FTA TV - you only need to look at Seven's recent coverage of the Olympic football to see this. If showing a highlights program, however, ad breaks are natural, and if the timeslot gets moved around a bit it's not a big deal.</span><br /><br />Let me discuss a few points of interest regarding football on FTA:<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><strong>- A-league/Socceroos </strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">The A-league, along with Socceroos matches, are the showpiece for Australian football - and I think it would be good to see some coverage on FTA</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Hypothetically, I think this would work well for the A-league:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Fox Sports shows all A-league games live over the weekend</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Fox Sports produces a 40 minute highlights show, airing on Fox Sports on Monday Evening (around 6pm)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Channel Nine (maybe 7 or 10) then shows this program at 10:30pm on Monday night</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It would give the A-league some FTA exposure, while Fox Sports would still pay big money to keep exclusive live coverage, also fans wouldn't have to worry about coverage suffering as it would all still be produced by Fox Sports.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><a href="http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/utils/imgresizer.aspx?w=470&h=375&n=http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/images/galleries/82533996_10.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 195px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 288px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/utils/imgresizer.aspx?w=470&h=375&n=http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/images/galleries/82533996_10.jpg" height="368" /></a>The reason I mention Channel Nine as a potential destination for the A-league, is that Nine have expressed interest in the past. Channel Nine have approached Fox Sports twice, first before the 2007-08 season, and again earlier this year - trying to convince Fox to give them rights to show 1 game each week. Channel 9 shows cricket during the Summer, but generally cricket matches are played on Friday and Sunday nights (apart from Test matches, which are finished by 6pm) so Nine sees a Saturday night A-league game as a perfect fit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It was rumored that, on their second attempt to get some A-league rights from Fox, Nine were prepared to pay a few million dollars just for 1 game a week. Fox turned down the offer, which is not suprising because Foxtel is always very keen to keep exclusive content.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Although it led anywhere yet, this is a strong indication of the interest that is there from commercial networks. I would expect that we will not get any significant coverage of the A-league on FTA untill the TV rights are next negotiated by the FFA (even then, Fox may be prepared to pay through the nose for exclusive rights), but it is good to know that there is at least interest from the FTA networks. If nothing else, it will drive up the price for TV rights in a few years, which can only help Australian football.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Personally I would rather Nine make a move for rights to Socceroos matches - simply because I think the Socceroos are the perfect team to promote football in Australia - and it would be good if all Australians could watch them play. There has been talk that Nine wants to show the Socceroos' remaining World Cup qualifiers, but it doesn't seem likely that this will eventuate any time soon. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It is very likely that in 2014, when the current TV rights deal has finished, we will see at least some A-league coverage, and some Socceroos coverage on FTA TV. Whether or not it happens before then is entirely in the hands of Fox Sports and Foxtel. Fox has every right to try and hang onto one of it's top products, but it would be nice if they were to (at least) try and help out football in this country by giving FTA networks some amount of coverage. One could argue, that if there was an A-league highlights show on FTA, it would be a great advertisement for Fox Sports and Foxtel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Ideally, I would encourage Fox Sports to make a deal with Channel 9 (if 9 are willing), and have Nine broadcast a weekly A-league highlights program, as well as delayed coverage of Socceroos matches. Fox would still be the only place to watch live football, but with a bit of football on FTA, it would surely grow the game. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- <strong>SBS... Where to from here? </strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">SBS have long been the only FTA network to take football seriously, unfortunately the amount of football they show continues to dwindle. Their weekly Sunday afternoon football programming, known as "The World Game", is still the only weekly football programing on Australian FTA TV - long may it continue. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It does need some improvement though, the "Football Feature" part of the show is a great idea in theory, but the fact that the game played is usually from the middle of the previous week, or a week beforehand, is a little dissapointing. SBS should try and negotiate a deal with Setanta (who have proven a friend of SBS lately) so that they replay one of Setanta's matches from the night before. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Setanta has rights to the top leagues in France, Germany, Italy and Scotland and now has the rights to the FA Cup, as well as international football. Setanta would, in exchange for some free advertising and a bit of money, be happy for SBS to take one of these games each week, and replay it as their 'football feature'. SBS needs to make this happen.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Although it has dwindled lately, SBS has managed to keep some live coverage of football. Apart from tournaments like the FIFA World Cup and Euro 2008, SBS' only regular live coverage is from the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup. In a worrying sign for SBS, their rights to the Champions league expire at the end of the current season, and if rumors are to be believed - they are unlikey to extend these rights, as coverage will go to only one provider, and SBS can't compete with the likes of ESPN financially. I really hope this is not the case, and I hope SBS does whatever they can to maintain rights to at least 1 game a week from Europe's premier club competition.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It has been suggested that one way for SBS to get back some football coverage would be to show local state leagues and grassroots Australian competitions. Personally I disagree with this - SBS is a world broadcaster, and in my view should focus on overseas football. One way they could do this better would be to have a weekly wrap of all the big football leagues around the world. I'm not talking about what they already do on "The World Game", I'm talking about a more in-depth show, dedicated exclusively to world football. The best timeslot for a show like this would be on Monday nights. They could look back at all the weekend's action, show highlights from all the different leagues (thanks to the fairly open media rules in Australia, they would be allowed to quickly go through leagues like the EPL and show all the goals, without paying for any rights), give an update on league tables, and keep all fans up to date with how their club is going. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">I think this type of show that would be well suited to FTA and SBS. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">As far as other content goes, SBS needs to try and hang on to their FIFA rights for as long as possible (currently they have the rights to all FIFA tournaments untill 2014), or at least share these rights with a bigger commercial network - it will be difficult for SBS to keep exclusive rights to the World Cup after the ratings they enjoyed in 2006. Euro 2008 was also a nice coup for SBS, and I hope they do everything they can to have some coverage of all European Championships in the future - it's the type of tournament that belongs on FTA (at least in part).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">I have enjoyed SBS's occasional broadcasts of Olyroos/Matildas matches over the past couple of years, and I hope they continue with those sorts of games, but I really do think it's time for SBS to focus a little more on international football, rather than Australian football. Of course the problem with this is that they are the only ones on FTA who talk about football at all, which is why I really hope another channel invests in some football programming - as I talked about above with the A-league and Socceroos. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#666666;"><strong>- W-league</strong></span> <span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><strong><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 274px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 388px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/images/galleries/78083233_10%20[1024x768].jpg" height="409" /></strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">The Women's A-league (or W-league) is set to kick off this October, and it will have a broadcaster. I am 95% sure that it will be broadcast on FTA TV. The quality might not be up there with the A-league, but it will be very refreshing to see some regular coverage of Australian football on FTA. The broadcaster will either be SBS or the ABC, and I'm hoping that it ends up being ABC (as seems likely). ABC has broadcast netball and women's basketball in the past, and I think the W-league would be a good fit for the ABC.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It is likely we will see a Friday night game shown live on ABC2, with a replay over the weekend on ABC1. If we are really lucky, the ABC might show two games a week, maybe a live Sunday afternoon game - but that remains to be seen. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">You can expect an announcment to be made regarding the W-league broadcast rights within a week or two - probably next week.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><strong>- Is football big enough for FTA? </strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Many accuse the FTA networks of treating football like junk, there is no doubt that some networks have tried to prevent the sport from growing, but nonetheless, the FTA networks won't ignore football forever. The executives of Seven, Nine and Ten are just starting to see that football is indeed a product that can make them money.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">In the past it has been NRL and AFL that have been the most sought after sports for the FTA networks, but they each have their problems - namely that neither is popular nationwide. Seven/Ten payed a huge amount for the AFL TV rights last year, but although the AFL makes them a lot of money, it doesn't really help their ratings in New South Wales or Queensland. This is causing FTA networks to look at football as a potentially superior product to both the NRL and AFL.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">During the past year or so, football has had the occasional chance to prove how well it can rate - in 2005/2006 the Socceroos smashed ratings records for SBS and late-night viewing, more recently the LA Galaxy v Sydney FC match last year rated well for Ten, and Seven and SBS both had good viewing figures for football during the recent Beijing Olympics (as terrible as Seven's coverage may have been). I'm sure that FTA networks will be keen to continue to experiment with football coverage, and if they continue to get good figures, the FFA could be looking at a very big pay-day when the rights are next negotiated in 2013-2014. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">I'll talk a little more about FTA TV when I look at an 'ideal scenario' later on, but now I'm going to look at pay-tv, and how it could (or will) be improved in the coming years: </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000000;"><strong>Expansion of Pay-TV Coverage:</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">If you read my last blog you'll know all about how important I think pay-tv is in the football broadcasting 'picture'. I discussed in that blog a little about the future, and what could be done to provide an even better level of coverage - now I'm going to talk about some specific improvements that need to, or that could be made.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- <strong>More Channels? </strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Foxtel is planning to add as many as 20 new channels next year, so the chances of more sports channels for pay-tv subscribers are fairly good. Here's some of the channels we could potentially see:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Eurosport Asia Pacific</em></span><br /><a href="http://www.telefotbal.ro/pozetv/EurosportFR-4.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 295px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 216px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.telefotbal.ro/pozetv/EurosportFR-4.jpg" height="393" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Eurosport Asia Pacific, a channel already avaliable to Australian viewers through Selectv, is one possibility (discussed in my previous blog). The channel is likely to feature extensive coverage of all FIFA youth and womens tournaments. Eurosport and FIFA have an agreement, which allows Eurosport to broadcast the Beach Soccer World Cup, Futsal World Cup, Womens World Cup and the Men's and Womens Under 20 and Under 17 World Cups.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">I am still not 100% certain if this also applies to Eurosport Asia Pacific - we will see later this year when the Futsal World Cup and the Womens Under 20 and Under 17 World Cups are played. Hopefully Eurosport extends this deal beyond 2010, so that we can always have good coverage of these tournaments. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Apart from FIFA tournaments, we could also see coverage of UEFA tournaments (like the Under 19 European Championships), the African Nations Cup and other international matches. Potentially we could even see coverage of the UEFA Cup or some European domestic football.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Sky Sports News</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><a href="http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/8529/nat21110620061121172513hb8.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 269px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 226px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/8529/nat21110620061121172513hb8.jpg" height="238" /></a>Another potential new channel, with a lot of football content, is Sky Sports News. For a brief period last year, Fox Sports News used to take a feed from Sky Sports News between midnight and 6am, so Australian viewers have see the channel before. It appears likely that it may become a full time channel on Foxtel next year. If this happens, we will be completely set as far as results and live updates go, although Sky Sports News only has limited access to footage.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Fox Sports Football Channel</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">There have been some rumors during the past year or so regarding a dedicated football channel from Fox Sports. It would make a lot of sense, given the amount of football that Fox Sports has access to now now - and the rumors about other content they might be interested in. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Whether or not the rumors have any basis is another matter, but here's some of the content the channel could potentially have: </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- A-league </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- EPL (With additional coverage/analysis from Sky Sports UK)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Coca-Cola Championship </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Asian Champions League (more games shown with interactive coverage)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Socceroos Matches</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- International Asian Football</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Asian World Cup Qualifiers</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Youth/Womens Asian Tournaments</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Olyroos/Matildas/Young Socceroos games</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Asian Club Football </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- J-league (which Fox Sports already has the rights to)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- K-league</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Chinese Super League</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Major League Soccer (Coverage from Fox Soccer channel in the US) </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- South American Football (Argentine or Brazilian Leagues) </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- A nightly wrap of all things football</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">There's no denying that the potential for a channel is there. Unfortunately the rumors I have heard regarding this channel are that, although it was being considered by Fox Sports, they have decided not to go ahead with the plan. However the recent launch of a new show from Fox Sports (Fox Sports FC) did fuel a bit more speculation. If you look at the show's logo, it does look suspiciously similar to the logo of the american, "Fox Soccer Channel".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Fox Sports Football Channel, prehaps? </span><br /><p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 379px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 131px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240321571881394450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmmUCk0BPp6Aui47OQfWbjTj_LYPs1k4OyfFl8PwlLcuBTzZX7C6XE2RoxIGNmep2voUFr1k8MjTmAXMnph4otTzw73YWeOt2fTsPc-EJhcfNMEpOWvnWnCsiELn_4qykBt6VSsuVQUYi/s320/fox+soccer+channel+v+fox+sports+fc.png" width="341" height="127" /> <span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em></em></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- More channels from Setanta</em></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Despite not being an 'official' Foxtel channel, Setanta Sports has made quite an impact, and has already gained some popularity since it's move onto foxtel a little under a year ago. The major problem with Setanta (as discussed on my previous blog), is that there is just not enough air time for the vast amount of football that they could be showing. It has, therefore, been suggested that Setanta will be looking at an additional channel in Australia before too long. My feeling is, however, that we won't see this for at least 12 months. Hopefully it will happen one day though. </span></p><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Other Potential New Channels</em> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">There are a number of channels that you can recieve in several countries, such as Gol TV (an American channel) and Goal TV (an Asian Channel), if Foxtel is looking to expand it's channel lineup, it wouldn't be too hard to rebroadcast one of these channels for Foxtel viewers. I have heard no specific rumors, but we will see.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It would also be fairly easy for Foxtel to include specific club channels in it's lineup. Real Madrid TV is already avaliable on Selectv, it's definately possible that other channels like this could one day end up on Foxtel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">One more thing to mention is foreign language channels. While probably not of interest to most, there are several channels on Selectv and UBI World TV (two small satellite operators) that offer football coverage from smaller countries, in that countries local language. Foxtel already has a couple of channels like this -RAI International and Antenna Pacific, which show coverage from the Italian (granted, that's a big league) and Greek leagues - expect more of this on Foxtel in the next few years.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">There are a few other channels that would make sense, maybe ESPN2, Fox Sports 4 would be nice, but this is just pure speculation.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><strong>- Expanded Coverage</strong> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Football coverage on Foxtel is fairly comprehensive, but I'm now going to discuss it's shortcomings, and where coverage will (and could) be improved over the next few years. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Asian Football</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2007-07/19/xin_500704190840318221543.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2007-07/19/xin_500704190840318221543.jpg" /></a>This is one big area where I think coverage needs to improve. It would be great to see some coverage of the J-league and K-league in Australia - and it would be great to see more coverage of the Asian Champions leauge as well as other AFC tournaments. Coverage of Asian football is probably going to have to come from Fox Sports, or maybe SBS. ESPN and Setanta are both focused pretty heavily on European football, and that's probably appropriate. Fox Sports, however, have rightly developed a bit of a focus on Asian football lately.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Starting next month, Fox Sports will have coverage of every single Asian World Cup qualifier as the road to 2010 reaches it's climax. This is exactly the sort of coverage that I would like to see more of. Much of it will be at a good time of day for Australian viewers, and I think Asian football is great to watch - of course the Asian region is now very relevant to Australia since we joined the AFC.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Hopefully Fox continues to expand it's coverage of Asian club and international football, but with their limited resources they are never going to be able to really cover Asian football comprehensively. This is why Fox needs to make use of the resources of other networks like Star Sports. Better yet, Foxtel could see if they can get ESPN Star to start an Australian version of Star Sports (that would focus on Asian football, as well as cricket and other Asian Sport from ESPN Asia/Star Sports Asia). Virtually every country in Asia has access to Star Sports, and it would be awsome if Australia did as well. The amount of quality sports content from ESPN Asia and Star Sports is huge, and it's a great potential source of content for Foxtel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- <em>European Football</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Most big European leagues are now covered in some form, hopefully with more channels this coverage will continue to improve. There are, however, a couple of leagues that aren't being covered, that prehaps should be. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">The Russian league is fast becoming the 6th biggest league in Europe, and games are played at a fairly decent timeslot for Australian viewers, so it would be nice to see some coverage from Russia. I'm not sure which channel would be most likely to pick up the rights, prehaps Fox Sports would consider covering it, but I would rather see coverage on Setanta - or maybe even Eurosport.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">The UEFA Champions League is something I've always loved to watch, and I'm a little dissapointed that we still don't get great coverage of it here. ESPN shows most champions league games, but a lot of their coverage is delayed, and neither SBS or ESPN even has widescreen coverage or European commentators. If Fox Sports were to buy the rights to the champions league, they could take coverage from Sky Sports UK, use viewers choice, and provide coverage worthy of such a great competition. In 2009 the rights to the champions league are up for grabs, chances are that only one broadcaster will win the rights - so I really hope Fox Sports spends the money and picks up this competition. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">If it stays on ESPN, as expected, I hope that they will start a second channel and show at least 2 games at once - that would at least be an improvement. If Setanta manages to get the rights, at least we should see widescreen coverage, but the chances of multiple games being on at once is fairly low.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- South/North American Football</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">With Setanta, we now get decent coverage of the two big South American club competitions, and ESPN have coverage of the MLS, but it would be good to see coverage from the Argentine or Brazilian leagues. I don't know who is most likely to show these leagues, but hopefully someone picks them up.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">It would also be good if Fox Sports could start showing some of the MLS. ESPN only ever shows games that they also show in the US, and Fox could pick up the rights to games that are shown on Fox Soccer channel in the US. Fox Soccer channel is another potential source of programming for Fox Sports - especially for North/South American football - Fox Sports should definately look to make use of their resources.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000000;"><strong>An Ideal Scenario:</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Now that I've said all I wanted too about broadcasting of football in Australia, I'm going to wrap everything up by presenting my 'ideal scenario' for which channels should have which riawqzxghts, which new channels should be launched etc. Here's what I would like to see:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">-<strong> FTA: </strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- ABC/ABC2</em> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Coverage of the W-League. (1-2 Live games a week, maybe a highlights show)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Coverage of State Leagues/Local Competitions (probably only to local markets)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Coverage of Womens/Youth National Teams. (Although I'd be happy for these to be shown on Pay-TV)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- SBS</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- FIFA World Cups (Possibly with a commercial network), Confederations Cups, Other FIFA Tournaments </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- European Championships</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- FA Cup (Personally I'd like them to show this more extensively)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Highlights from big European Leagues </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Commercial Network(s)</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Socceroos Matches (Delayed coverage of Friendlies and Asian Cup Qualifiers, Live World Cup qualifiers)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Asian Cup (With Fox Sports)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Highlights of the A-league (maybe some live coverage) </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Asian Champions League (either highlights or 1 game per matchday) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">-<strong> Pay-tv: </strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Fox Sports</em> (1,2, 3 and 4)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- A-league (all games live, plus highlights, extensive coverage)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- A-league Youth League (maybe a game a week live, plus highlights)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Asian Champions League (all games live with viewers choice)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Asian Cup (all matches live, as well as coverage of qualifiers)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Socceroos Matches (all games live)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Other Asian Football (World Cup qualifiers, Youth Asian Cups, Womens Asian Cups etc.)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- English Premier League (most games live, highlights of all games, extended analysis etc. with content from Sky Sports)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- English Lower-Leagues and League Cup</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- UEFA Champions League (Most games live)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Major League Soccer</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- ESPN (ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN HD)</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>-</em> Spanish La Liga</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Italian Serie A (Premium Coverage)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- UEFA Cup</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Major League Soccer</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- International football from Europe/North America</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Setanta Sports (1 and 2)</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Scottish Premier League</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- French Ligue 1</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Italian Serie A (Lower quality games)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- German Bundesliga</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Dutch Eredivisie</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Portuguese Liga</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- English Conference</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- FA Cup</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- International Football from Europe and South America</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Copa America (South American Nations Cup)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Brazilian and Argentine Leagues</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- <em>Eurosport Asia Pacific</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- FIFA Tournaments (Womens, Youth, smaller tournaments)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- UEFA Tournaments (Womens, Youth tournaments)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- African Nations Cup</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Russian League</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Coverage from smaller European leagues</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Club football from Africa</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- International football from Europe and Africa</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;"><em>- Star Sports Australia (I don't think it's really likely we will get this channel, but it would be nice)</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- J-league</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- K-league</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Chinese Super League</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- West-Asian leagues</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- AFC Cup</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Gulf Cup<br />- East Asia Cup</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">- Other International football from Asia </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000000;"><strong>Wrap-Up, Final Remarks </strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000000;"><span style="color:#666666;">Well, that's it. I have said all I wanted to about football broadcasting in Australia. I will definately do more blogs on the subject at some point, when new deals are made, more broadcast rights come up for negotiation etc, but for now - that is the end.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Some would ask why I would spend so much time on such a series of blogs. The answer is that they aren't really intended to be blogs that I will read right through. I intended them more as a record of where we are at at the moment - it will be very interesting to read this again in a few years, and see how far we have come - to see if we still have the same sort of problems, or if my ideal scenario has been achieved. I would hope that within 10 years or so we will be able to take it for granted that any significant game of football will be shown live - I can't wait for the day when I can just turn on the TV and always be able to watch live football from somewhere in the world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">But for now, the situation really isn't that bad - as I have outlined there are many areas which need to be improved, but even since I started thinking about and writing this blog there have been significant improvements. Let's hope the situation continues to improve untill that ideal scenario can be reached. Let's also hope that the FFA can continue to get more money from TV rights, so that Australian football and the A-league can benefit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Bye for now,</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#666666;">Matt</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-22670508120848436442008-05-28T23:41:00.009+10:002008-09-28T21:53:39.253+10:00Australian Football Broadcasting - Part 2<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI20BQdZFSNIhhSKbKN27BzoqI-UJhyphenhyphenEE46_YlTIcBMA_uwJe-Iy5kpXnET3kCSEF32dfiP_lhJdenQEuEM43mQobBsy9U2r0xnb5ZM8oghwsdvQhcwX7HEZG4n8jIcu9iFLlGk-QqD5f_/s1600-h/tvcoverage.png"><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; FLOAT: right; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5191634252912613394" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI20BQdZFSNIhhSKbKN27BzoqI-UJhyphenhyphenEE46_YlTIcBMA_uwJe-Iy5kpXnET3kCSEF32dfiP_lhJdenQEuEM43mQobBsy9U2r0xnb5ZM8oghwsdvQhcwX7HEZG4n8jIcu9iFLlGk-QqD5f_/s320/tvcoverage.png" /></span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color:#666666;">The great thing about football being the world game, is that there's so much of it. So many </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzh9CXtAmZS8543QmU6DYHbTScSi5c1as2I5uBMa4tSiWlXOJK26tWYPOLefzfsj98k2RN2XbVoiAPAfuiceiovKnmZz_-mKM7MwN8j8LxQruo3D2T4qu9PDjSmer5HTpoXjSNbs8U6TM/s1600-h/tvcoverage.png"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzh9CXtAmZS8543QmU6DYHbTScSi5c1as2I5uBMa4tSiWlXOJK26tWYPOLefzfsj98k2RN2XbVoiAPAfuiceiovKnmZz_-mKM7MwN8j8LxQruo3D2T4qu9PDjSmer5HTpoXjSNbs8U6TM/s1600-h/tvcoverage.png"></a><span style="color:#666666;">leagues, competitions, cups and tournaments all over the world. Have you ever been to a site like scorecenter.com? On any given day there are at least 10 to 20 games of football scheduled, and on weekends there can be a couple of hundred. So much football that you would need several dedicated football TV channels running 24 hours a day (with no repeats) to be able to show every game. This is why, in order to have even remotely comprehensive coverage of football, pay-tv is going to have to play a major part. </span></span><br /><br /><div><div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div><span style="color:#666666;">You see free-to-air television has some inherent problems. FTA networks make money through advertisers, thus what is important to them is not viewer satisfaction, not even ratings, but advertising revenue. A FTA network could, for example, pick up some coverage to the English Premier League. They could show a live game each week late on Saturday nights. Their ratings at 1am on Sunday mornings would improve substantially, but when you consider the price to buy rights and produce coverage of the Premier League, the small increase in advertising revenue would not be enough to make coverage viable. Therefore, for a FTA network to actually make money out of sports broadcasting, they need to be pulling substantial ratings - an improvement in ratings is not enough.<br /><br />Now I'm not going to claim that pay-tv channels like Fox Sports care deeply about their viewers, or that they have some moral superiority to FTA networks, but the fact is that the majority of their revenue comes straight from viewers - meaning they are forced to put viewer's satisfaction first. It's why pay-tv makes sense, and it's why hardcore football fans will always need pay-tv to be able to get comprehensive football coverage. And so, here is part 2 of my blog on Australian Football broadcasting, regarding coverage of football on Australian pay-tv.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000000;">Part 2 - Football on Pay-TV</span></strong> </span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="color:#666666;">In Australia, the major player in the subscription TV industry is Foxtel. Over 60% of subscribers in Australia get their TV from Foxtel, and the vast majority of the other 40% receive pay-tv through Austar or Optus, companies that feature Foxtel's channel lineup. The result is that there is very little competition when it comes to pay TV in Australia. This has it's disadvantages, but I'd rather the current situation to how it used to be, with several different pay TV companies having different channels and different football coverage - meaning nobody would get complete coverage. There are small pay TV companies like Selectv, which are so insignificant that they can't really be considered competition for Foxtel, although they do have some limited football coverage.<br /><br />On Foxtel, there are 3 main networks that provide football coverage. Fox Sports, ESPN and Setanta Sports. To get access to Fox Sports and ESPN, one needs to pay an extra $18 a month (on top of a basic subscription). Setanta costs an extra $15 a month for Foxtel viewers and $6 month for Austar viewers. (Austar viewers need to have Fox Sports and ESPN before being allowed to access Setanta).</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Fox Sports:</span></strong><br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5191634446186141730" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pU9opiXi9pmx0Fp1vE5URFBXktlZUBNapwYdtTLszjcWwSf0MKes3fUNXSH6dp8lIrs7fYarcslejKk3Alp_Tu0MnavZ7otz-qgtGIux2rXeTiHyhU7rtQJaDItYpH9VNw96mkz2LwDC/s320/Fox+Sports+mockup.png" /></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Fox Sports is Australia's biggest sports network, it is actually made up of several different channels - Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, Fox Sports 3, Fox Sports News and Fuel TV (an extreme sports network). Fox Sports also has access to a 6th channel (Main Event Channel, channel 518 on Foxtel), which they can use if they have a full schedule or want to broadcast an event exclusively to selected areas of Australia.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Since the late 90s, when Fox Sports was just getting started - the network has broadcast the English Premier League. Since then, the premier league has been a key part of Fox's lineup. As well as this, Fox has also had a little coverage of other football, notably the European Championships in 2004, which they broadcast exclusively.<br /><br />In 2005, when the A-league was created, Fox Sports took somewhat of a risk and guaranteed to broadcast at least two games each week live. Within a few months they had extended this commitment to now show every game live, and were quickly negotiating with the FFA to extend their exclusive deal. The A-league was a massive hit for Fox Sports, and saw football become one of their most important products. In 2006 Fox signed a deal that gave them exclusive rights to the A-league, Asian Champions league, Asian Cup, Socceroos games as well as the Japanese J-league untill 2013. For these rights, Fox Sports payed $120 million - or around $17 million a year.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">The A-league quickly became a ratings success for Fox, in it's first year it's ratings were better than the Super 14 (a rugby competition Fox also has exclusive rights too), which had already been around for several years. Although generally not matching the AFL or NRL for ratings during the regular season, the ratings for the A-league finals series (especially the grand final) were huge. Fox doesn't have live coverage of the AFL or NRL finals, and so Fox were very happy to have exlusive coverage of the A-league finals. The 2006/2007 A-league grand final was, at the time, the highest ever rating event on Australian pay-tv, drawing over 250,000 viewers.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Fox really saw how valuable their investment had been when they had exclusive coverage of the 2007 Asian Cup. The record for most pay-tv viewers was smashed, over 419,000 watched the quarter final between Japan and Australia, a record that still stands. The ratings show how Fox Sports had (probably for the first time) managed to secure a really big event. To me the ratings are also an indicator of how many people had subscribed to Foxtel just for the football coverage. Foxtel quickly noticed this, and have invested extra money in the FFA and Australian football through a couple of sponsorship deals.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Currently, this is what Fox Sports broadcasts:<br /></span></div><p><span style="color:#666666;"><em><strong><span style="color:#666666;">- Hyundai A-league</span></strong></em><br /></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Fox's coverage of the A-league is really quite superb. Fox shows every game of the A-league live, with replays of every game, highlights on Monday nights and Total Football previewing the weekend's action every Thursday night. </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">For Friday night and Sunday afternoon games, Fox has a half-hour pre-game show which builds up to kick off nicely. There aren't really a lot of things I could criticise about Fox's coverage of the A-league. The commentary is good, the coverage is produced very well with good graphics etc. Prehaps the analysis is a bit lacking, but still isn't that bad. </span></p><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- Socceroos Games</strong></span></em></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Fox broadcasts all Socceroos friendlies as well as Asian and World Cup qualifiers. All games are shown live, and are generally accompanied by an hour-long pre-game show and around 30 minutes of review after the game. Fox produces all home games, and will generally take a feed from a host broadcaster for away games. This means that for home games the quality of the broadcast is very good, while for away games the quality is variable.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Simon Hill commentates on all Socceroos games, along with Robbie Slater, both do a good job. Andy Harper usually hosts the coverage, he is okay, although probably isn't as comfortable being a host as he is doing special comments.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><em><strong>- Asian Cup</strong></em> </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Fox had exclusive coverage of the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, showing every game, with 28 out of 32 games live. It was very good to see Fox showing this sort of commitment to Asian football, and it was thanks to them that we were able to see how good Asian football can be.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Fox actually provided commentary for most English language broadcasts around the world, and despite being stretched a little thin - the commentators did well.<br />You would hope that Fox's coverage of the next Asian Cup, in 2011, is as comprehensive as it was in 2007. With the ratings that the 2007 tournament pulled, you would expect that this will be the case. </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><em><strong>- Asian Champions League</strong></em> </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Fox's coverage of the Asian Champions league is decent. All games involving Australian teams are shown, usually live, although when the two games are played at the same time fox has often delayed one of them. Recently they have been using a viewers choice system, similar to that of the English Premier League, to ensure all games involving Australian teams are shown live.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">In the group stages, no other games have been shown (so far), however last year they showed one game from each matchday in the knockout rounds, usually delayed, with live coverage of the final.<br />Hopefully it won't be too long before their coverage expands to include several more games, as I think the ACL is a great tournament and deserves good coverage.<br /><br /><strong><em>- English Premier League</em><br /></strong></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DH23DnrM1vUm_3rVz862Icg4NpLXWwWFbEWKcJMWzHicv4TeBVOUNZmoKHyTKfQdwcYGOBtg-VBmZ84y2UbrOi6fdhgRgWd47A-EqKDe9SSApQKr7ykIREDas1uEcTX8CXaUodpqWln3/s1600-h/Fox+Sports+Viewers+Choice.png"><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 266px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 172px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193515261453911330" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DH23DnrM1vUm_3rVz862Icg4NpLXWwWFbEWKcJMWzHicv4TeBVOUNZmoKHyTKfQdwcYGOBtg-VBmZ84y2UbrOi6fdhgRgWd47A-EqKDe9SSApQKr7ykIREDas1uEcTX8CXaUodpqWln3/s320/Fox+Sports+Viewers+Choice.png" width="300" height="184" /></span></a><span style="color:#666666;"><br />Fox's coverage of the EPL has stepped up a notch this season, a new interactive "viewers choice" application has allowed Fox to broadcast more than double the number of matches live than it has in the past. Of the 380 matches in a season, Fox now shows close to 300 live. That's very impressive, and Fox deserves a lot of credit for their innovation. As far as live coverage goes, Fox's coverage of the EPL is as good as comprehensive as you are likely to get, anywhere in the world.</span></span><span style="color:#666666;"> </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">In England there are strict rules about live broadcasting, and they will usually only get 3 or 4 games shown live each weekend. They do have delayed coverage of every game though, and that's something that Fox could improve upon. When a game is not shown live, there is really no coverage of it at all (other than a minute or two on the highlights show). </span></span></p><div><span style="color:#666666;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Another complaint I have is that Fox never replays any of the games that are broadcast via viewers choice. Even if you have a Foxtel IQ (a recording device), you can not record the active content, so unless you watch it live, you can not see coverage of many of the games Fox shows. The reason Fox does this is (unofficially) to promote it's online service, where people can watch these games on-demand (as well as live). Of course even Fox Sports subscribers must pay extra to access this service, I know that for me - it's just not convenient to watch games, in poor quality, on my PC. </span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#666666;">Another problem with Fox's coverage is that occasionally there are some big games that are not shown at all. This doesn't happen often, usually around 9/10 games each weekend will be shown, but the choice of the games that are not shown seems (at times) strange. I understand that the rights Fox has for the EPL are complicated, and although I don't know the exact terms fo the contract - there is a maximum to the number of games, played by each club, that can be shown. Looking at the games Fox have missed this year, I would guess that there is a restriction on Fox's rights, which prevents them from showing at least one game played by each club over a period of a couple of months.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color:#666666;">This wouldn't matter so much if Fox had highlights of every game the next day, however the EPL highlights show isn't shown untill Monday, so often you have to wait a couple of days to see all the goals from each game. It would be great if Fox could take programs from Sky Sports (such as "Goals on Sunday", which reviews the highlights of each game - which is shown on Sunday mornings in England, and could be shown on Sunday evenings in Australia).</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Overall though, Fox's coverage is superb - Simon Hill does an excellent job of hosting coverage of the big games from the studio, with Robie Slater and Spencer Prior providing decent analysis. It is a shame that Fox's somewhat limited resources mean that the coverage is generally only hosted from the studio one night a week (or very rarely at all during daylight savings). </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;"><em><strong>- Coca-Cola Championship/League Cup</strong></em> </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Fox basically shows any games from the Coca-Cola Championship that are shown on Sky Sports in England. Generally they are shown live, occasionally on delay. They take their coverage straight from Sky Sports so it's top quality. It would be good to see a few more games broadcast, but that's not going to happen untill Sky are allowed to show more games in England.<br /><br />Coupled with the rights for the Championship are the rights for the League Cup (or the Carling Cup as it's been know for the past few years). This year Fox showed a couple of games from the fourth round, and then every game from the quarter finals onwards. No complaints about this coverage, it's nice to watch as it's something a little different to league football.<br /><br /><em><strong>- Other</strong></em></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">One criticisim I have, at times, of Fox Sports is that they tend to sit on the rights that they have, with good coverage of things that they already have the rights too, but they tend to be reluctant to show 'extra' coverage. For example, last year the Olyroos went through a long campaign to qualify for the Beijing Olympics - despite coverage being produced of all their games for various Asian markets, Fox only showed one game during the entire campaign.<br /><br />This was quite frustrating for fans like me, there were a couple of occasions when the A-league was scheduled not to clash with Olyroos games - for example when the Olyroos played North Korea in Newcastle, there was no A-league game scheduled for that Saturday Night. It would have been perfect for Fox to show the Olyroos game, however we were left with a night of no football to watch.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Similarly, this year Fox has been reluctant to show World Cup qualifiers played by anyone other than Australia. Fox has to buy rights to these games on an individual basis, which means it's more complicated for them. It's not like these rights would be expensive, but the process of obtaining them has stopped them from providing coverage of games that would be very good to watch, and would be at a very nice time for Australian viewers. There has been one exception so far, when Fox broadcast a World Cup qualfier between Qatar and Iraq, a game that impacted directly on the Socceroos. That was nice to see, but I'm hoping Fox steps up it's coverage over the next few years. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">To be fair, over the past few months Fox has tended to be improving when it comes to 'extra' coverage. Since late last year, Fox have shown games like Wellington v LA Galaxy (friendly), North Korea v Olyroos (Olympic Qualifier), Sydney v LA Galaxy (Pan-Pacific Championships), Qatar v Iraq (World Cup qualifier) - which would all be considered 'extra' coverage, as Fox would have had to buy the rights to all these games individually. Fox also has coverage of Melbourne's friendly against Juventus later this week, so maybe these problems are behind them. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>Summary:</strong><br /><br />Fox Sports has indeed played a major part in Football finally becoming a mainstream sport in Australia. It is very doubtful that Australia could have a football league anything like as good as the A-league without the support that Fox Sports has given.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">They could improve though, they do tend to have an English bias at times - it would be good if they could pick up coverage of some European football. Ideally they could pick up rights to Spain's La Liga, and take coverage from their English sister channel, Sky Sports. At the moment the Australian rights for La Liga are held by ESPN (see below), their coverage isn't great, and if we could get the same coverage that Sky provide in England it would be ideal.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">On that topic, I think Fox Sports could be using the resources of Sky Sports a lot more than they currently do. If you've seen any of Fox's coverage of the Coca-Cola Championship, you will have seen one of Sky's broadcasts. The quality that Sky Sports brings to it's football coverage is second to none, the analysis, the commentators and the presentation is all first class. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Asian Sports TV channel, Star Sports - a sister channel of both Fox Sports and Sky Sports - uses a lot of content from Sky Sports. They rebroadcast many of Sky's shows and coverage, and even take a Sky feed for some Premier League games. During their news coverage, they will always show highlights from every game of the overnight Premier League and take the footage from Sky. Compare that to Fox Sports, who never show footage of the games they don't broadcast.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">With Australian football's recent move into Asia, I for one would love to see Fox Sports forming stronger links with ESPN Star Sports (who run Star Sports as well as ESPN Asia), ESS have some great personalities and talented presenters and a lot of resources that Fox could use. I visited Singapore earlier this year and was very impressed by the quality of Star Sports and it's broadcasts.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Star Sports have a lot of similar content to Fox. They show the EPL, Asian Champions league, and other Asian football. For many of Adelaide and Melbourne's Asian Champions league games this year, Star Sports has flown their own commentators to Australia to commentate for Star's coverage. Star even provided commentary for a couple of the Olyroos games last year, providing coverage to most of Asia - we got no coverage in Australia. It would make a lot of sense if Fox and Star were to work together and share resources - they could share commentary duties for the ACL (prehapse ensuring we always have commentators at the games rather than in the studio), they could even work together to always have a studio panel for EPL coverage. With Fox Sports looking to expand it's coverage of Asian football, forming a partnership with and using the resources of ESPN Star Sports would be a very smart strategy.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>Future:</strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">The immediate future for Fox Sports involves the launch of a new channel, Fox Sports HD. As the name suggests, the channel will provide sport in high definition, and form part of Foxtel's launch of their new HD service. As far as football content goes, Fox Sports will soon have some A-league games as well as Socceroos matches broadcast in HD. English Premier League is not 100% confirmed, although it is very likely that at least some Premier League will be shown in HD next year. We'll have to wait and see how Fox's coverage looks in HD, needless to say it should mean a big increase in picture quality - anyone with a Plasma or LCD TV would certainly benefit from that.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;"><strong><span style="color:#000000;">ESPN:</span></strong> </span></div><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 71px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://imgsrv.1230thefan.com/image/kzym/UserFiles/Image/espn_logo.jpg" height="71" />ESPN is one of, if not the biggest, sports network in the world. It's main presence is in the US, where it has been popular amongst Americans since the early 80s. In the US it operates several channels, avaliable to more than 100 million homes. With it's various international ventures, it is accessible in over 150 countries. Really the only place ESPN doesn't have much of a presence is Europe, the only channel ESPN broadcasts anywhere in Europe is ESPN classic, a channel that simply shows replays of old and classic sports events.<br /></span><p><span style="color:#666666;">At the moment, ESPN is attempting to further expand it's operations - recent acquisitions in Europe leave ESPN poised to further cement itself at the top of world sports broadcasting. Unfortunately ESPN, and the Walt Disney Company (who own ESPN), haven't yet invested a large percentage of their massive resources in ESPN Australia, the channel we can receive here. Hopefully this is changing, as ESPN are about to launch their first international High Definition channel in Australia.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">This is what ESPN Australia broadcasts:</span></p><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- La Liga</strong></span></em></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">ESPN is the exclusive broadcaster of the Spanish league in Australia. Unfortunately their coverage does not match the quality of the football on display. The picture quality of ESPN is generally poor, but for La Liga it is terrible - it varies from game to game, but often it is almost unwatchable.<br /></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">The commentary for La Liga is done from a studio in Bristol, in the US - as is virtually all commentary for football on ESPN. This is part of the reason the picture quality is so bad, the coverage has to go from Europe to Bristol, where commentary and the ESPN graphics are added before it gets to Australia. Along the way there are a couple of conversions between different formats - this is (partly) what causes the poor picture.<br /></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">ESPN's commentators aren't the worst I've ever heard, although they can get annoying. Because they are never at the games when commentating, they can never describe the action quite as well as a commentator at the stadium could - plus the 'atmosphere' of the game is generally slighly diminished, as the crowd doesn't sound quite as lound as they normally do.</span></p><span style="color:#666666;">One thing that ESPN insists upon is using it's own graphics for matches, that means that when the host broadcaster has a scoreboard on the screen, ESPN has to cover it up. Usually this isn't a problem, but for La Liga the scoreboard tends to be the wrong shape for ESPN's graphics, and we end up getting pretty ugly looking graphics on the screen. It would be good to see ESPN just use the host broadcaster's graphics, and put their watermark in the corner - like most other channels do.<br /></span><p><span style="color:#666666;">At least ESPN's coverage is relatively comprehensive, they usually broadcast 3-4 games a week, which isn't too bad. Usually all these games are live, although on occasion they will delay coverage in order to broadcast something like Sportscenter (a news program) - I think most would agree that this is pretty poor on ESPN's behalf - although they haven't done this for a while now.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">One thing that is missing from ESPN's coverage is a highlights program or a wrap, that's certainly one thing I'd like to see. ESPN certainly have to make a lot of improvements with this coverage before I'd classify it as 'good'.</span></p><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- Serie A</strong></span></em></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">ESPN have just signed an agreement to broadcast the Italian Serie A in Australia. They don't have total rights, but they do have what are described as the 'premium' rights, which include home games played by the following clubs: AC Milan, FC Inter Milan, FC Juventus, Fiorentina, AS Roma, SS Lazio, Genoa, Cagliari, Catania and Torino. These are, generallly, the better clubs from the Serie A, so expect to see all the big games on ESPN next year.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Unfortunatley nobody held these rights for the just completed season, so although Setanta had coverage of some of the smaller games, we didn't get to see matches like the Milan Derby. ESPN did, however, manage to secure these rights for the last two weeks of the season, giving us a taste of what to expect next year. I thought the football on display was very good, but like ESPN's La Liga coverage, the picture quality wasn't great.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Part of the problem with the picture quality of the Serie A lies with the Italian broadcasters though. Sky Italia (the foxtel equivalent in Italy) does high definition coverage of the Serie A for it's Italian viewers, but these high quality pictures are not sent to other countries through the international broadcast feed - which is somewhat poor quality and not in widescreen. If they get their act together, maybe there's even a chance that ESPN HD might have Serie A in HD next season.</span></p><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- UEFA Champions League</strong></span></em></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4pJ50AnX60w4x25uRAj441ub1w1h2FjzvHwNSskgPHTJqsNWDeaz4FN8yrhcIt1leqhnNet6o8I75JQejSmhAhcjh7jGLp_yK0nbJHDSTd9M51i0wQ_1Ob6Z1bG-iYojuvv7bqNml5cYh/s1600-h/espncap2.png"><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 290px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 222px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205075712319564018" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4pJ50AnX60w4x25uRAj441ub1w1h2FjzvHwNSskgPHTJqsNWDeaz4FN8yrhcIt1leqhnNet6o8I75JQejSmhAhcjh7jGLp_yK0nbJHDSTd9M51i0wQ_1Ob6Z1bG-iYojuvv7bqNml5cYh/s320/espncap2.png" width="302" height="232" /></span></a><span style="color:#666666;"> The coverage that ESPN does of the Champions league is quite a bit better than their La Liga coverage. The picture quality is decent (still a long way behind Fox Sports and Setanta), the coverage is fairly comprehensive (with replays, highlights, reviews etc.), however the commentary still leaves a little to be desired.<br /></span><p><span style="color:#666666;">Personally I prefer to watch Champions League on ESPN, rather than on SBS, mainly because I don't like the commentators that SBS uses. It is a shame, however, that such a great tournament doesn't get the coverage it deserves in Australia. If Fox or Setanta were to get the rights, they would probably take coverage from Sky Sports (in the UK), which would see a dramatic improvement (we still don't even get it in widescreen).<br /></span></p><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- UEFA Cup</strong></span></em></p><span style="color:#666666;">This year ESPN have stepped up their coverage of the UEFA Cup, coverage is shared between ESPN, Setanta and SBS, and although ESPN isn't as good as the other two broadcasters (who have widescreen coverage and good picture quality), their coverage is fairly comprehensive.<br /></span><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- FA Cup</strong></span></em></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">This will be the last season the FA Cup will be on ESPN. For the 2008/2009 tournament, coverage will move to Setanta Sports. ESPN's coverage is okay, though still suffers from the same problems as their other coverage. Poor picture quality, somewhat poor commentators, no widescreen coverage etc. Their coverage has been relatively comprehensive. Here's hoping that Setanta will improve the coverage in all of these areas.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Incidently, it would be nice to see SBS covering a bit more of the FA Cup as well - at least the semis would be nice.<br /><br /><em><strong>- Major League Soccer</strong></em></span></p><span style="color:#666666;">There's no question that ESPN's best quality coverage is of the American domestic league, Major League Soccer. The picture quality doesn't suffer from the same problems as their European coverage, and the commentators are actually at the game - which makes a big difference.<br /><br /></span><p><span style="color:#666666;">Personally I find the MLS quite entertaining, obviously it's not up to European standard, but I still watch it every now and then. ESPN usually covers a live game on Thursday nights (shown on Friday mornings here). It would be good to see a little more coverage here and there, and some kind of highlights show would be nice, but 1 game a week is probably enough for me.</span></p><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- Internationals</strong></span></em></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">ESPN will usually pick up coverage of a couple or international friendlies or qualification games during an international week. ESPN holds the exclusive rights to England's home matches, although those rights will pass to Setanta (along with the FA Cup rights) in August. Other games they show often involve Germany, Ireland or Sweden - although these rights are decided on a game-by-game basis, so it's hard to predict what games they might show. Between ESPN and Setanta, however, it is likely that most of the bigger games will always be covered.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Because coverage for these games come from different sources, picture and sound quality are varied, although ESPN will still always use their commentators from Bristol. Generally, their coverage is fairly poor.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">ESPN also shows home games played by the United States national team, the coverage for these games is similar to their MLS coverage, and is quite decent. </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>Future:</strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Like Fox Sports, ESPN also has a High Definition channel coming soon. It will be interesting to see how this improves their coverage. Obviously their coverage of American sports (including the MLS) will come to us in beautiful high definition, however whether or not the Champions league or La Liga are shown in high definition is another question. It's certainly possible, as I know that some of La Liga is avaliable in HD in the US, through a channel called "World Sport HD". The Champions league is avaliable in HD in the UK, so maybe there is a chance we will also be getting HD coverage here. We will have to wait and see though.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">As part of launching ESPN HD, ESPN has installed a new fibre-optic link between the US and Australia, which will soon be used to send both ESPN HD and the standard ESPN channel to Australia. Hopefully this will also mean that the standard ESPN channel is improved, maybe even going widescreen.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">On a more global scale, it will be very interesting to see what ESPN does in the next few years. There have been rumors that ESPN is interested in buying Setanta Sports - ESPN has already bought the North American Sports Network (a channel avaliable in Europe), which was previously owned by Setanta. ESPN plans to relaunch the NASN as ESPN Europe, if they were to purchase Setanta Sports, ESPN would quickly become a major player in the European sports tv market - the one market where they don't already have a significant prescence.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">The impact on Australia? Well that also remains to be seen, the obvious advantage would be that ESPN would be forced to establish a proper European base. That would mean we need no longer be forced to get all our coverage through Bristol, and could take coverage of European sport straight from Europe - fixing a lot of ESPN's problems. I will wait untill I see ESPN HD before saying whether or not this is needed, but something certainly needs to be done, because at the moment ESPN Australia is poor.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">One other comment I will make is again in regards to Asia. ESPN runs a channel in Asia that is really fantastic. They take their coverage straight from Europe, with European commentators, and some of the shows they have like Sportscenter Asia are superb. Like Fox Sports, I think there are some major untapped resources that the Australian channel could use here.<br /></span></p><p><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Setanta Sports:</span></strong></p><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 259px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 86px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.theportlandarms.com/pix/setanta_logo.jpg" height="100" />Setanta is still relatively new on the scene in Australia. They are originally an Irish channel, but have quickly become established in many countries around the world - specifically the UK, US and now Australia. They have been in Australia for a couple of years now, but it's still only been 6-8 months since they were made avaliable to most Australians through the major pay-tv providers - Foxtel and Austar. As soon as they were on Foxtel, they made a big impact on Australian football fans - as there is now a whole lot of football coverage that was never avaliable before. Here's what they broadcast:<br /></span><p><em><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- Scottish Premier League</strong></span></em></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">In the United Kingdom, Setanta hold exclusive broadcast rights to the Scottish Premier League, so you can imagine that this is a big product for them, and hence their coverage is of high quality. It isn't quite up to the standards of their main English rivals, Sky Sports, but we don't generally get Sky's coverage here - so for Australian viewers, Setanta's coverage of the SPL is probably superior to the coverage we get of any other league.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">A fair percentage of games that are shown in the UK are also shown here, usually live. Setanta also has a couple of good wrap-up/highlights shows.<br /></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Bundesliga</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta holds the Australian rights to the German Bundesliga. I think the German league is a really good one to watch, it's the most attended football league in the world - and the great atmosphere at the games is evident while watching on TV.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta's coverage leaves a little to be desired - firstly, it's not in widescreen. This is a shame, because all games are shot and produced in widescreen (some in HD) by Premiere (The main pay-tv company in Germany/Austria), but Setanta doesn't get this widescreen feed. (<strong>update - this is actually because the widescreen feed has a scoreboard graphic right in the top corner, and it would be cut off if you don't have a widescreen TV - I think it's time to modernise, if you have a 4:3 TV you should just watch the program in letterbox mode - widescreen makes such a difference if you have a big TV)</strong> Setanta also holds the rights to the Bundesliga in the UK, so it's a little suprising that they haven't been able to get widescreen coverage from Germany yet - hopefully we will see it next year.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Commentary is usually fine, Setanta usually uses their own commentators if they are also showing the game in the UK, but otherwise we get a single commentator (supplied, I believe, by Gol TV, who show Bundesliga in the USA), who usually isn't as good.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">My major complaint with Bundesliga coverage is, however, the level of coverage. Setanta usually has 2-3 games a weekend from Germany, always a Friday Night game (Saturday morning for us), as well as another game or two on Saturday/Sunday - sometimes live, sometimes delayed. </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">They also have a highlights show during the week, which is good, although isn't well put together and good be a lot better than it is - Setanta doesn't produce this show though so I won't go into specifics - hopefully it is improved within a few years.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Serie A</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta have the rights to the "lower quality" Serie A games. Their coverage is pretty standard, no widescreen picture, standard English commentator. Setanta doesn't cover the Serie A anywhere else in the world, so we don't get any sort of fancy coverage here in Australia.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Their coverage of live games isn't that comprehensive, but given that they only have the lower quality games you can hardly blame them for often giving other leagues priority. They do have a highlights show, which shows highlights from all matches, which is well worth watching. Like the Bundesliga highlights show, it's not all that well put together.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Ligue 1</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Like the English Premier League, the French Football Federation outsources production of all the games in the top league to IMG Media and their sports arm, TWI. TWI produces coverage of all games in Ligue 1, with a highlights show just like they do the EPL. Like the EPL, coverage is always in widescreen and is top quality - often the commentators are even the same as the commentators used for TWI's EPL coverage.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta do a decent job of their Ligue 1 coverage, usually they will show 2-3 games a week, sometimes live, sometimes on a slight delay. They also broadcast the highlights show, which is good quality - and very similar to the EPL highlights show that you can see on Fox Sports.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Eredivisie</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">The coverage that Setanta do of the Dutch Eredivisie is superb. The coverage is always in widescreen, and very well put together. The commentators are provided by Setanta (they also broadcast games in the UK) and are very good.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Usually there are one or two games shown every week, often there is a live game on Sunday nights (usually not to late, which is good for Australian viewers) with maybe a replay of another game or two during the week. The highlights/review show is also very good - unlike other highlights shows, it is very simple - really you just get to see 5 minutes of highlights from every game.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Portugese Liga</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta also has the rights to the Portugese Liga. Their coverage is fairly decent, although the picture quality is somewhat poor. They usually show one game a week.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Blue Square Premier League</em></strong></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP7zT1gPemegBLpfxL6upTBXDYaIuyBtloe7Zvr0cZj6rxPDbfyJjjubRBmcKxG4D9FnWXLfrp5HOxbc1QBljcxDY0HZHY-n3jPyB7IOCQXslmYb1IhnR3_pIdGY9jOqGki-O1yoc7hh90/s1600-h/setanta1.png"><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 305px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 171px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205369475197708562" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP7zT1gPemegBLpfxL6upTBXDYaIuyBtloe7Zvr0cZj6rxPDbfyJjjubRBmcKxG4D9FnWXLfrp5HOxbc1QBljcxDY0HZHY-n3jPyB7IOCQXslmYb1IhnR3_pIdGY9jOqGki-O1yoc7hh90/s320/setanta1.png" width="348" height="199" /></span></a></p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta holds the rights to the English Conference (The 5th tier of English Football - otherwise known as the Blue Square Premier League) in the UK. We get some coverage here as well. The good thing about this league is that being so low level, they don't take international breaks and often play at times that the big leagues don't have games scheduled. The football isn't that great to watch, and personally I've never sat through a game, but if nothing else is on, it might just be worth watching.<br /></span><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta's coverage is very good, they are allowed complete access to games and will interview players while on the bench, coaches during the game, players in the dressing rooms after the game etc. You will often find a couple of Blue Square Premier League games shown on weekday mornings, and occasionally a game on Saturday night when there is no higher level football on. They also show the play-offs at the end of the year, which are always exciting.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>UEFA Cup</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta shares the complicated rights to the UEFA Cup with SBS and ESPN. Setanta's coverage is again very good, however they can only show coverage of live games from the earlier stages of the competition.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Copa Sudamericana/Copa Libertadores</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">For the first time this year, Australians have finally got to see some live coverage from the two major South American club competitions. Their coverage is nothing special - poor picture quality, your standard South American commentator who barely speaks English (although he does add a South American feel to the games), but the football is good and it's just good to see some live coverage of these tournaments.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">During the early stages of the tournaments their coverage has been a little lacking - usually only one game has been shown per matchday, but as the tournaments progress they have been showing a few extra games. It's enough for me, but South Americans living in Australia would probably like to see a little more coverage.<br /><br /><strong>- <em>Club TV Content</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">In Europe, the football clubs are so big and so popular that they run their own cable tv channels. Setanta has signed deals with several of these clubs to rebroadcast content from these channels in Austrlaia. Clubs that Setanta have signed deals with include Chelsea FC, Man United, Rangers, Celtic and Barcelona.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Not only does Setanta broadcast various shows from each of these channels, but they are also allowed to show delayed coverage of all matches played by these clubs. That means that Setanta shows all Premier League games that Chelsea and Man United play, La Liga games involving Barcelona as well as Champions League games played by any of the five clubs. Occasionally there is also coverage of reserves matches and other club friendlies.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Funnily enough, Setanta's coverage of the Champions League is of much higher quality than SBS or ESPN provide. Okay the coverage is not live, but it's in widescreen with commentators from Sky Sports.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- Internationals</strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta broadcasts a lot of international football. Rights to most international games are decided on a game-by-game basis, but Setanta seems to always deliver by securing the rights to a wide selection of matches. Obviously the quality of their coverage depends on host broadcasters, although I usually find their coverage is pretty good. The more common teams featured on Setanta include England (away games) Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Turkey, Greece, with a few others.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">As far as 'comprehensive' rights go, Setanta does hold rights to all South American World Cup qualifiers over the next couple of years. Setanta's coverage of these games have been very good - with most games shown live. The football on display is really good, not suprising with teams like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Paraguay etc.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta will also gain control of the rights to all England home matches later this year, which should see a great improvement in coverage compared with ESPN.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- <em>Euro 2008</em></strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">If you've only heard of Setanta Sports recently, it's probably because of Euro 2008. That's right, Setanta is the only place to watch every game of Euro 2008 in Australia. SBS does have some limited rights, but any serious football fan will really want to have access to Setanta this June. The beauty of Setanta is that any Foxtel and Austar subscribers can just ring up and subscribe for the month of June (and then cancel when the tournament is over). Unfortunately Setanta have added a sign-up fee, meaning that if you just want to subscribe for the duration of the Euros, then you have to pay $30, but still - it's pretty good value.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Setanta will show 28 games of Euro 2008 live, the only games not shown live occur when games are played simultaneously during the last group matches. The games not shown live on Setanta, however, will be shown live on SBS. Setanta will also have highlights, replays, analysis - in short, very comprehensive coverage of Euro 2008. </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">They will be taking their coverage from English broadcasters BBC and ITV, which some fans who remember channel 9 and their coverage of the 2002 World Cup might dread, but with no England team playing this time, we shouldn't see too much biased commentary.<br /><br /><strong>Conclusions:</strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">There's no doubt that Setanta is a fantastic broadcaster. Although they do have some problems with their Australian channel, which is a little unprofessional in the way it is run, they do provide an amazing level of football coverage. Thanks to Setanta, we finally have football coverage that is up to the standards of other countries.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Where to now for Setanta? Well the biggest problem they have at the moment is really with air time. So much coverage, and only one channel to show it all. Some have suggested that a viewers choice system (see Fox Sports) is the best way to fix this, but I very much doubt this will ever happen (simply because it would require too much cooperation from Foxtel). It would be great to see Setanta Sports 2 one day, let's hope that happens eventually. </span></p><p><strong><span style="color:#666666;"><span style="color:#000000;">Other Channels/Sources:</span> </span></strong></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">The main players have been covered, but there's a couple of other channels or similar that I would like to briefly comment on.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- Eurosport Asia Pacific and Eurosportnews</strong></span></p><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 183px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 119px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.ralivm.com/webready/Eurosport_logo160X105.jpg" height="166" />Currently, if you have Foxtel, you will probably only recognise Eurosportnews. Eurosportnews is a channel on Foxtel that constantly loops through 15 minutes of sports news. It's a nice channel and occasionally it will have some good highlights from various tournaments, but content restrictions mean that <a href="http://otk3972.cool.ne.jp/satellite/photo/1055/3760H-080211EurosportNews(1).jpg"><span style="color:#666666;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 293px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 221px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://otk3972.cool.ne.jp/satellite/photo/1055/3760H-080211EurosportNews(1).jpg" height="202" /></span></a>Eurosportnews is far from comprehensive in what it covers.<br /></span><span style="color:#666666;"><br />Eurosport Asia Pacific is a new channel, that has recently begun broadcasting in (as you would expect) the Asia-Pacific region. If you are in Australia, the only way to receive it is through the low-cost pay-tv network, Selectv. There is, however, talk that a launch on Foxtel and Austar is a real possibility.<br /></span><p><span style="color:#666666;">As far as football goes, Eurosport Asia Pacific does not actually have that much coverage of leagues etc. What they do have is coverage of tournaments. In January they were the exclusive broadcaster of the African Cup of Nations, and recently they have shown the UEFA Under 17 championships, the UEFA Under 19 Womens championships, and a mini tournament involving various under 21 teams. There's not a lot of 'big' football on Eurosport, but there's certainly plenty of, somewhat random, smaller tournaments - and if you are like me, you'll agree that any football is worth watching.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Of most interest to Australian fans, will be that Eurosport have signed an international agreement with FIFA, that will see them allowed to cover all youth FIFA tournaments. Now, SBS does hold the rights to these tournaments in Australia, but Eurosport's agreement means that any games not shown live on SBS can be shown on Eurosport. So we may one day see very good coverage from tournaments like the Under 20 World Cup through Eurosport.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Incidently, other sports that are covered include Motorsport, Cycling and Rugby - I, for one, would like to see it on Foxtel one day.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>- The Internet</strong></span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></p></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div><span style="color:#666666;">Okay, it's not pay-tv. However I did want to briefly mention the internet, which is a fast growing source for football viewing. I'm not going to talk about illegal streams of football games (although personally I find nothing wrong with illegally streaming football matches on the internet when they aren't even being shown on pay-tv - for example some Olyroos games), but there is an increasing trend towards live and legal streaming of football.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">Fox Sports and Setanta both offer streaming of some content through their websites, Fox has live coverage of the English Premier League while the majority of Setanta's coverage is also avaliable on Setanta's website through a service named "Setanta Broadband". Obviously you have to pay for access to this content. Other places you could try for football content are UEFA (who stream the Champions League), </span><a href="http://www.the-afc.tv/"><span style="color:#6600cc;">http://www.the-afc.tv/</span></a><span style="color:#666666;"> (where you can find streams for several Asian leagues, AFC Champions league and Asian World cup qualifiers - however some content is restricted on a geographical basis).</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">If you are after free content, well there is one site that I have found very good - </span><a href="http://www.bet365.com/"><span style="color:#6600cc;">http://www.bet365.com/</span></a><span style="color:#666666;">. Sign up for a free account and you can watch Serie A, J-league as well as international football without paying a cent.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#666666;">I'm sure that over the next couple of years, legal streaming on the internet is going to quickly become more and more common.</span></div><p><span style="color:#666666;"><strong>Final Summary:</strong> </span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">So overall, how is Australia's coverage of football looking? Well I think that it's finally starting to look okay. Before Setanta coverage was very limited, but thanks to Setanta and their wide range of content, I am certainly fairly satisfied with the amount of football on Australian pay TV.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Where should things be improved? Well there's one big 'blank spot' I see when looking at the content we get - Asian football. We are now part of the Asian Football Confederation and it's a shame that we see very little coverage of the Asian leagues, or international Asian football. Particuarly as Asian football would fit in very well to the Australian timezone.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Fox Sports will need to play a big part in improving this situation, and hopefully within the next couple of years they will start to invest a little bit more in content from Asia, but I don't think they can do it alone. Ideally, we need to see content from the various Asian networks making it's way to Australia - maybe some of the channels that broadcast across Asia could also one day set up a channel in Australia.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Another thing I think our broadcasters could improve upon is taking coverage from overseas channels, and forming closer parnterships with them. This has been another thing that Setanta has been good at since starting in Australia. They tend to take coverage straight from overseas broadcasters (usually in the UK), including full analysis and commentary. Not only does this result in better coverage, but it's cheaper. I know channels like to have their own hosts and analysts for their coverage, but sometimes I think it would be better for everyone if they would just use the resources of larger overseas channels.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">I still have one more blog to go on this topic (hopefully shorter), that will discuss more about the future and how I think football broadcasting in this country needs to progress. I will also use that blog to discuss various rumors that continue to surface surrounding broadcasting.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Bye for now,</span></p><p><span style="color:#666666;">Matt</span></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-57081673059567987732008-04-10T15:24:00.003+10:002008-05-16T17:59:07.901+10:00New Stadium for Adelaide?I would like to make a brief comment on an issue that has been much talked about in Adelaide media this week, it is the issue of a potential new stadium for Adelaide. It wouldn't be a specific football stadium, but it would be a lot better for football than our current major stadium - AAMI Stadium (which really isn't suitable at all). South Australian premier, Mike Rann, has planned to build a new hospital, costing $1.7 billion, and has ruled out a new stadium. The other side of politics, the Liberals, have said that they would rather upgrade our current hospital and have said that one of their goals is to build the new stadium.<br /><br />Rann wants to build a new hospital on a prime location, right next to the torrens, on North Terrace. It's silly because this part of Adelaide is dominated by entertainment venues - it's a perfect place for a stadium, or at least some sort of cultural centre etc.<br /><br />The current hospital is now in a perfect location, right next to the Uni and medical school. The smart thing to do is upgrade it, you would have to do it carefully and it would cost a lot, but not as much as a completely new hospital. You could easily upgrade the building and facilities so that it would be as good as a completely new hospital.<br /><br />Some people want to spend the money reseved for a hospital on a stadium instead, they don't have their priorities right IMO. However we should be patient on the stadium issue, if we were to win the World Cup bid it would become a lot easier to justify the cost. Also, we don't need to spend over a billion dollars on a new stadium, Telstra Dome only cost half a billion, ANZ Stadium only cost $800 million - sure construction costs are up, but we would not be looking at a billion dollars for a new stadium.<br /><br />The reason I will vote Liberal at the next election is that they aren't going to waste an awsome piece of land on a hospital, and they are not going to waste money on moving a hospital, when a substantial upgrade would be just as good.<br /><br />Bye for Now,<br />MattUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-50121991301149590732008-03-27T22:20:00.003+11:002008-03-27T22:45:18.385+11:00Update on Pim's BlueprintAfter yesterday's World Cup Qualifier, I thought I'd do a little update, in reference to an earlier blog I wrote before the Qatar game, entitled <a href="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/pims-blueprint.html">Pim's Blueprint</a>.<br /><br />I believe 'Pim's Blueprint' is the ideal solution to the problems we have always had with our biggest players playing on the other side of the World. Essentially the idea is that a squad of locally based players is well prepared for a game, with training camps and practice matches to ensure they are up for the contest. When a big game approaches, a squad of our best European based players is called up, we aim to field our best squad (as we always should), which is generally going to be made up of players who play in European leagues. However, as is inevitable, not all the European based players are going to make the trip - and if there is little time to prepare some may not come in the best condition to take part. The advantage here is that the locally based squad is ready, if any players drop out then they are there and ready to step up.<br /><br />It's a great way of approaching things, but yesterday we saw a Socceroos squad decimated by injury with Pim having very few options against China, especially up front - we blame the eventual draw on the lack of available players and in light of this we conclude that it was a good result. This is true, but what went wrong? What if things had gone even worse? We can't take any risks when it comes to World Cup qualifying and as far as I'm concerned it is not acceptable that the Socceroos are limited in striking options, when there are plenty of other Aussies out there who could have give our side an attacking edge.<br /><br />I think the main problem this week, apart from the obviously unlucky run of injuries, was that many of Pim's A-leauge based squad were cast aside before the European based Socceroos were even getting on the plane. The A-leauge Socceroos, alongside a couple of European based players who left their clubs early took on Singapore on Saturday, it was a poor game, but there were a couple of standout performers - James Troisi and Nathan Burns. Both were then sent home, Pim didn't think they were in our best squad (he was probably right) and didn't think they would be needed against China. Unfortunatey he was wrong about that, both players would have been very valuable assets in Wednesday's game. Who better to replace Kewell than Troisi or Burns?<br /><br />In the future, the entire A-league squad that Pim has prepared needs to be at every world cup qualifier, when problems occur they need to be ready to fill the void and give Pim a few options.<br /><br />One other thing I will mention briefly is the omission of Joel Griffiths, maybe Pim and the FFA weren't happy with a couple of Joel's remarks after the Qatar clash (for the record, Joel criticised the FFA after he was injured in a Socceroos training camp just before the Qatar game, claiming he wasn't properly looked after. Somehow I suspect his criticism was warranted - why would he make up something like that?), but that's no reason to leave him home - pick your best squad. On that topic where was John Aloisi?<br /><br />Also, I just have to wish good luck to Harry Kewell after he has done himself another Groin injury, hopefully it's very minor and allows him a quick recovery, the chances of him staying at Liverpool are low, but if he can just find some form he will be an asset to any club he joins.<br /><br />Bye for now,<br />MattUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-22589578796242346632008-03-09T22:49:00.012+11:002008-03-11T23:22:28.025+11:00Australian Football Broadcasting - Part 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzh9CXtAmZS8543QmU6DYHbTScSi5c1as2I5uBMa4tSiWlXOJK26tWYPOLefzfsj98k2RN2XbVoiAPAfuiceiovKnmZz_-mKM7MwN8j8LxQruo3D2T4qu9PDjSmer5HTpoXjSNbs8U6TM/s1600-h/tvcoverage.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176456967726054674" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzh9CXtAmZS8543QmU6DYHbTScSi5c1as2I5uBMa4tSiWlXOJK26tWYPOLefzfsj98k2RN2XbVoiAPAfuiceiovKnmZz_-mKM7MwN8j8LxQruo3D2T4qu9PDjSmer5HTpoXjSNbs8U6TM/s320/tvcoverage.png" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">It's great to make the effort and attend a game of football, the experience of live football is like nothing else - and if you are a football fan that would rather watch football on TV than make the effort to attend games, then I would strongly recommend you try to get along to as many games as possible. Of course most of us live busy lives, we can't always make it to the stadium, let alone stadiums all over the world. This is why football broadcasting is very important.</span><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;">It wasn't that long ago, that it was very rare for a match in Australia's national football league (the NSL) to be broadcast on television. Suddenly we have excelent coverage of every game of the A-league, as many as 10 games a weekend from the English Premier League and a heap of other coverage - all live. That's not to say that I am completely satisfied with the football broadcasting situation here in Australia - if you don't have cable tv, you would certainly agree with this - the only football broadcast on free to air television in Australia is a weekly show on SBS, as well as live coverage of the UEFA Champions league. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;">In this blog I'm going to be looking closely at the amount of football that is currently shown on Australian FTA television. Throughout some of my next blogs I will be exploring the coverage that fooball gets on pay-television, and looking at the future of football broadcasting in Australia, (and I have some juicy rumors about what we can expect in the next year or so), for now though - the focus is on Free-To-Air television, and Australia's five major FTA networks.</span></div><br /><div></div><div><strong><em><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;">Part 1 - Football on FTA</span></em></strong></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;">Unlike many other countries, in Australia pay-television is not the norm. Currently only 30% of people subscribe to cable or satellite television, and although this number is climbing, it is difficult for sporting events to attract major public attention without being broadcast on one of Australia's super-powerful commercial networks. Thus, when the FFA sold the television rights to the A-league and all Socceroos matches, exclusively to pay-tv network Fox Sports, many were unhappy. I think most would now agree that it was the right move, part of the reason that football broadcasting in Australia was so poor only a few years ago, was because channel 7 (one of the big 3 commercial networks) held the rights to the National Soccer league - and treated it it like junk, barely showing any of it. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;">The move to pay-television has brought comprehensive live coverage, as well as a lot of money to Australian football, but where has that left Free to Air? - and more importantly those football fans who can't afford pay-tv...</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>SBS:</em></strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Currently the only FTA network that really shows any football is SBS - the smallest FTA network has always supported 'soccer', but it has a lot of problems. SBS is the 'ethnic network' - it has a lot of shows in languages other than English, and generally appeals to the many Australians with an European heritage. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but as far as football goes, many see SBS as 'the way of the past'. Over the years Australian football has struggled because of it's image as the 'ethinc game' - you can see why many would prefer football to be broadcast on other networks, in order to bring the game to the attention of mainstream Australia. Don't get me wrong, I think SBS is a great network, and I apologise if my comments seem even remotely racist, but unfortunately history has shown that Australian's are reluctant to have an interest in a game, that to them does not seem Australian.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So what is currently broadcast on SBS? Well SBS's Sunday afternoon lineup is the heart of it's broadcasts - it's weekly show, "The World Game", is the only weekly dedicated football show on Australian FTA television. It generally has the following format:</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>2pm - </strong>Various football magazine shows, often the UEFA Champions League magazine show, Football Asia or Fifa Football Mundial.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>3pm - </strong>A game of football, often from a slightly smaller European league or a replay of a midweek Champions league game - for example a game from the French Ligue 1.</span></div><br /><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>4pm - </strong>The World Game: an hour of analysis, interviews and reports relating to Australian or World Football.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">SBS Also has occasional live coverage - central to this is SBS's coverage of the UEFA Champions league, they broadcast live games every matchday, as well as a review show. Other live coverage includes the UEFA Cup (which SBS broadcasts from the Quarter finals onwards), the FA Cup final and occasionally some international football. Unfortunately this is really all the regular football coverage that FTA viewers in Australia now get.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Of Course there are also major tournaments, SBS has the rights to FIFA tournaments and is Australia's broadcaster of the FIFA World Cup, they will also be showing a small selection of games from Euro 2008 this year. With the FIFA World Cup rights comes the rights to other smaller fifa tournaments, but unfortunately SBS's coverage of these is very limited.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">One thing you may notice here, is that although SBS does have a bit of football coverage, they really have no coverage of any Australian football - this must be especially frustrating for those without cable television. One could argue, that if Australian football wants to grow, Australian football needs free-to-air coverage.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">However, I personally would rather not see coverage of Australian football on SBS. SBS is not a mainstream station. They have been great supporters of football in Australia for over 20 years, but as football attempts to 'go mainstream', it will not be able to bring SBS with it. SBS would be much better off sticking to it's roots and focusing on European football, while Australian football would benifit more from coverage on one of the big commercial networks.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">One final thing I will say about SBS is regarding the attitude of SBS's on-air personallities. I'll be frank, I'm talking about Craig Foster and Les Murray. Now I respect both of them, and I'm certain they only want what's best for Australian football - in fact I admire their passion, however both Les and Craig have a serious problem when it comes to getting their agenda's across. You see both of them have some strong views about Australian football, they see the public's interest in English football and they believe that Australia should instead be looking at the more technical European leagues for inspiration. They believe that the A-league has a long way to go when it comes to quality and the technical ability of the players. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">These may all be fair criticisms, but the problem with SBS is that they are constantly on about these points. Okay, it's fair enough that occasionally you might want to talk about Australian football, where it's headed and raise these points, but SBS finds a way to inject these agendas into any football broadcasting it does. They need to learn how to analyse football without constantly looking at the bigger picture - they could also learn a bit about being positive - sometimes I get the impression they hate the A-league when they criticise it so much. I'm not saying Les and Craig don't have a point, but give it a rest - especially when you are the only FTA network showing football, you need to have some balance.</span></div><br /><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Channel 7:</em></strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Channel 7, as mentioned previously, held rights to the National Soccer league, as well as Socceroos matches. Throughout the late 90s and early 00s Seven showed quite a fair amount of football. Unfortunately their coverage of the NSL was very poor, generally the only coverage of games would be delayed untill very late night - with maybe the Grand Final shown live. Their coverage of Socceroos games was decent, big home matches would generally be shown in primetime, this included a World Cup qualifying playoff against Uruguay in 2001, where the home leg drew 2,221,000 viewers - Seven's 3rd highest rating program for the year. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">What was good about Seven's arangement was that Seven also had a pay-tv channel, C7 Sport. Some Socceroos and NSL were broadcast on this channel, however the major problem here was that C7 was never available to most Australians, this, along with Seven loosing the rights to the AFL (Australian Rules football), forced C7 to close down, and that also meant Seven gave up the rights to any football. The last time Seven showed NSL was the 2002 grand final. They have shown a handful of other matches since, in 2003 they picked up the rights to two Socceroos friendlies - against Ireland and Jamaica, and they also showed a couple of the Olyroos and Matildas matches at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Since then there has been no football on Seven, although they will again be showing the Olyroos games at Beijing this year. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Incidently, Channel 7 was prepared to pay $2.5 million dollars a year for the rights to the NSL and Socceroos matches - compare that to today when Fox Sports pay $17 million a year and you can see how far we've come, mind you when Seven signed the deal in 1998 many were very excited about it - the exposure of a commercial network and the security of $2.5 million a year was enough to give football fans hope for the future - things didn't turn out well back then, but I'm fairly confident that won't be the case now, mainly because the A-league doesn't suffer from the same problems of the old NSL. One thing to note though, if a commercial network is ever again going to take a punt and get involved with football, they are going to need to be more commited than Seven was with it's $2.5 million a year - otherwise the FFA are just going to keep taking Fox Sports' money.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Other Networks:</em></strong></span></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Channel 9 is generally regarded as Australia's biggest network, though they have little history of showing football. In 2002, however, they jumped on the rights to the FIFA World Cup. This was mainly because the world cup, for the first time, was to be in an ideal timezone for Australian viewers - although 9 didn't show a huge number of games (allowing SBS to show the less significant games), they did get very good ratings - in fact the World Cup final drew 2,702,000 viewers, an all time record for football in Australia - it was also the highest rating sports event of the year (and second highest overall). </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">When you compare these ratings to the World Cup in 2006, when SBS drew 2.3 million viewers for a Socceroos game at 1am (the World Cup final in 2002 was at around 9pm on a Sunday night - absolute prime time), you just have to wonder how many people may have tuned in had the 2006 world cup been in a timezone more suitable for Australians - surely it would have set all kinds of records. Despite this success, channel 9 hasn't shown any football since 2002 - this shows that football can be suitable for commercial tv, but the conditions have to be just right - if games take place outside primetime, it's hardly going to be worth it for the commercial networks.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Channel 10 and the ABC (like channel 7) have also, at times, experimented with football, 10 even broadcast some of the New South Wales Premier League years before the NSL had even begun, more recently they have shown Sydney FC's game against the LA Galaxy. The game rated well, and with Ten's demographic being similar to that of the A-league (they both aim at a younger audience), the A-league may be a good fit for them in the future. The ABC has at times shown NSL games, as well as the occasional Socceroos or Olyroos game, but it has been a long time since they have shown any football at all.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong><em>Issues affecting FTA Coverage:</em></strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are a couple of last things I want to mention about FTA coverage of football. Firstly, there is an interesting school of thought that says that football does not work that well on commercial television. The reason? Well football does not have natural breaks in play. In Australia, the sports that are on FTA TV the most are Australian rules football and cricket. In Aussie Rules, goals are frequent, and there is time after a goal for broadcasters to show a commercial, in Cricket there is a break at the end of every over - broadcasters can make heaps of money from advertising while showing these sports - this is more difficult while showing football. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">In the past commercial networks have tried to squeeze ads into live football broadcasts, before free kicks, before goal kicks etc. Unfortunately this doesn't work well, and games are often disrupted. Some networks have done commercial free broadcasts, with maybe ads appearing every now and then at the bottom of the screen - this works well, however broadcasters don't make that much money from this sort of broadcasting. It is a problem that any potential FTA broadcaster of football will need to look at, this is why I would suggest it might be better for commercial networks to take delayed coverage of games (and allow pay-tv to show the game live), so that they can just pause the game, and not miss any action.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Finally I want to talk about the Anti-Siphoning list, and the Australian Government's role in all this. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The anti-siphoning list is a list, designed by the government, preventing certain sporting events "of national interest" from being sold exclusively to pay-tv. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Various sporting events are included, such as the Olympics, Australian Rules football league, National Rugby League and Wallabies (Australian national rugby union team) games. As far as football goes, there are only two things on the list: The FIFA World Cup, and the FA Cup final. Now the world cup is an obvious choice for the list, and I'm happy that the FA Cup is on the list as well (this is why SBS is allowed to show the FA Cup final every year), but to say that the FA Cup final is of greater "national interest" than Socceroos matches, or the A-league grand final is ridiculus (although you may note that the NSL grand final was on the list, but was remove when the NSL folded - and was never replaced with the A-league grand final). The FFA has publically said that they would not like any of these events on the list, they want the freedom to choose whether or not they want these games on FTA TV, and that's fair enough, but I would like to see the government step in - for the sake of the fans. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Interestingly, the Rudd Government did say during their election campaign that they would put the Socceroos back on the anti-siphoning list, but so far they have not lived up to their word. If you agree that you would like the Rudd government to get the Socceroos on FTA, you may like to take the time to contact someone like Kate Ellis (the Labour minister for sport) - it can't hurt!</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I know that one of the biggest reasons I am a football fan (I grew up in a house that never took any interest in football) is that I was able to watch the Socceroos play in the early part of this decade, specifically games against Uruguay and England. I was only a young teenager then, and it's not up to people of that age to decide whether or not they subscribe to pay television, there are now many Australian kids, and potential football fans, who can't see their national team play. This is why I would love to see at least Socceroos games back on Free to Air television.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Bye for Now,</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Matt</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-8772023078032287082008-03-04T18:47:00.014+11:002008-03-04T21:25:10.347+11:00A-league Kits UpdateI've had a couple of comments and requests regarding my previous blog (<a href="http://mattwintersfootballblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-attempt-at-better-league-kits.html">A-league Kits Could be Improved</a>), so I'm going to do an update.<br /><br />An anonymous Newcastle fan alerted me to the fact that Blue and Red are not really the traditional colours of Newcastle (although these colours are used by the Newcaslte Knights rugby team and were used by the old Newcastle Breakers NSL side), and that the different colours the Jets used were partly to highlight the difference between the Jets and the Knights - and for the Jets to form a seperate identity to the Knights. Thus I have a couple of other possible strips that Newcastle could use as an away kit.<br /><br />The Brown/Green and White colour combination was used by Newcastle KB United many years ago, and it was suggested that I create an away kit based on these colours. I've had a couple of goes at it, The first kit is very similar to KB United's old strip (although it had a darker brown), the other two kits are variations - I'm undecided on which one I like best, there's no doubt they are attractive looking kits though. I'm not sure how likely it is that Newcastle would use one of these kits - green is not part of their logo, and is not one of the clubs colours - one of these would be a great third kit though.<br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173820867282849986" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9n0y-4b-3Sopxz5SFUu2PihYljraCMhgoYs6btK0N_OyKUbzxl6BEx_qi2m-gHKaF0nzRo-1pMCPhdA18c-46O0V_LYnU60bwcJxqeL92B_Fkemq9y101wx5NtgoPO44lNhyv-Cn_uJMg/s320/Newcaslte+extra1.jpg" border="0" /> <span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><p>Another request I had was to update Perth's away stip - personally I like the current Perth away kit, but here's a couple of variations - the look quite nice in my opinion, especially the orange one. </p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173821155045658834" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUIC0Xghz14zayGujzd9wCYeCvNNSadDb469StUwp1ANgI23mXCy6ttUG4H-EYKyYgTqxoa1iNFjpcZpSFo-G1QW1rexAK6CrpA0GQ_3p-8kcz6XuJuDuJAUnwww-WYTrwRo9rDZZijiJ/s320/Perth+Extra.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>Over recent days, it has been a great dissapointment to hear that North Queensland's A-league bid appears to be unlikely to succeed - at least for season 4 of the A-league. The team lineup for next season's competition is now unknown - although the Gold Coast will still be pushing hard to be allowed in, even if it means we only have 9 A-league teams. Here are a couple of variations on my Gold Coast and North Queensland kits from my first blog. I would love to see the blue/green strip become North Queensland's home kit. The club seems commited to the red/black and white colours - of course the problems they have been having and the reported split means that could very well change. The yellow and blue Gold Coast kit might make a good away kit for them, part of the reason I previously gave them a yellow/green strip was because no other kits included any green, but as this blog update contains a few strips with green I thought that may no longer be necessary.</p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173821296779579618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwXfYSs1CGNYteuNpdlndtx7xuCj5cN8nmR6Qq3nMW2_0W3cmTwbphAuUFiFphopLJVNO9972u8hrvmra7VLdUunW-RhaDGvLOqG13Gefegkzr2Gx2qZat7OxnvlkWVrBnu2oS4O4Qbq-i/s320/Townsville+GC+Extra.jpg" border="0" /> </p><p>One of the rumors circulating with the possible failure of the North Queensland bid is that Wollongong may step in, here's my attempt at a Wollongong kit - the colours are a common combination in world football, and I believe they go together very well. <br /></p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173821494348075250" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM4sJNoljk0g-v20N9UwgfTWbn8uHNeyvh-CYkngVIzc3f1OIP3zcp8oszMlSsKyqCLpGLuIct2Wyo7wnhksF1p0Fso5Z8iQiH03U7D08XD9-iMLHawEqEje59l5rsnOhH9f05sZg8MrHv/s320/Wollongong.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>Since I was experimenting with kits for potential new teams, I thought I'd quickly whip up a Canberra kit (green and orange) and a kit for a potential Western Sydney kit (black and red). I don't know if either of these teams will ever enter the A-league, but I think both these kits look great. The Canberra kit is in the style of Werder Bremen of Germany, while the West Sydney kit is similar to that of Paris Saint-Germain.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173821782110884098" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBDkrmvxVNZkzSokbW8Sg0f-NbEsKtTk8InIQN6YISwcSWNd-x2EYiQOqokxkjz348E7N0KngYjTqbiW41qVInILXvvTN85Mj-i7FYHM67_e17DLwFrSjKSuEl58YH0U2ptinpldwMo4J/s320/Canberra+West+Sydney.jpg" border="0" /></p><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>I'm very much hoping that the Gold Coast (and their very impressive new stadium - checkout the picture below) and North Queensland will be a part of the A-league next year, but if one of the teams can not meet the FFA's requirements (and no replacement can be found), I certainly hope that the other is included - even the one extra team would mean a longer season - something desperately needed.<br /><p>Matt<br /></p><p>PS. Nice picture (click to enlarge) of the stadium where the Gold Coast Galaxy will play it's home games:</p><a href="http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/913/skilledparkpanorama500jk0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/913/skilledparkpanorama500jk0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><p></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-45487468823909294172008-02-28T14:26:00.035+11:002008-02-28T21:24:23.096+11:00A-league Kits Could be Improved<div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>Another season of the Hyundai A-league has concluded, and what a season it's been. Big crowds, classic matches, lots of spectacular goals. Next season promises to be another year of improvement for the league - two new teams are set to enter the competition (the Gold Coast Galaxy and North Queensland Thunder), which will mean an extra game will take place each week and the season will last a bit longer.<br /><br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>One thing I would like to see improved in the A-league (it may not be the biggest issue the A-leauge faces, but I think it's something the fans are quite interested in) is the quality and variety of the kits that the teams wear. The home kits are generally quite good, although plain, however 7 out of the 8 teams have a predominantly white away kits. For those of us who go often attend our local A-league team's matches, this means we always see the same colour teams.</div><div><div><div><div><br /><div>For the next season of the A-league, Reebok will be redesigning the away shirts for many of the A-league teams, they will also be creating new kits for the two new sides. As a result I have decided to have a go myself - and see if I can create a bit more variety and a few more interesting kits for the (soon to be) 10 A-league sides. I have kept most of the current home kits the same, apart from a couple of teams which I have decided could do with a new home kit as well.</div><br /><div>For the record, I would like the league to continue with it's policy of forcing teams to wear away kits whenever they are playing away from home (in the regular A-league season), however as some of my new away kits would create clashes there will have to be exceptions to that rule.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>Adelaide United<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnXiyaVF3IIrWPQjjcDoywcsjaBv8BecFUnKxOi705TBXsu8NrkKHWi7U7Q-kntQn4yfOI4_4l6_80w2i6nIdhZhI9XmiD2queodf_6RERLgZLxrtNm4jiE_3zNI1nuY8SfvpPdSfP47G/s1600-h/adelaide.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbVcJ6oKzm4ZcO1EkJ0QsDaaIcKoK5era-IyesUBBq7fr-4VRquQ4ubggTnQAP9Ab2nz6zbmLAh2Dfvx41tSknucBQwN2eGfpSLuHQ8Y2CNmppiZxp6KbwN26O-kTjSXOqQPvc1INH0SdC/s1600-h/Central+Coast.jpg"></a><br /></strong>The home kit is the same as it is now, while the away kit is predominantly yellow. I think the away kit has a nice look to it, although it does clash with the Central Coast's home strip, meaning Adelaide would always need to wear their home strip against the Mariners.<br /></div><br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171967250328934642" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMQkpVSL1K3FFXDF435GI0ROe1B7wWWv2J7nmcYYKtCihlwkbuZ9HzvMmvBdPR3U8_F0bMSBopNo_vZsiXOJPVPtncmNKQbkJ2d1xwxa8MoV_piSEXTgaYrB2YXrJjtmumg2uNkeIrp69/s320/adelaide.jpg" border="0" /><br /><strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnXiyaVF3IIrWPQjjcDoywcsjaBv8BecFUnKxOi705TBXsu8NrkKHWi7U7Q-kntQn4yfOI4_4l6_80w2i6nIdhZhI9XmiD2queodf_6RERLgZLxrtNm4jiE_3zNI1nuY8SfvpPdSfP47G/s1600-h/adelaide.jpg"></a>Central Coast Mariners</strong><br /><br />I've kept these kits exactly the same. The current Mariners kits are some of the more interesting ones in the league and they look great.</div><div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171970613288327426" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5m8AplGw9xeMznHLByNj8chFkiQCRPKSjAgujF4F4BASevxZyhDuq1h6DjXdOX8ckeGQIUP0BC-wcAVVVS1hESb9i2D86IqBcKkLmgItxmbXNvsrkzSkXQAsRXba9HW1nJ0OP8j7TgIvy/s320/Central+Coast.jpg" border="0" /><br /></div></div><div><div><strong>Melbourne Victory</strong></div><br /><div>Again I've kept these kits the same. Melbourne are really the only club to have a distinctive style to their shirt (with the V), and this should not be changed (although a slight change might be a good idea).<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171970797971921170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuNI32woVrH3ekdviq2XUW81SG-Hwpd1P7Lpd-vkTIiOHhkM1TwNTE89pM0pSc4FS21vbWlRD4UPXMCxK7tpzqKsBWA4AzYRN9_KpeMDZmzumrelILu4-KP4eRm2mfGl5jjq0DSNMf2fuL/s320/Melbourne.jpg" border="0" /><br /></div></div><div><strong>Newcastle United Jets</strong></div><strong></strong></div><br /><div>Newcastle's gold home kit looks very nice so I have kept it the same, however I would like to see the 'traditional' colours of Newcastle (the red and blue) used in the away kit - stripes would look great. Potentially you could use the red and blue for the home colours.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171970948295776546" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd338elAowUp4qFKedaZIXxl21xE5DiBCTWwT-MykZVc6mqjYzWzMrJ1jBlCMuezopPLtDiZdhDip6CAqAgaZIhsDOffiia9zoA3keYskvItLD8ueQXXdxQdlhAZOKyRsZMteQZCn82g8z/s320/Newcastle.jpg" border="0" /><br /></div><div><strong>Perth Glory</strong></div><strong></strong></div><br /><div><div>Perth is largely unchanged, although I've added hoops, which I think looks great and gives them a slightly new image - something they desperately need.</div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171971115799501106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB3FB5HwTNAIj801fAbza_Vgd-YTF1Z8x7dfHl2OAdMPfii6hWiYP4-DX1XvyYRyY4PAL6q28qX_HVEzfCtOYD3lUXMPUQtshMaXtjkQ5mGJmneHBb6-CEZV9x-nCGWaz0gKoatb_C2Ja5/s320/perth.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div><strong>Queensland Roar</strong></div><strong></strong></div><br /><div><div>I'm sure most would agree that the current Queensland kit looks terrible. The colours of Orange and Marooan can go together and look great, but Queensland have done a shocking job of it with their current strip. I believe my attempt is a lot better, mainly because it is simple. I've used the blue as an away kit.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171971541001263426" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBUJ-BCVmBgCjC07ZZhRRGYsCIFW6-Cwc4KiPuSX6rBhOvpNDtwYF954XulGe9eUAerZATEvjsD3MMZePNWw2eiSbO7cqV_2yorr93Ku3UF_nM_0e4YKvQJVbKqIUhMOwaB-zLAyfN6Kt/s320/qld.jpg" border="0" /><br /></div><div><strong>Sydney FC</strong></div><br /><div>I've kept Sydney's kit's the same - the relatively plain, sky-blue home strip is perfect for them and their away kit has always been one of my favourite A-league strips.</div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171971742864726354" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Jb_UvWLgLLcbIA-Lar3WZ9e8Awe9Sehko89VJj0EnKk4CKw0tECHybTroU5ARi3s9yaOicCpL4dpMxx9fJV9IwmHrP9Z3pT1xRzJj5Ygx88dTkRCpNAgj537cS19_Dv2WdWohSFpyJIk/s320/sydney.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div><strong>Wellington Phoenix</strong></div><strong></strong></div><br /><div>Wellington fans were hoping for black and yellow stripes for their first season in the A-league, hopefully after Wellington proved that they could pull a decent crowd reebok might oblige - it can't be that hard to take a kit and add stripes to it. Their current away kit is fine.<br /></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171971927548320098" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitAzAm6EhR-Som41CK_e9g6MiNJeQtQYQQH5O-YCJMTGN4zxzBgW2LxfbEZdfGrRf4QDwlCWKkNgP8AYKzR6P7G2HNm-HS6ksdlq6kU2-3z9GzZ-ry449tJwiAkqlRsou3-gusxGDbhWEH/s320/wellington.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div>Now it's a little harder to attempt to design kits for the new A-league sides, the Gold Coast Galaxy and North Queensland Thunder - it is not even 100% confirmed that both sides will enter the A-leauge next season. Both sides have, however, tentitavely announced their colours - the Thunder will use red, black and white while the Galaxy will be yellow and blue.</div><br /><div><div><strong>Gold Coast Galaxy</strong></div><br /><div>Blue and Yellow go together very well, and I've given them a sash in the style of one of Boca Juniors' classic strips. I decided to add green trimming to their home kit, and then use it, along with yellow, for the away strip - I did this mainly becuase no other A-league side has green in any of their kits.</div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171972159476554098" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBgq2S6FM9IjsmWCxks1dBSGnd4Jvq3wbEEEohFoJW-7LZxH6qiMS1Co2oZWBUgmecuz61SZD2zq8FeDYUhExH-Q-A7VnhppEmqBTeafMoF8ueqbJvVQ869xmK68q3oghkkx5CyjuWXQiD/s320/Gold+Coast.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div><strong>North Queensland Thunder</strong></div></div><strong></strong></div><div><br /> </div><div>North Queensland said their colours of red, black and white were inspired by Manchester United - so I expect their kit will look a little like that of the red devils, I've given them a black away strip.</div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171972357045049730" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9F3Cel73MWSHgRvgYNiX3Q6wRZfE6gnoHNfvAl056MScz-G4Xn44TOghJ0tmIJlbXB30WuFbdFzx5_NYemmkBnj5hGdvha1wXNi4FgSBMENdi9xUCRrOigKcnVnvcg2iledmieJmdYFvA/s320/Nqld.jpg" border="0" /><br /></div><div>As I said earlier, this is not a massive issue for the A-leauge, but I'm sure that most A-leauge fans would like to see a little more variety when it comes to A-leauge kits. The various different colours of away strips and shorts would mean that sides will have to be a little more flexible when it comes to the uniform they wear. For example, North Queensland would have to wear their home kit when they travel to Melbourne - and when Perth travels to Queensland they should wear their away shirt, with their home purple shorts - otherwise both sides would have the same colour shorts, which would be annoying for TV viewers.</div><br /><div>Now obviously these aren't going to be the exact kits that we see next year, but I certainly hope that Reebok and the A-league sides are a little more creative than in the past - and I also hope they take a look at a couple of home kits and decide to update those as well as doing a comprehensive update of away kits.</div><br /><div>Here's an image of all my kits together (click to enlarge):</div><br /><div></div><a href="http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/4421/aleaguenewkitsqv1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171941476230191330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 376px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 93px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" height="110" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ0qThc1q3UhNFmBJINDuG1iJwBTK3Saj0Z2_FzsHcD3tKTlnOT-CInBQ0QzrNRmIkNxsdlViBezx-ftzTfw3U-UgmVHugvsAwArgs9gBi4MC7h2Qk6sTguO_Xcz5al92W340dbjN4TBN0/s320/A-league+new+kits.jpg" width="388" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Bye for now,</div><div>Matt</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-25224252431203904082008-01-31T12:15:00.000+11:002008-02-03T20:06:14.299+11:00Asian Club Football in 2009<a href="http://www.lastkick.com/wp-content/P_Moharam_Navidkia.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 294px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 201px" height="194" alt="" src="http://www.lastkick.com/wp-content/P_Moharam_Navidkia.jpg" border="0" /></a>As the start of the 2008 AFC Champions league draws closer, mystery still surrounds the future of the tournament, with the AFC planning to 'revamp' the champions league, as well as 10 of the big Asian leagues, in 2009. Although the tournament was great to watch last year - it was very obvious that the format needed a few changes. Fans of Sydney FC will no doubt agree to this, as they were bundled out in the group stage - despite getting several good results and finishing second in their group of four. This is one thing that will be changed in 2009 - the top two from every group will go on to the knockout stages. Let's look at the rumored changes in more detail:<br /><br /><div><div>- The group stage will consist of 8 groups of 4, including four groups made up of East-Asian teams and four groups that will involve only teams from West Asia. The champion from the previous year will no longer receive a bye through the group stage.<br /></div><br /><div>- The top two from each group will move onto the round of 16 (rumored to be taking place before the Winter break), and from there the tournament will be a straight knockout. Teams from East and West Asian will be kept seperate untill the quarter finals.<br /></div><br /><div>- The Final match will no longer be played over two legs, but will be a single game - played at a neutral venue.<br /><br /><div>- The number of teams from each country will no longer be limited to two.<br /><br /></div></div><div>All these changes are certainly a step in the right direction, but I would like to make a couple of points. Firstly on the knockout stages - I don't think the idea of having a round of knockout matches before the mid-year break is a good one. It makes a lot more sense to have the group stages before the break, and play all the knockout rounds after the break - and balance out the year better.<br /></div><br /><div>Secondly I'm not sure that playing the final as one game will work. It works beautifully in Europe, but over there you have thousands and thousands of fans from all the big clubs who would be prepared to travel across the continent to watch their team play - the tournament also has a lot more prestige, so wherever the game is played - the stadium will be packed. Asia is a much bigger continent for a start, and although there are a few big clubs that would probably have at a few thousand fans traveling for the final, if ever a smaller club were involved - you'd be lucky to get a hundred fans travelling.<br /></div><br /><div>One more interesting point is the splitting up of East/West Asia - I certainly support this in the group stages as it means travel times are reduced and teams don't have to adjust to completely different timezones. I would even suggest that this be continued right through untill the final - you could even treat it as two tournaments - have the "East Asian Champions league" and the "West Asian Champions league" - and then the two winners would play-off. In fact there is a strong argument that the entire Asian Confederation should be split into two - it's already the biggest confederation and the middle east is closer to England than Australia. This, however, is a matter for another blog...<br /><br /></div><div>So far, the changes I have discussed have been, in the main, good ones - changes that will be welcomed by the Asian Football community. However there are a few more issues that have been mentioned <a href="http://www.globalgiants.com/archives/fotos/AFCChampionsLeague40.jpg"></a>as part of the AFC's revamp. The AFC wants to keep the ACL for the big professional Asian leagues, and it seems likely that many smaller leagues may have their allocation of teams reduced, or removed completely, from the Champions League.<br /></div><br /><div>Personally I do not agree with this at all - it is all well and good to want to improve the standard of football in the ACL, but you should be giving clubs from all the decent Asian leagues at least a chance to get into Asia's premier club competition. The smart thing to do would be to have a qualifying system like in Europe - you could give 16 spots in the group stages to the 'big' Asian leagues (generally considered to be the 4 East-Asian leagues of Japan, China, South Korea and Australia as well as the 4 big West Asian leagues of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE) and then have 32 more teams playing a knockout tie in February to decide the other 16 spots. Prehaps the loosers could receive a spot in the AFC Cup - a second tier competition similar to the UEFA Cup.<br /></div><br /><div>The AFC's revamp also extends beyond the Champions league - there have been reports that the AFC is planning to make big changes to several of Asia's big leagues - including the A-league. Around 12 months ago the AFC did a study which identified 10 leagues, the national leagues of Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, India, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which would be relaunched - sometime between 2009 and 2012. Some of the rumored changes, such as increasesd transparency and making the leagues more professional make a lot of sense - however the A-league and FFA are in for a shock if the AFC, as is rumored, forces all leagues to have promotion and relegation.<br /></div><br /><div>Some of the other potential changes are interesting, and could certainly be good ones - salary caps could help increase competitiveness, especially in Japan and Korea - this needs to be done carefully however, as you don't want to drive talent away from Asian leagues and into the lower leagues of Europe. I would like to see a standard foreign player rule - currently the A-league allows four foreigners in each side - I would like to see this changed to allow for 5 foreigners - but only three non-asians. The advantage of this is that it encourages development of Asian football - in much the same way that the foreign player rule in the A-league encourages development of Australian players.<br /></div><br /><div>There is no doubt that Asian football has a big future, and the Asian Champions league is crucial to that future - and also brings a lot of potential for Australian clubs. Let's just hope the AFC makes the right decisions, and doesn't make the sort of decisions that will do more harm than good.<br /></div><br /><div>Bye for now,<br />Matt<br /></div><br /><div>PS. The growth of Asian football would also be helped by an improvement in football broadcasting in the region. Maybe it is just because Australia is out of the loop (unlike most Asian Countries we do not have access to Star Sports or the Asian version of ESPN), but we get heaps of TV coverage of European football, and no where near enough coverage of football from other parts of Asia. On Wednesday all of Asia's big guns will kick off their World Cup qualifying campaigns, but the only TV coverage we get is of Australia's game - meanwhile several International friendlies from Europe (with no real significance) will be shown here... we get no coverage of any Asian leagues (apart from the A-league) and limited coverage of the Champions league. It is an area that needs attention, hopefully the likes of Fox Sports can address these problems - hopefully with the help of channels like Star Sports.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-14204464639098549962008-01-29T09:28:00.000+11:002008-01-29T11:38:11.780+11:00Pim's Blueprint<a href="http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2007/12/06/52roo.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 236px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 353px" height="439" alt="" src="http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2007/12/06/52roo.jpg" border="0" /></a>The new head coach of the Socceroos, Pim Verbeek, probably didn't anticipate the debate that has dominated the Australian football community when he made his comments regarding the standard of the A-league compared to European leagues.<br /><div></div><br /><div>In the past couple of years, the Hyundai A-league has been doing things that many Australian football fans never thought possible - pulling big crowds, good tv ratings, engaging the mainstream media - but the question has always been in the back of fan's minds: how does this really compare to European football? Pim Verbeek's recent comments have brought this discussion out into the open - and all opinions are being laid on the table.</div><br /><div></div><div>At a press conference last week, Pim made this claim: that a player who is training in Europe (specifically at clubs like Nuremburg and Karlsruhe in the German Bundesliga) would be better prepared for the upcoming World Cup Qualifier against Qatar than a player who is playing every week at an A-league club. These comments made headlines around the country - At times they were taken out of context, but they were very harsh comments. It is true that players who are training at big European clubs are generally better players than those playing in the A-league, with better skills and fitness, but training can not prepare you for a big international game, especially when you come up against a team like Qatar, who will be match fit - and very well prepared for the contest.</div><br /><div></div><div>This is shown clearly by past results - in 2006 a Socceroos side with only A-league players beat Kuwait 2-0 at the Sydney Football Stadium (and were the dominant side), while a month later a side made up of European based players (many who had not been playing reguarly for their European clubs) were beaten comprehensively (loosing 2-0) in Kuwait City. Although the weather may have been partly to blame for Australia's loss on this occasion - there was no doubt that Australia's players were not ready for the physical contest. It was a similar story last year at the Asian Cup, the European based players were not ready - physically or mentally - even with a couple of weeks of preperation they could not prepare themselves well enough to even make the semi finals of the Asian Cup. If there was a bright spot in that campaign, it was the performance of A-league based players, who were match fit and showed that they had the quality to play at that level.</div><br /><div></div><div>Both these examples demonstrate how the A-league, although maybe lacking some of the technical quality of many European leagues, provides decent preperation for international football. To say that to be training with a European club is better preperation for the game against Qatar than playing week-in-week-out in the A-league, is false - especially when the European based players will be getting off the plane only a couple of days before the match.</div><br /><div></div><div>That being said, I still belive that the way Pim Verbeek has approached the game against Qatar - whether it be for the right reasons or not - is the best way to deal with these crucial matches - and should be seen as the blueprint for our future games of such nature. Pim has taken an A-league based squad, and prepared it for the game - he has worked with them for weeks, and they are ready to face Qatar in what will be a crucial game. He has then called up 19 European based players, due to logistical constraints, Pim will not be able to work with these players untill a day or two before the match. You can also expect that many players that Pim has called up will never actually make it to Australia, some will pick up 'injuries' on the weekend, some will miss the match through 'general soreness' - this is natural, and in reality these players would probably not be in the right condition to play against Qatar anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><div>This is why what Pim has done will work: when the inevitable occurs and many of the European based Socceroos do not arrive in Australia next Monday, Pim will be prepared - he has 20 A-league players ready for the contest. If 10-12 players arrive from Europe, in good condition and are ready to play against Qatar - then that is perfect. However if many players arrive tired, jet-lagged and ill-prepared for the game, then Pim has a whole squad of A-league players ready to step up. This will ensure a healthy mix of match-fit A-league players, and European based players who will add a technical 'edge' to the Socceroos side. You will not see a Socceroos side that looks slow, tired, unfit or unprepared next Wednesday - you will see a side in great condition, with a real attacking edge. This is the blueprint, that I believe will be used for years to come as we attempt to qualify for big international tournaments. What Pim has done has, I believe, has solved the problems we have over the past few years with no-shows and ill-prepared Socceroo teams. Whether he rates the A-league or not, I congratulate Pim on how he has approached next weeks game - let's just hope the result is the one we are looking for...</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-41927715204918186342007-12-26T12:51:00.001+11:002007-12-26T12:56:17.306+11:00Getting Premier League tickets from AustraliaI've never left the country before, so don't be too jealous, but tommorow I will be flying to London and taking in Chelsea v Newcastle on Saturday (hoping Mark Viduka gets a game).<br /><br />I would like to offer some tips on getting Premier League tickets, for anyone who is thinking of doing this:<br /><br />- First place to try is the Australian Supporters group (have a search in google, you will find one for most clubs), some of them have a process so that you can apply through them and get tickets to a game. I know Aresnal and Tottenham allow you to do this... just make sure you get in early, because often there is only a small window that you can make your applications, this is usually a little over 10 weeks out from the game.<br /><br />- Try ringing the club, discussing the situation. They will help you work out the best way you can get tickets from them, this will probably involve becoming a member, unless it's one of the less popular clubs.<br /><br />- Have a look at fan forums, they may have unofficial ticket exchange processes that don't require you to be a member. If you are only trying to get one or two tickets this might be a good way of doing it.<br /><br />- Last resort is ticket onsellers. They will often charge well over 100 pounds for a ticket, but might be a good way to get one or two tickets. Just search in google for "Premier League tickets" or "Chelsea Tickets" etc.<br /><br />I will be posting reports and photos of my experience here at some point...<br /><br />Bye for now,<br />MattUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-90267527463996633382007-12-24T12:48:00.000+11:002007-12-24T16:47:38.154+11:002007 in ReviewThis year has been an interesting one for football in Australia. The memories of the World Cup in 2006 are starting to fade, but the integration of Australia into the Asian Confederation has given great hope that football will continue to grow as a force in Australian Sport.<br /><br />There has been a lot of football this year, really there has barely been a break - and for football fans, that's been great. The year started off with the conclusion of the A-leauge, as an Adelaide United fan, the 6-0 loss to Melbourne Victory in the grand final was hard to take, particuarly as two of Melbourne's goals were clearly offside, and we had a goal ruled out for offside when it cleary came of a Melbourne player. 4-1 certainly would have been a fairer scoreline, but full credit to the Victory who pushed the boundaries of the A-leauge, and proved that Aussie clubs could thrive - both on and off the pitch.<br /><br />Adelaide and Sydney then took part in the Asian Champions leauge, there were some nice moments during this campaign - Sydney's first-up victory in China and tight contests with the eventual champions - Urawa. I felt Adelaide was unlucky, and when only one team from each group progresses to the knockout rounds, you need a bit of luck - Travis Dodd's hat-trick in the final game was the highlight for me though.<br /><p>Meanwhile the European season was drawing to an end, West Ham's remarkable run to see them stay in the top flight was unforgettable. For many weeks it looked like we may see a grandstand finish to the EPL season, Chelsea and Man United were scheduled to face off in the final week, and when Chelsea had an opportunity to get within 2 points of United a week or so before this game, every neutral fan was hoping that this match may decide the premier league champions. In the end, Chelsea couldn't take advantage of the chances that Man United gave them to catch up - and Man United sealed the Premier League title a week out from the end of the season. Chelsea got one back a week later, winning a dull FA Cup final at Wembley.</p><p>AC Milan took out the UEFA Champions league, although Liverpool looked the better side for most of the game, then again Milan dominated much of the 2005 final, which Liverpool took out on penalties. It was also good to see Harry Kewell come back from injury late in the season, he would go on to do well in the Asian Cup for the Socceroos, and has eventually started to get some regular football for Liverpool in the current EPL season.</p><p>Anticipation was starting to rise for the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, a full strength Socceroos team was called up for the tournament, and the expectation was that Australia would take out the title. Unfortunately for Aussie fans, the tournament did not go well - in retrospect it seems that Graham Arnold and the FFA underestimated the tournament, players all had a break for a month or so before the tournament, and were obviously not fit enough to be at their best. Despite an opening draw, and a dissapointing loss - Australia hit back with a 4-0 win against Thailand to book their spot in the Quarter finals. Aussie fans began to hope that the Socceroos were coming into form at the right time, and after John Aloisi put Australia 1-0 up with 25 minutes to go in the Quarter final against Japan, it seemed that this was the case. Some lazy defending, however, allowed Japan to equalise. The Japanese were obviously fitter and from that point on were clearly the better side, Australia managed to take the game to a penalty shootout, but when both Kewell and Neill missed their penalties, Australia were as good as eliminated. It was encouraging, however, to see two A-league stars in David Carney and Nick Carle score penalties to keep the pressure on Japan, but no miricale was to occur and Australia bowed out.</p><p>On a more general level, the Asian Cup was a good touranment. The quality of football was good, and the tournament was well run. Unfortunately the crowds were poor in both Thailand and Malaysia - but good crowds in Indonesia and Vietnam meant that at least some games had a nice atmosphere. The temperature was also a problem, average temperatures in the mid-30s with high humidity made it very difficult for the players, this is something the AFC will have to look at, if the Asian Cup is going to grow into a really major tournament, then you can't have games played under those conditions - it's going to be a tricky problem to deal with.</p><p>A decent performance against Argentina and a win against Nigeria saw the Socceroos round out 2007 well. New coach Pim Verbeek was appointed when Dick Advocaat pulled out on the FFA at the last minute. 2008 will be an interesting year for the 'roos. The 2010 world cup qualifiers are the obvious fixture, with Australia in a tough group. It will be interesting to see how Australia deals with the problem of unavaliability of European players in their first couple of games - let's hope we can work out a system that will serve us well in the future.</p><p>Australia's women had a big tournament this year, a first up win and two impressive draws saw the Matlida's qualify for the Quarter finals of the Womens World Cup in China. It looked like a massive upset might be on the cards as Australia came back from 2-0 down to be level against Brazil in the Quarter final, however Brazil managed to find another goal and progress - they ended up cruising into the final of the tournament (which they did loose), which shows how close Australia came to a huge result in what was a very successful tournament.</p><p>Another Australian national team making waves in 2007 was the Olyroos. Australia's under-23 team faced a very difficult campaign to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, but they came through a very difficult group to reach the final stage of qualification with some impressive wins. Players like Kristian Sarkies, Nathan Burns, Bruce Djite, Mark Bridge, James Troisi, Neil Kilkeny, Mark Milligan and Adrien Leijer all impressed and look to have a good future. The team would end up topping their final round group (which was required for qualification) after a 2-0 victory over Iraq at a packed stadium in Gosford and a tense 1-1 draw in North Korea. It was a shame that most of the Olyroos games this year were not televised in Australia, particuarly when coveraged was produced for every game - and many countries across Asia had coverage of our games. Eventually SBS decided to show our game against Iraq and Fox Sports stepped in to show the final game against North Korea. Hopefully this trend will continue and we will start to see a lot more games invloving youth and womens teams (especially games in Asian competitions) broadcast.</p><p>Talking of football broadcasting, it has also been great to see Setanta Sports truly enter the Australian market through their transmission on Foxtel. Live coverage of international games, and games from several European leagues has seen Australia finally get up to standard as far as football coverage goes - there is still a lot of room for improvement though. Fox Sports also deserves a lot of credit for it's coverage of the English Premier league - the 'press red' feature and viewers choice has been very welcome, hopefully it won't be too long and every EPL game will be live on Fox Sports. It would be nice to see a little more coverage on FTA television, as that is really a requirement to continue growing the game - hopefully the rumors about Socceroos games being put back on FTA TV are true. It would also be nice to see the A-league (and prehaps EPL) highlights shows on FTA one day.</p><p>The A-league kicked off again for Season 3 in August. The first season of the A-league had the novelty factor of being season 1, and the second season was played only a couple of months after the 2006 World Cup - so Season 3 was always going to be a more difficult year for the A-league. Despite this, crowds are up overall - as are TV ratings and media interest. The Wellington Phoenix have replaced the NZ knights, and have impressed - although they will not make the finals, they have got some good results, played some good football and pulled in some big crowds. The quality of the football has prehaps been a bit lacking in season 3 of the A-league, but this is partly because the competition is more even this year. Sydney FC's 5-4 victory over the Mariners on Saturday was the best game the A-league has ever seen, so prehaps the trend of low-scoring matches is over. The season is delicately poised going into next year, hopefully we'll have a few more classic games as we get close to the finals.</p><p>The international football for the year concluded in November with the final round of Euro 2008 qualifying. Scotland came very close to knocking Italy - the World Champions - out of the tournament before it began, but in the end Italy had a little too much class. Class is something England ran out of as they crashed out at the hands of Croatia, thanks to some terrible defending and goalkeeping.</p>The European club season has been exciting and memorable as always. I look forward to visiting London next weekend to take in Chelsea v Newcastle. As always, the real drama will start occuring next year when trophies are on the line.<br /><br />So what should we be looking forward to in 2008? There will certainly be some interesting developments around the A-league. Expansion is on the cards, and the Gold Coast Galaxy look set to be playing in the A-league next season. There is also a possibility that the Townsville Thunder will see a 10 team league in 2008/2009. New teams will be exciting, and hopefully they will both draw big crowds, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding how the 10 team league will work. I would love to see the season going 27 rounds into March/April and overlapping the champions league, but will there be problems with ground availability? Also, will international breaks be recognised? Will we have a few more midweek games? Will more games be played around the Christmas period? It will be a year of change for the A-league, and personally - I am excited.<br /><br />A revamp of the Asian Champions league will also be considered next year, it is possible that we may see 3 A-league teams in the ACL for 2009, with the format of the ACL tinkered with - this is certainly necessary as the tournament does have it's problems - but it has a lot of potential.<br /><br />2008 will again be a big year: World Cup qualifiers, Euro 2008 and the Olympic Games will be 3 highlights - let's hope it's a good year.<br /><br />Bye for now,<br />MattUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-33810401977116565402007-11-26T15:29:00.000+11:002007-11-26T15:59:14.028+11:00Asian Cup/Qualifiers SchedulingNext year, some of our World Cup qualifiers will not be played on full FIFA dates. Obviously this is a problem as clubs will not be releasing there players and we will have to field an A-league based Socceroo side.<br /><br />This problem is, at heart, caused by the Asian Cup being played in 2007, rather than in 2008. Here are our match dates for next year:<br /><br />Feb 6 Aus v Qatar (FIFA Friendly date)<br />March 26 China v Aus (FIFA Friendly date)<br />June 7 Aus v Iraq (FIFA tournament date - during Euro 2008)<br />June 14 Iraq v Aus (FIFA tournament date - during Euro 2008)<br />Sep 6 Qatar v Aus (Full FIFA date)<br />Sept 10 Aus v China (Full FIFA date)<br /><br />As you can see, our first two games are during FIFA friendly dates, this means that if players are called up, clubs are required to release their players for only 48 hours. Obviously this is not long enough for them to come back to Australia.<br /><br />Both games against Iraq are played in June, when clubs are required to release players as it is an "International period" when Euro 2008 takes place, we should be able to bring a decent squad back for those games - although some players may want rest.<br /><br />Our last games on September 6 and 10 fall on a full FIFA date, players are required to be released for at least 4-5 days so we could get a strong squad back here.<br /><br />Now the real problem is the first two games we play, we will be able to get back virtually no European players, and although we should be able to put out a decent, A-league based lineup it will make things difficult. If all our games were on full fifa dates, things would be easier - we probably wouldn't see every one of the Socceroo stars back in Australia for every game, but we could negotiate with clubs and see at least a few of our best players coming back for every match.<br /><br />I'm sure the problem that Australia has is also an issue for the likes of Japan and Korea. If Asian football wants to grow, more and more asian players will need to start making an impact in Europe, and hence the problem that Australia is having will spread to even more nations eventually. Thus it is important to Asian football, that in the future all qualifiers are scheduled on full fifa dates.<br /><br />How could this be achieved? Well fifa designs it's schedule based on the European teams having a major tournament every two years, the World Cup in 2006/2010 etc. and then the European Championships in 2008/2010 etc. The full fifa dates are designed for qualifying for these tournaments, European teams don't start qualifying for the World Cup untill after Euro 2008, thus full FIFA dates don't occur in the first half of next year, only friendly dates are scheduled. The AFC should realise this and should not have started World Cup qualifying early next year, but later in the year.<br /><br />Here's the easy solution (note that there is obviously is no chance of a change for this qualifying campaign - but an example of what could be done in the future):<br /><br />There is a full FIFA date from October 11 to October 15 next year, the two games from February 6 and March 26 could be moved to this date, bringing all World Cup Qualifying matches onto full fifa dates. There will be enough full fifa dates to ensure this also happens in 2009 with the final round of qualifiers.<br /><br />The sensible thing to do, would be to hold the Asian Cup next year, rather than this year - World Cup qualifying could start in June, then teams could go off to the Asian Cup in July (which doesn't clash with Euro 2008), and then this round of World Cup qualifying could be concluded on the two, full fifa dates remaining in 2008.<br /><br />This would work well, as 2007 would have been an easier year for our players, who do need rest - you could have had Asian Cup qualifying last year, but that is hardly as crucial as World Cup qualifying, and you wouldn't need to get all our best players back for every game (although there would still be more than enough designated dates for all games to be played on full fifa dates). Go back to 2006, and you would then have the entire year focused on just the World Cup, no Asian Cup qualifiers to worry about - and an easy second half of the year (although probably a friendly) for our players.<br /><br />The reason that the 2007 Asian Cup was held in 2007, rather than 2008 was to avoid a clash with Euro 2008 and the Olympics - but this is hardly a problem. It would not be a direct clash anyway, Euro 2008 would have finished a week or so before the Asian Cup, while the Olympics would not be untill a few weeks after the Asian Cup had finished - yes media attention might have been lower given the other significant events happening next year, but it would have made a lot more sense, and long term it would be a lot better for Asian football.<br /><br />Now obviously it's too late to make the suggested changes now, but going forward we have the chance to put the Asian Cup back to the "middle year" between world cups - the next Asian Cup is being played in January 2011, this is only a few months after the 2010 World Cup, and is going to leave a huge gap between major tournaments for the Socceroos and other major Asian nations. It is not too late to reschedule the tournament to January 2012. By 2016, the tournament could be back where it belongs - almost exactly in between world cups - July 2016.<br /><br />The scheduling for qualifiers is then simple, 2015 would be all about Asian Cup qualifying, 2016 would have the Asian Cup as well as early World Cup qualifiers, 2017 would have the major round of World Cup qualifiers and 2018 would be devoted to friendlies and the World Cup.<br /><br />It is the best way forward for Asian football.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-37293503299181205592007-11-13T15:40:00.000+11:002007-11-13T19:13:29.046+11:00Big Weekend of International FootballMassive, Massive week of international football this week. The centerpiece is the final round of Euro 2008 qualifiers, with a few other big games as well.<br /><br />The biggest game of the week is probably Scotland v Italy. The winner will qualify for Euro 2008, while the looser is gone - and given the results Scotland have had lately, you'd have to say that it could easily go either way.<br /><br />England's fate is also on the line - although their fate is not in their hands - if Russia beats Israel on Saturday morning, they will only need to beat minnows Andorra to qualify for Euro 2008 at England's expense. Lose or Draw in Israel, and England's fate is back in their own hands - they will need to beat Croatia at Wembley next wednesday to go through.<br /><br />There's also a couple of important games for Australian fans. Firstly, on Saturday night the Olyroos place in the Beijing Olympics is on the line as they face Iraq in Gosford - only a win will do. The Socceroos are also in action against Nigeria in London.<br /><br />Here's a schedule of the games/broadcast details:<br /><br /><strong>Saturday Morning</strong><br /><br />-> International Friendly<br />Austria v England - Setanta Sports - 6:30am (LIVE)<br /><br /><strong>Saturday Night / Sunday</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />-> 2008 Olympic Games Qualifier<br />Olyroos v Iraq - SBS - 10:15pm<br /><br />-> International Friendly<br />Socceroos v Nigeria - Fox Sports 2 - 1am (LIVE)<br /><br />-> Euro 2008 Qualifiers<br />Wales v Ireland - Setanta Sports - 1am (LIVE)<br />Scotland v Italy - ESPN - 3:25am (LIVE)<br />Israel v Russia - Setanta Sports - 4:30am (LIVE)<br />Germany v Cyprus - ESPN - 9:30am<br />Norway v Turkey - ESPN - 11:30am<br />Greece v Malta - Setanta Sports - 1:30pm<br />Poland v Belgium - Setanta Sports - 3:15pm<br /><br />-> World Cup 2010 Qualifiers<br />Colombia v Venezuela - Setanta Sports - 7:30am (LIVE)<br />Paraguay v Ecuador - Setanta Sports - 11:40am (LIVE)<br />Argentina v Bolivia - Setanta Sports - 11:45am<br /><br /><strong>Wednesday Morning</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />-> World Cup 2010 Qualifiers<br />Venezuela v Bolivia - Setanta Sports - 9am (LIVE)<br />Colombia v Argentina - Setanta Sports - 11:15am (LIVE)<br /><br /><strong>Thursday Morning</strong><br /><br />-> Euro 2008 Qualifiers<br />Romania vs Albania - Setanta Sports - 2:30am (LIVE)<br />England vs. Croatia - ESPN - 6:25am (LIVE)<br />Ukraine vs France - Setanta Sports - 6am (LIVE)<br />Hungary vs. Greece - ESPN - 8:30am<br />Portugal vs Finland - Setanta Sports - 11:15pm Thursday Night<br /><br />-> World Cup 2010 Qualifiers<br />Ecuador vs Peru - Setanta Sports - 8am (LIVE)<br />Brazil vs Uruguay - Setanta Sports - 10am (LIVE)<br />Chile vs Paraguay - Setanta Sports - 12pm (LIVE)<br /><br /><strong>Friday<br /></strong><br />-> Euro 2008 Qualifiers<br />Germany v Wales - ESPN - 9:30am<br />Hungary v Greece - Setanta Sports - 9:30pm<br />Serbia v Poland - Setanta Sports - 11:15pmUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256867851726104899.post-39076501253707478842007-07-15T18:18:00.001+10:002007-07-15T18:22:10.131+10:00Tommorow Night - the ScenariosAFC Rules:<br /><br />In the league system the ranking in each group is determined as follows:<br />i. Greater number of points obtained in all group matches;<br />ii. If two or more Teams are equal on the basis of the above criterion, their place shall be determined as follows:<br /><br />a) Greater number of points obtained in the group matches between the Teams concerned;<br />b) Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the Teams concerned;<br />c) Greater number of goals scored in the group matches between the Teams concerned;<br />d) Goal difference in all the group matches;<br />e) Greater number of goals scored in all the group matches;<br />f) Kicks from the penalty mark if only two Teams are involved and they are both on the field of play;<br />g) Drawing of lots<br /><br /><br />Therefore:<br /><br />Australia win, Oman fails to win -> Iraq top group, We go through ahead of thailand on virtue of head-to-head record.<br /><br />Australia win 1-0, Oman wins 1-0 (generally if Oman and Australia both win by one goal) -> All teams on Four points, Iraq and Thailand go through on goal difference.<br /><br />Australia win 1-0, Oman wins 2-0 (Generally if Australia win by one goal, Oman by two) -> All teams on four points, Thailand goes through with best goal difference, Iraq goes through on goals scored.<br /><br />Australia win 2-0, Oman wins 1-0 (generally if Australia wins by two goals, Oman by 1) -> All teams on four points, Iraq goes through on goal difference, Australia goes through ahead of thailand on goals scored.<br /><br />Australia win 2-0, Oman wins 2-0 (generally if both Australia and Oman win by two goals and scoreline is the same or Australia scores more goals) -> All teams equal points and goal difference, Australia and Iraq through on goals scored - If Australia score enough goals they could go top.<br /><br />Australia wins 2-0, Oman wins 3-1 (generally if both Australia and Oman win by two goals and Oman score one more goals than Australia) -> All teams equal points and goal difference, Iraq goes through on goals scored, Australia and Oman must draw lots to decide who goes through.<br /><br />Australia wins 2-0, Oman wins 4-2 (generally if both Australia and Oman win by two goals and Oman score two or more goals than Australia) -> All teams equal points and goal difference, Iraq and Oman through on goals scored (conspiracy theorists take note)<br /><br />Australia wins by 3 goals, Oman win by less than 3 goals -> Iraq and Australia through, Australia could finish top if Oman win by two goals. If Oman were to win by one goal and Iraq score 1 goal (ie. 2-1) then lots would be drawn to determine group winner, if Oman were to win 1-0 then Australia would top group, 3-2 to oman or higher numbers would mean Iraq would top group.<br /><br />Australia wins by 3 goals, Oman by 3 goals -> Australia and Oman through, Australia top on goals scored if scoreline is the same or more goals to Australia, if Oman score one more goal than Australia lots are drawn to determine group winner, if Oman score two more goals than Australia then Oman finish top.<br /><br />Australia wins by 3 goals, Oman by more than 3 -> Australia and Oman through, Oman top.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3