A-League

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A-League 2006-07

**A-League**
General Information

Founded	2004
Sport	Football (soccer)
Motto	It's football, but not as you know it
Country	Australia New Zealand
Current Teams	Adelaide United Central Coast Mariners Melbourne Victory Newcastle Jets Wellington Phoenix Perth Glory Queensland Roar Sydney FC
Leading champions and premiers
Champions	Sydney FC (1), Melbourne Victory (1)
Premiers	Adelaide United (1), Melbourne Victory (1)
2006-07 Season
Champions	Melbourne Victory
Premiers	Melbourne Victory

For the former US soccer league of the same name see A-League Soccer

The A-League is the premier Australian domestic football (soccer) competition. Founded in 2004 and staging its inaugural season in 2005-06, the league is contested by seven teams covering Australia's major cities and regional centres, as well as one representing New Zealand.^[1] The team which finishes on top of the league table at the end of the 21-round regular season is awarded the Premiership, with the winner of the subsequent four-team finals series awarded the Championship. Melbourne Victory FC are the current A-League Premiers (Season 2006-07) and are also the reigning Champions.

An AU$3 million dollar advertising campaign was also launched, with the television and film advertisements produced by Ridley Scott's production company. The theme for the campaign is "Football, but not as you know it".

1 History
2 Format
3 Logo
4 Clubs
- 4.1 Reform
- 4.2 Expansion
5 Champions and premiers
- 5.1 AFC Champions League
6 Top scorers
- 6.1 All-time
7 Rivalries
8 References
9 External links

[edit] History

In 2003, a report on football in Australia was published by the Australian Federal Government which ultimately led to an overhaul of Soccer Australia and the end of the National Soccer League, Australia's previous domestic football competition. In its place, Football Federation Australia (named the Australian Soccer Association at the time) announced plans for a new national competition set to start in 2005. The competition was based on a one-city, one-club format. This was for two reasons - to concentrate player talent, and possibly more importantly, break the connection between clubs and specific immigrant groups (the previous NSL had a number of teams whose players and fans largely came from one specific immigrant community). The plan called for privately owned clubs to represent Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle and New Zealand, with the eighth and final club to be selected from the remaining expressions of interest.^[2] The selection of teams, with The Central Coast the eighth area represented, was announced on November 1 2004, along with the competition format which was shortened to provide a basic structure for further expansion. The FFA scheduled the inaugural season to begin in August 2005, budgeting for an annual turnover of AU$50 million and average crowds of 10,000.^[3]

[edit] 2005-06 season

Main article: A-League 2005-06

The opening season saw clubs attract a wide array of talent, most notably Dwight Yorke for Sydney FC, as well as bringing a large number of former and current Socceroos home, including Ned Zelic, Steve Corica and Archie Thompson. Adelaide United FC won the inaugural A-League Premiership after the end of the home-and-away season. The Grand Final was played in front of 41,689 people at Aussie Stadium. Sydney FC prevailed 1-0 over the Central Coast Mariners to become the first A-League Champions. The FFA's target crowd figure of 10,000 was achieved as the league had an overall attendance average of 12,100 during its inaugural season.^[4]

An AU$120 million deal between the FFA and Fox Sports was reached in 2006 after the end of the first season. Under the deal, Fox Sports will have exclusive rights from 2007 to all Socceroos home internationals, all A-League and Asian Cup fixtures, World Cup qualifiers through the AFC, and all AFC Champions League matches. The deal will allow the FFA to increase the amount of TV money to each of the participating clubs in the league and increase the revenue streams for those clubs.^[5]

[edit] 2006-07 season

Main article: A-League 2006-07

The creation of the A-League has allowed for many past and present Socceroos players to return and play on home soil. So far the A-League's second season has seen the return of such current Australian international players as Stan Lazaridis, Tony Vidmar and Joel Griffiths which has boosted the media attention of the league. The FFA is also toying with the idea of sharing the expense of some of the wages of Socceroos players to bring them back to Australia.^[6]

The all time Australian domestic football (soccer) regular season crowd record was smashed on December 8, 2006 when Melbourne Victory hosted Sydney FC at the Telstra Dome. The crowd was 50,333 beating the previous record of 39,000 - set when the two clubs met at the same venue previously in the season. Kevin Muscat, the Melbourne captain, was quoted as saying: "You'd do well to find an Australian abroad this weekend who'll play in front of a bigger crowd than that".

In December 2006 the New Zealand Knights had their licence revoked because of mounting debts. New Zealand Soccer was allocated control of the team for the remainder of the season. The FFA called for bids from prospective operators to take over the New Zealand license for the next season.^[7]

On February 18, 2007 Melbourne Victory defeated Adelaide United 6-0 to become champions of the A-League 2006-07 season. Archie Thompson was awarded the Joe Marston Medal, scoring five goals for Melbourne Victory.

Recently Melbourne Victory Chairman Geoff Lord has suggested the inclusion of overseas clubs in the pre-season cup competition, particularly targeting teams from Asia and the west coast of the United States.^[8]

[edit] 2007-08 season

Main article: A-League 2007-08

Important signings before the start of the third season of the A-League have seen former socceroos Danny Tiatto, Ljubo Milicevic and Paul Agostino return to Australia with Queensland Roar, Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United respectively. Socceroos' striker Sasho Petrovski has left Sydney FC in favour of the Central Coast Mariners, where he is expected to form a deadly partnership with fit-again Nik Mrdja.

The A-League salary cap has spawned much controversy in the close season with champions Melbourne Victory unable to re-sign star midfielder Fred due to an offer from Major League Soccer club D.C. United that is reportedly worth three times the amount the Victory can afford to pay him.

On March 19, 2007, it was confirmed that a Wellington based franchise, later to be announced as Wellington Phoenix, would be replacing the New Zealand Knights for the 2007-08 season.^[9]^[10] FFA granted New Zealand Soccer a three year license to stay in the competition in partnership with a Wellington-based consortium. ^[11]

It is also confirmed that the team sheet will be increased from 20 players to 23 players.^[12]

[edit] Format

[edit] Pre-Season Cup

A Pre-Season Cup is held in July and August, as a precursor to the main season. In the Pre-Season Cup, the eight teams are placed into two groups. Each team plays the others in the group once over three rounds.

Beginning in 2006, an additional bonus round is then held, with each team playing a cross-over match with a team from a different group. In addition to the standard points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw), there are special bonus points on offer for the bonus round matches:

1 bonus point for 2 goals scored by a team,
2 bonus points for 3 goals scored by a team, or
3 bonus points for 4 or more goals scored by a team.^[13]

All eight teams then enter a knock-out round, culminating in the final in late August.

The FFA has indicated that, if successful, the bonus points system may be used in the main league season from the 2007-08 season.^[14]

[edit] Regular season

The regular season runs mainly during the Australian summer, from late August to January of the following year. The competition consists of 21 home-and-away rounds, with each team playing each other team three times – twice at one team's home stadium and once at the other's. The teams which are allotted two home matches against an opponent in one season are allotted one home match against that opponent in the following season. Each match sees the winning team awarded three competition points, or in the case of a draw, the teams receive one point each. At the end of the season, the teams are ranked firstly in terms of competition points accumulated, then goal difference, total goals scored, head-to-head records between tying teams and finally the number of cards each team has received.^[15] The club at the top of this ladder is crowned A-League Premiers, and as of the 2006–07 season, will be entered into the AFC Champions League.^[16]

[edit] Finals series

The current A-League Champions Trophy was awarded to Melbourne Victory, who beat Adelaide United in the Grand Final on February 18, 2007.

The top four-ranked teams at the end of the regular season are entered into a finals series based on the Page playoff system, where the first round of matches consists of two legs (with ties decided by the away goals rule). The top two ranked teams play the Major Semi-Final, with the winner progressing straight to and hosting the Grand Final. On the same weekends, the third and fourth ranked teams contest the Minor Semi-Final, which sees the losing side eliminated whilst the winner plays off against the loser of the Major Semi-Final in the Preliminary Final the following weekend. The winner of this match also progresses to the Grand Final, the winner of which becomes A-League Champions. As of the 2006–07 season, this team will also contest the AFC Champions League, although if the team that wins the Premiership goes through to Grand Final then the runners-up in the Grand Final are awarded the second spot in the competition, win or lose.^[16]

[edit] Logo

The A-League logo, designed by Coast Design Sydney, is a three-dimensional sphere in the shape of a football. The two-toned ochre colours represent the sun, earth and desert while the 'glow' emanating from the centre of the logo depicts the playing season's Spring and Summer time span. The eight 'A' figures that make up the ball shape represent the eight foundation clubs.^[17]

[edit] Clubs

Image:Map of Australia and New Zealand.png

Each club has a squad of 20 players (to be increased to 23 in the 2007-08 season) with a salary cap of AU$1.6 million for the whole squad - much less than the millions of dollars a year that individual star players (including a few Australians) earn in Europe's top football leagues. The squad must include at least two under-20 players. In order to combat fears that the salary cap would reduce the capacity of the clubs to attract crowds through big-name players, the league allows each team to have one "marquee" player, whose salary is privately funded, and not included in the team's salary cap. The best-known example in the initial season was Dwight Yorke, who played several seasons for Manchester United and Aston Villa in England. Yorke left in the beginning of the 2006-07 season for Sunderland in the Football League Championship while Benito Carbone joined Sydney F.C for a four-match deal.

The conditions were changed before the 2006-07 season to reduce the minimum number of under-20 players from three to two per squad. The salary cap was also increased from $AU1.5 million to $AU1.6 million.

Unlike most European leagues, there is no system for promotion and relegation of teams, nor a national knockout cup competition along the lines of the FA Cup. The A-League system thus shares some franchising elements with most other professional leagues in Australia, as well as Major League Soccer and other major sports leagues in the United States.

On March 19, 2007, it was confirmed that a Wellington based franchise would be replacing the New Zealand Knights for the 2007-08 season.^[11] The name of Wellington Phoenix was announced on March 28.^[10]

For the 2007-08 season, the eight clubs will be:

Team	City	Years in competition	Home Ground	Avg Crowd 2006-07
Adelaide United	Adelaide, SA	2005-06–	Hindmarsh Stadium	12,101
Central Coast Mariners	Gosford, NSW	2005-06–	Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium	9,828
Melbourne Victory	Melbourne, Vic	2005-06–	Telstra Dome	33,288
Newcastle Jets	Newcastle, NSW	2005-06–	EnergyAustralia Stadium	11,442
Perth Glory	Perth, WA	2005-06–	Members Equity Stadium	7,671
Queensland Roar	Brisbane, Qld	2005-06–	Suncorp Stadium	16,465
Sydney FC	Sydney, NSW	2005-06–	Aussie Stadium	14,999
Wellington Phoenix	Wellington, NZ	2007-08–	Westpac Stadium	-
Former clubs:
New Zealand Knights	Auckland, NZ	2005-06–2006-07	North Harbour Stadium	3,016

[edit] Reform

The AFC is planning to reform 22 football associations affiliated to it because of the poor performance / absence of Asian teams in the last Football World Cup. Although Australia did qualify to the round-of-16 stage, it was unexpected and FFA will undergo reform as prescribed by FIFA and AFC. [1] Furthermore Australia is one of the 10 members earmarked for the earliest reforms by 2009-2012. [2] The goals of the project is to make the AFC-leagues more competitive, increase playing quality, more watchable, more transparent and profitable. The model for the leagues is the English Premier League.

[edit] Expansion

While making a relatively modest start in order to ensure future stability, the league is interested in introducing more teams to the competition. The eight foundation clubs have exclusivity clauses for their respective cities valid for five years, but there is room to add more teams. With Australia's performance in the 2006 FIFA World Cup there has been some media speculation that Football Federation Australia may expand the league after the 2007-08 season. This is looking very possible with upcoming changes to the number of Asian Champions League spots available from 2009.

Townsville and Canberra are possibilities, having large populations and modern football stadiums, respectively Dairy Farmers Stadium and Canberra Stadium. Wollongong and the Gold Coast could also be considered, with Wollongong pushing for an upgrade to WIN Stadium while the Gold Coast will have a new 25,000 seat stadium in 2008. Many people felt the twice Australian Champions Wollongong Wolves should be the team from the Illawarra, but according to media reports the Wolves are planning on staying in the NSW Premier League, and are fully supporting a new club for the region. This club will be backed by Bruce Gordon, Australia's 14th richest person.^[18]

Before the introduction of the A-League, ASA chairman Frank Lowy speculated that he hoped to expand the league into additional areas, mentioning Canberra, Hobart, Wollongong and Far North Queensland.^[19]^[20] On August 10, John O'Neil was talking up the support football would enjoy in Townsville.^[21]

A representative of Capital Football has been quoted as saying "Canberra, Geelong, Wollongong and Far North Queensland were "on the radar" to join the comp for the 2008/09 season."^[22]

After pulling out of a bid to replace the defunct New Zealand Knights, Townsville are in pole position to be the first club introduced into the league upon its expansion in the near future. ^[11]

[edit] Champions and premiers

Main article: List of A-League champions

The "Premier" is the team at the top of the league table at the end of the regular season although the common term for this type of competition in Australia is "minor premier". Media reports sometimes erroneously refer to the Premiers as minor premier. The "Champion" is the team that wins the Grand Final.^[23]

Season	Pre-season cup	Regular season		Grand Final
Season	Pre-season cup	Premiers	Runners-up	Champions	Runners-up
2005-06	Central Coast Mariners	Adelaide United	Sydney FC	Sydney FC	Central Coast Mariners
2006-07	Adelaide United	Melbourne Victory	Adelaide United	Melbourne Victory	Adelaide United

See also the list of champions from 1977 to 2004 in the previous National Soccer League competition.

[edit] AFC Champions League

Two A-League clubs will participate in the AFC Champions League competition ^[24] from the 2006/07 season.

The club champion and premier qualify for the cup. In the case where the same team is champion and premier, the other grand finalist qualifies.

Season
2005-2006	N/C	N/C
2006-2007	Sydney FC	Adelaide United
2007-2008	Melbourne Victory	Adelaide United

N/C - no competitor

[edit] Top scorers

[edit] All-time

Rank	Player	Club	Goals
1	Archie Thompson	Melbourne Victory	23
=2	Danny Allsopp	Melbourne Victory	15
=2	Damian Mori	N/A	15
4	Sasho Petrovski	Central Coast Mariners	14
=5	Kevin Muscat	Melbourne Victory	13
=5	Fernando Rech	Adelaide United	13
=5	Carl Veart	Retired	13
=5	Alex Brosque	Sydney FC	13
=9	Ante Milicic	Queensland Roar FC	11
=9	Bobby Despotovski	Retired	11

See Also: A-League all-time records

[edit] Rivalries

Although there are no local derbies, due to the league's one-city one-team policy, many rivalries have formed between A-League sides:

Adelaide United v Melbourne Victory: Considered the greatest derby in the league by far. Much like the Queensland/Sydney rivalry, the historical Australian rules football rivalry between the cities has passed into a general sporting and cultural rivalry. Contested the 2006-07 A-League Grand Final, in which Melbourne convincingly won 6-0.
Adelaide United v Sydney FC: The clash between the two most successful teams in the A-League's inaugural year (Adelaide the Premiership and Sydney the eventual winners).The finals series between the two teams was explosive and led to the establishment of a rivalry between the clubs.
Sydney FC v Melbourne Victory: The clash between Australia's two biggest cities. Sydney and Melbourne have been historical rivals for over a century, and their football teams are no exception. The rivalry between Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory has become the most bitter in the A League, with almost every match between the two teams characterised by spiteful confrontations, controversy and consistently record-breaking crowds. There is also an intense rivalry emerging between the supporters of the clubs.
Newcastle Jets v Central Coast Mariners: Labelled the "F3 Derby" by commentators,^[25] the two regional clubs, only an hour apart, are also big rivals.

Queensland Roar v Adelaide United: Largely based on the confrontation between the two managers in the 2005-06 season, followed on this year with what was dubbed the battle between the two Chinese import strikers.

Newcastle Jets v Sydney FC: Sydney had never beaten their intra-state rivals until January 1, 2007. The rivalry between these teams was originally mild, with most Newcastle supporters more concerned with the Central Coast and most Sydney supporters more concerned with Melbourne. However, the on-field rivalry reached explosive levels in the 2006-2007 Minor Semi-Final. ^[26]

Central Coast Mariners v Sydney FC: Although not the most intense rivalry in the competition, there is still a history that adds an element of importance for the fans in this fixture. Sydney FC beat the Central Coast Mariners in the inaugural A-League grand final in 2005. Due to this it is considered by the fans as the grudge match of the A-League. The Central Coast Mariners supporters take great pride in beating Sydney FC, and Sydney supporters take great pleasure in reminding them of the score in the final.