Tuesday, November 13, 2007

 

Club v. Country, A-League Style - another brief update

Another international weekend, another availability mess.

Perth Glory are the principal victims this time, and Tony Sage has ripped into the FFA for their refusal to countenance a postponement of his club's game against the Mariners. He would be better advised simply to rebuke the FFA for their short-sightedness; it was obvious that these dates would become a problem, with the Asian commitments piling up.

Given that a youth league is apparently being introduced next year, and that the clubs (to the best of my understanding) are obliged to release players for international matches even on non-FIFA dates, under the terms of their franchise agreement with the FFA, the problem is only going to get worse. And it's not just Australia's fixtures causing difficulties, either.

Ben Buckley states:

"We have to have consistent policy and we have listened and we intend to have breaks on FIFA dates next season."

Notice the non-committal word "intend". I think Foxtel, munificent but demanding, might have an opinion about this particular "intention".

Comments:
Seems daft to be missing key players, especially at this stage of the season, or any stage to be honest.

Even dafter, when the season isn't that long, so in years to come, if nothing changes (although i'm sure it will at some point.) then players could miss many more games.

Another point at looking at this is, the A-League want to sell their game around the world, get more people interested, how do they do this, if, MR X decides that one day he watches the highlights or the games, and theirs nothing to the game at all,as all key personnel, the stars are gone that weekend?

MR X might never come back!
 
Absolute rubbish, if TV commitments are the reason for no international breaks, then this is bullshit.. why should teams have to put up with this???? I dont care if we are getting funded by TV Commitments, this is a proper professional league...
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?