tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/a-league-1810/articlesA League – The Conversation2016-03-16T19:18:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549442016-03-16T19:18:33Z2016-03-16T19:18:33ZHow predictable are Australia’s big sporting leagues?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113180/original/image-20160229-4090-115f3k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Try convincing Australian sports fans that Hawthorn's dominance in the AFL is purely down to a cosmological coin flip.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The month of March brings with it the return of Australia’s two most popular sporting competitions: the NRL and the AFL.</p>
<p>Both competitions aim to maintain a competitive balance to avoid becoming boring or predictable. This is achieved via schemes such as salary caps and revenue sharing. But the success of such initiatives varies between sports.</p>
<p>In a theoretical league where every team is evenly matched, success in a given season would purely be down to random chance. This would not provide any sort of guide to their chances in a future season. </p>
<p>This is an extreme and unrealistic situation. Try convincing Australian sports fans that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/2015-nrl-grand-final-peerless-johnnathan-thurston-cements-his-place-in-the-history-books-20151004-gk11pk.html">Johnathan Thurston’s <em>annus mirabilis</em></a> in the NRL or Hawthorn’s <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-match-report/afl-grand-final-2015-hawthorn-beat-west-coast-to-win-three-premierships-in-a-row-20151003-gk0if5.html">sheer dominance</a> in the AFL were purely down to a cosmological coin flip. Some teams are consistently better than others, regardless of salary caps. This will be reflected in the league ladders.</p>
<p>It is still true, though, that the more balanced a competition is, the less predictable the ladder will be from season to season. A good measure of competitive balance in sport is the extent to which a team’s performance in one season can be used to predict their performance the following season. So what predictions can we make about the coming football seasons?</p>
<h2>The data</h2>
<p>We compared four prominent sports leagues: Australian rules’ AFL, rugby league’s NRL, basketball’s NBL and football’s A-League. The analysis covers the last decade – seasons 2006 to 2015 for the NRL and AFL, and 2005-06 to 2014-15 for the NBL and A-League. </p>
<p>We considered only performances in the regular season, which represent a more robust measure of teams’ comparative abilities. Playoffs or finals are designed to introduce a further element of chance, which means the best team does not always come out on top. Points deductions for issues such as salary cap breaches were ignored.</p>
<p>In some sports, the number of matches played per season, and thus the number of points available, has changed across the study period. To account for this, we compared each team in terms of the proportion of available points earned. </p>
<p>Fremantle picked up 68 points out of a possible 88 from the club’s 22 AFL matches in 2015. That means the Dockers earned 77% of the available points, giving them a score of 0.77.</p>
<p>Fremantle’s score in 2014 was 0.73. These scores are very similar, which suggests that Fremantle’s 2015 performance was quite predictable based on 2014. </p>
<p>However, it would be wrong to draw a conclusion based on just one observation. We need to compare Fremantle in each other pair of years (2013-2014, 2012-2013 and so on), and to do the same for each other club.</p>
<p>By doing so, we obtain a total of 151 pairs of scores for the AFL, 143 for the NRL, 81 for the NBL and 80 for the A-League. We can use this data to compute the statistical correlation between scores in consecutive years.</p>
<p>Correlation can be thought of as the level of dependence between two objects. If two variables are correlated, then a change in the value of one will correspond to a change of value in the other. </p>
<p><a href="https://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/pearson-correlation-coefficient-statistical-guide.php">Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients</a> were computed to compare the season pairs for each league.
The larger this score is, the greater the positive correlation between the scores and the more “predictable” you can consider the league to be. </p>
<p>A score of one implies complete correlation. This would mean that you could exactly predict each team’s score just by knowing their score from the previous season. A value of zero implies no correlation, meaning the scores from one year to the next are completely random. </p>
<p>We also obtained a 95% confidence interval, which accounts for the uncertainty in our calculation. This interval outlines a range within which we can reasonably expect the true correlation to lie.</p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>For the AFL, we obtained a correlation coefficient of 0.57, with a confidence interval of 0.45, 0.67. This means it is highly likely that the season-to-season correlation for the AFL lies somewhere in the range 0.45-0.67, with our best estimate being 0.57. This estimate implies a moderate to strong correlation between scores in consecutive seasons.</p>
<p>The NRL had a coefficient of 0.25, with an interval of 0.09, 0.39. The NBL had a coefficient of 0.47, with an interval of 0.28, 0.62. The A-League had a coefficient of 0.07, with an interval of -0.15, 0.29.</p>
<p>It appears the AFL has been the most predictable of the four leagues over the last decade. A glance at recent ladders suggests this may be true – Hawthorn, Sydney and Fremantle have performed consistently well in recent years.</p>
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<p>The NBL also has a fairly high correlation. This may reflect the domination that the Perth Wildcats and New Zealand Breakers have had over the competition in the past decade.</p>
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<p>The correlation is much lower for the NRL. This suggests a greater competitive balance within the league. Although the Sydney Roosters have been minor premiers for the last three seasons, the form of many other sides has fluctuated wildly. The Parramatta Eels and Gold Coast Titans are the only clubs that have not reached the playoffs in the last five years.</p>
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<p>The most unpredictable of the four leagues appears to be the A-League. The confidence interval suggests that it is plausible that there is no relationship at all between points scores in consecutive seasons. The league has had five different premiers in the last six years; the title race tends to go to the wire each year.</p>
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<h2>Lessons to be learnt</h2>
<p>All four leagues take similar measures to try to maintain competitive balance, but the success of these measures varies across sports. The AFL is the most predictable, while the A-League is highly unpredictable.</p>
<p>It may be that tradition plays a part in this difference. The A-League is still in its infancy and a “natural order” has not yet been established in the league.</p>
<p>The AFL may be more predictable than the NRL or the A-League, but that doesn’t mean that it is in any way easy to predict. Sport is by its very nature unpredictable, and that’s why we love it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Anderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sport is by its very nature unpredictable, and that’s why we love it.Craig Anderson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Statistics, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/319752014-09-25T06:24:01Z2014-09-25T06:24:01ZSack the coach? Wait, there’s more to fixing a club than that<p>The football season is almost over, but the coach-sacking season has just begun. </p>
<p>In the AFL, the Adelaide Crows <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/adelaide-crows-sack-coach-brenton-sanderson-20140917-10idns.html">sacked coach Brenton Sanderson</a> despite only recently having extended his contract. Media reports suggest the coaches of the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/guy-mckennas-suns-coaching-job-thrown-into-doubt/story-fnca0u4y-1227063370903">Gold Coast Suns</a> and <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/brendan-mccartney-tough-love-fuels-talk-of-discontent-at-western-bulldogs/story-fnp04d70-1227061803973">Western Bulldogs</a> are also under threat. In the NRL, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-26/steve-price-sacked-by-dragons/5477426">St George-Illawarra</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-21/tigers-effectively-sacked-me-three-months-ago-potter/5758882">West Tigers</a> have already sacked their coaches and more are rumoured. </p>
<p>Only 17% of AFL and 19% of NRL head coaches have a tenure of four years or longer. Only 20% of current A-League (soccer) club coaches finished the most recent season with more than one year in their current job. It’s often a costly exercise, too - Sanderson’s sacking is thought to cost the Crows $1.2 million in payouts alone.</p>
<p>So why do they do it? The obvious answer is the quest for on-field success. Winning more games has long been seen as a way of securing more fans, more sponsors and more income from attendance, television and merchandise. </p>
<p>There is undoubtedly truth to this, although the impact of winning is often overstated. Winning more games is a good acquisition strategy, in that it attracts new fans, but it doesn’t have great impact on the longer-term fans, whose behaviours and attitudes are usually fixed. </p>
<p>Whether replacing the coach actually improves on-field performance is also not clear-cut. Looking at the winning percentage of teams before and after replacing the coach, the data from a wide range of studies across many different sports are inconclusive. There is little consensus about whether coach replacement increases success.</p>
<p>It is clear that many more factors than just the coach have an impact upon team success. The “ritual scapegoating” that is a common motive for sacking a coach often changes very little in the organisation.</p>
<h2>Don’t forget the off-field roles</h2>
<p>These studies focus on on-field performance and ignore the broader role that coaches play in modern sports teams. As well as technical skills developers, coaches are human resource managers, strategists, culture setters and tacticians. </p>
<p>Coaches are also figureheads, often sponsored themselves, who play a key role in developing the brand of their team and the public relations activities of the organisation. As such, the coach has impacts upon the club’s stakeholders in a far more nuanced manner than can be explained by just the win-loss ratio of the team. In <a href="http://www.swinburne.edu.au/media-centre/news/2014/09/will-the-next-coach-please-stand-up.html">a recent study</a>, we examined the impact that changing coaching staff has on season ticket holder attitudes, as a way of assessing this broader impact.</p>
<p>As part of a larger investigation into fan behaviour, we routinely assist professional sport teams to survey their season ticket holders and assess their satisfaction with the team and its products. These surveys typically are conducted at the end of the season. We have conducted well over 100 of these surveys over the last 10 years, for teams from the AFL, cricket’s Big Bash, NRL, A-League, Super Rugby and ANZ Championships (netball). </p>
<p>Given the volatility of the sport environment, and the timing and number of these surveys, it’s not surprising we have had a few interesting situations arise. A few years back we had a survey in field when it was announced that the coach had been sacked. We were able to compare the responses we received before the announcement to those received after, with roughly equal numbers of each.</p>
<h2>Make sure you have a good replacement ready</h2>
<p>What we saw was that the removal of the coach (a very high-profile and successful figure at the team) had next to no impact on season ticket holder attitudes or intentions to rejoin. That is, the ratings of the pre-announcement respondents of items like their overall satisfaction and intention to renew their ticket the following year was no different from the ratings of those who answered after the announcement. Attitudes to the administration of the club, however, deteriorated significantly following the sacking announcement.</p>
<p>In another case, we were in field with a survey for a club that had sacked its coach some four weeks earlier and had not announced a replacement. Again, during our data collection, the announcement was made regarding the new coach – a high-profile “favourite son” of the team. Those who completed the survey following this announcement were significantly more positive than those who answered before it.</p>
<p>This increased positivity extended to ratings of things like the service received from the club and club communications. Most strongly influenced were attitudes to the administration of the club, which increased almost a full point on a ten-point scale. Intentions to renew rose sharply with 92% of members intending to rejoin after the announcement, compared to 86% before. At an average of around $250 per member and with a membership base of around 50,000, that’s an extra $750,000 in membership revenue from the announcement alone.</p>
<p>The conclusion here is that if you sack a coach to appease fans, you’d better have a viable successor lined up. If you sack a coach to increase on-field performance, you’d better hope they can change a whole lot more than just the on-field tactics. Either way, the administration of the club will be held accountable by fans, so sacking the coach can result in a lot more positions coming under threat.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>* The Immediate Impact Of Coach Succession Events On Season Ticket Holder Attitudes, by Karg, A., McDonald, H. and Schoenberg, G., is to be published in Sport Marketing Quarterly, March 2015.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31975/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heath McDonald consults to and conducts research with the AFL, Cricket Australia and several other professional and community sport teams. He currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the AFL as part of an ARC Linkage grant with colleagues from Melbourne University and Temple University (USA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Karg consults to and conducts research for national sport organisations and professional sport leagues and teams including those from the AFL, Big Bash League, A-League, NRL and Super 15 competitions.</span></em></p>The football season is almost over, but the coach-sacking season has just begun. In the AFL, the Adelaide Crows sacked coach Brenton Sanderson despite only recently having extended his contract. Media…Heath McDonald, Professor and Head of Marketing, Swinburne University of TechnologyAdam Karg, Lecturer in Sport Management, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/276932014-06-25T05:28:07Z2014-06-25T05:28:07ZDespite World Cup losses, Australia has a bright football future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52145/original/v6rs8ydx-1403663358.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia is heading in the right direction football-wise if our results at the World Cup are anything to go by.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Fernando Bizerra Jr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For those well-versed in football and Australian sport, the Australian national team’s early exit from the World Cup should come as no surprise. The three losses – to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-14/socceroos-v-chile-live-world-cup-blog/5523774">Chile</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-19/netherlands-beat-socceroos-australia-world-cup-2014/5534468">the Netherlands</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-24/spain-beats-australia-in-final-world-cup-game/5545212">Spain</a> – can be mostly explained by football’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-may-be-the-world-cup-but-how-global-is-the-world-game-27330">global nature</a>.</p>
<p>While Australians boast about the country’s prowess in swimming, netball, rugby league, rugby union and Australian Rules football, these sports do not have the international reach and diverse competition of association football. Australia cracked in Brazil because of the competitive nature of the sport. Australians need to realise there is a different magnitude to the prestige associated with being a World Cup winner in football, compared to that associated with world championships in swimming or hockey.</p>
<p>We did, however, learn much from Australia’s overall performance in Brazil. First, the team played outstanding football in patches against Chile and the Netherlands, especially in the first half against the Dutch. Even during its 34-year absence from the World Cup, Australia always played with a never-say-die attitude and overachieved against higher-credentialed opponents. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1195&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1195&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52162/original/5hmg2gjz-1403669640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1195&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Australia coach Ange Postecoglou gave the national team a much-needed re-invigoration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Armando Babani</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Australia coach Ange Postecoglou could have been tempted to “park the bus” (football-speak for tight marking and defending) in front of the opposition’s goal, and limit the heaviness of the losses. He chose instead to go for results and play positive, attacking football. The national football team regained the respect of the Australian public, which had been wavering in the wake of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/socceroos-thrashed-60-by-france-in-international-friendly-nightmare-20131012-2velr.html">poor results</a> and a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/socceroos-coach-holger-osieck-sacked-after-friday-night-bleus-20131012-2veor.html">coach sacking</a> last year.</p>
<p>Postecoglou also axed most of the remnants of the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/socceroos-golden-generation-fall-one-by-one-to-the-sniper-20140328-zqnd8.html">“golden generation”</a>, such as Lucas Neill, Mark Schwarzer and Harry Kewell, and regenerated the team <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/ange-refills-socceroos-fuel-tank-with-youth-20140604-39jb6.html">with youth</a>. Since his appointment, Postecoglou has made it clear that there would be no-one would be entitled to a place in the squad on past glories alone. </p>
<p>Before Postecoglou, Australian coaches failed to re-energise and reinvigorate the team after the success of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The coaches were not keen enough to exclude the golden generation despite some of the players having lost their hunger. This was reflected in their performances, and as a result, Australia didn’t dominate against weaker teams such as Jordan, Iraq or Qatar in qualifying for Brazil.</p>
<p>Australia is heading in the right direction football-wise, and there is little doubt that the national team will play in the Asian Cup final, which Australia will host next year. Young players such as Matthew Leckie (arguably Australia’s best performer across the three games), Oliver Bozanic and Ben Halloran will lead the charge to make Australia the dominant football nation in Asia.</p>
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<span class="caption">Matthew Leckie emerged as a future star of Australian football at the World Cup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Mohamed Messara</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>While the performances were encouraging, critics of the Australian team and the sport in general will argue that the <a href="http://www.espnfc.us/fifa-world-cup/4/table">results</a> speak for themselves. Australia played three, lost three, conceded nine and scored three. In fact, Australia has played six games in 2014 and lost all but one (a draw against South Africa).</p>
<p>However, it would be foolish to be troubled. Football is here to stay in Australia, and there is reason to be hopeful about what the future will bring. The A-League is a now legitimate national competition, even though it sits behind Australian Rules football and rugby league in commercialised sport. </p>
<p>While football has always enjoyed very high levels of <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0%7E2012%7EMain%20Features%7ESports%20and%20physical%20recreation%7E116">youth participation</a>, its growth in the grassroots level is almost complete. Today, at the grass-roots level, football is the dominant sport in diverse communities including former rugby heartlands in western Sydney. </p>
<p>Even elite private schools, such as Newington College in Sydney, now have more football than rugby union teams. At the University of Sydney, the firsts’ football team is coached by former national coach Raul Blanco and there are more 40 teams in competition. Football is now the preferred sport in various girls’ private schools.</p>
<p>If Australia can avoid the unhelpful trend of <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=soccer&id=9286402">hothousing</a> young players, the talent pool will continue to grow.</p>
<p>Mainstream Australia may now finally realise what the rest of the world understood more than 90 years ago when the World Cup was first held. There are many social and educational benefits that are worthy of pursuing through playing and supporting football – but internationally, the competition is stiff.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Georgakis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For those well-versed in football and Australian sport, the Australian national team’s early exit from the World Cup should come as no surprise. The three losses – to Chile, the Netherlands and Spain…Steve Georgakis, Senior Lecturer of Pedagogy and Sports Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218512014-01-09T04:19:06Z2014-01-09T04:19:06ZAustralia has no ‘soccer hooligan’ problem – but we need a smarter policing approach<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38704/original/84s9hm5x-1389224845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Media commentary is not a reliable indicator of the severity of fan violence in Australian soccer – but policing approaches do need to improve.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Crosling</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The A-League soccer game between Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers late last year attracted national media headlines for <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/soccer-fans-brawl-in-melbourne-20131228-300pj.html">all the wrong reasons</a>: brawls between opposing fans outside a city pub, flares inside the ground. </p>
<p>For some, including the authorities, these behaviours exemplify the lingering menace of fan violence as well as the possible emergence of a <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/police-in-australia-have-heightened-fears-that-the-aleague-is-experiencing-its-first-hooligan-groups/story-fni0cx12-1226794957799">“soccer hooligan”</a> culture in Australia. Both clubs <a href="http://www.news.com.au/sport/football/western-sydney-and-melbourne-victory-will-feature-beefed-up-security-as-clubs-accept-ffa-points-sanction/story-fnk9a3dc-1226797632544">have accepted</a> a three-point deduction, suspended until the end of the 2013-14 season, for their fans’ misbehaviour.</p>
<p>However, <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/secret-files-reveal-violent-aleague-antics-in-our-sports-capital/story-fni0fee2-1226795049093">media commentary</a> is not a reliable indicator of the severity of fan violence in Australian soccer. In reality, levels of fan violence in Australian soccer are similar to those experienced in other Australian football codes. The overwhelming majority of A-League matches run pretty much incident-free. </p>
<p>It seems that the sport is tarnished in part by its international reputation as a site for hooliganism, particularly in Europe and South America. Comparable traditions of organised hooliganism don’t exist in any Australian spectator sport, including soccer.</p>
<p>Yet recent events also highlight certain issues that pose public safety and security challenges for the authorities. The displacement of incidents to outside the venue, for example on the way to or from the ground or in the city centre, is one such risk. The hazardous discharge of flares in crowded, closed venues is another. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38701/original/bf6gskpx-1389224498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Western Sydney fans set off flares at a recent game in Melbourne, sparking a renewed debate over ‘soccer hooliganism’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joe Castro</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The presence of large groups of boisterous young males can also be a daunting sight for law enforcers, even when these fans have legitimate intentions.</p>
<p>The A-League as a spectator sport now rivals many of the more established Australian sporting codes. As the popularity of the A-League continues to grow and Australian soccer fandom evolves, the promotion of safe yet exciting events becomes a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14660970802472726#.Us4ICjbxvIU">critical task</a>. </p>
<p>So, how can police, security, clubs and governing bodies develop effective public order management strategies without crippling the positive norms and rituals of fan expression, which produce the unique atmosphere at A-League games?</p>
<p>In answering this question, we can draw on elements of good practice that are currently used overseas. Certain control measures, such as the segregation of home and away fans, may be alien to many Australian sports fans, but are perfectly normalised in most European countries. This is especially the case at games where there is a heightened rivalry between opposing fans. </p>
<p>While segregation can have the unintended consequence of enhancing in-group solidarity and <a href="http://dare.uva.nl/document/133296">out-group antagonism</a>, such antagonism is typically limited to ritualised aggression: that is, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvRioP6dY4s">chanting and taunting and delivering insults</a>, rather than any physical violence.</p>
<p><a href="http://policing.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/4/403.short">International practice and research</a> tells us that mere repression and “stamping hard on it from above” will not solve the problem. Sure, punishment of serious offences is a necessary component of public order management. For example, the risk of being banned from matches for a long time (coupled with the recognition that such a ban will be strictly enforced) can act as a deterrent.</p>
<p>However, a more holistic public order management framework is required. A thorough understanding of fan culture and group dynamics is central to this. So too is the need to overcome the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15614263.2013.865184#.Us4FzTbxvIU">scepticism</a> that often exists among social control agents, such as police and security, towards engaging in dialogue with soccer fans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38707/original/v594sttp-1389225088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38707/original/v594sttp-1389225088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38707/original/v594sttp-1389225088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38707/original/v594sttp-1389225088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38707/original/v594sttp-1389225088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38707/original/v594sttp-1389225088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38707/original/v594sttp-1389225088.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some European clubs have suffered ‘hooligan’ problems - but have actively engaged fans’ views in helping to solve them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given that the vast majority of fans have legitimate intentions and do not seek to cause or contribute to violence, public order management ought to facilitate rather than control the majority of fans. Police and security also need to be able to respond selectively and differentiate between fans acting inappropriately and those engaging in lawful behaviours, based on information from events as those events develop. </p>
<p>If they treat all fans as potentially dangerous or react to the violent behaviour of some fans by imposing restraint on all, then this increases the likelihood of violating fan conceptions of legitimacy and inviting hostile crowd reactions.</p>
<p>Active communication and dialogue with fans can prevent or de-escalate conflict situations. Many active soccer fans want to play a role in promoting their game. </p>
<p>In some cases, fans, clubs, police and security have developed notions of shared responsibility. Fans are actively engaged in decision-making, contribute to the promotion of pro-social behaviours among their ranks and self-police behaviours that they consider illegitimate and harmful. </p>
<p>This type of approach has been quite effective at clubs such as Spanish La Liga club <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=i21W_KN_iUMC&pg=PA248&lpg=PA248&dq=espanyol+hooligan&source=bl&ots=uDkRCVJXVm&sig=zXSL9ssSgJpY0iRGLVK1ShDy1NE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=axrOUoqCCaS4iQeKvYC4DQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=espanyol%20hooligan&f=false">Espanyol</a>. That club had experienced considerable hooligan problems which were reduced through the collaborative efforts of active fan groups and the club. </p>
<p>Some A-League clubs have sought to engage fans and keep communication channels open. Yet dialogue can easily break down due to misunderstandings or frictions. </p>
<p>Fostering longer-term relationships and co-operation between diverse stakeholders – including fan groups – will be pivotal to the development of the A-League as a premier spectator sport in Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramon Spaaij does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The A-League soccer game between Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers late last year attracted national media headlines for all the wrong reasons: brawls between opposing fans outside a city…Ramon Spaaij, Associate Professor, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/135642013-04-21T00:33:57Z2013-04-21T00:33:57ZThe A-League’s Western Sydney Wanderers: the fairytale in context<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22623/original/g54ydjhg-1366330575.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Western Sydney Wanderers have had a 'fairytale' debut season in the A-League - but does this say more about how the league is run than the team itself?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Western Sydney Wanderers’ inaugural A-League season is the feel-good sports story of the year. The team is undefeated in 13 matches, won the league (generally regarded as the “real” championship in soccer in almost every other country), and will this evening play off in the Grand Final. </p>
<p>Their <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fr75n-Vhts">brilliantly loud and colourful supporters</a> turn out in impressive numbers at home and away matches, and they play a reasonably attractive style of soccer centred on their sublime Japanese midfielder <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk3186CUQRI">Shinji Ono</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/drugs-in-sport">Doping allegations</a> surrounding other codes and the usual assortment of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/ben-barba-is-ill-and-he-needs-help-bulldogs-poster-boy-may-be-out-of-game-for-six-months-20130225-2f0w6.html">indiscretions by NRL players</a> have contributed to the growing media fascination with the Wanderers. Their on-field achievements, however, are remarkable in their own right, especially for a club whose existence was <a href="http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/news-display/New-Hyundai-ALeague-club-for-Western-Sydney/46702">announced</a> by Football Federation Australia in April 2012. </p>
<p>Sports journalists have been falling over themselves in praising the Wanderers. Fairfax soccer writer Michael Lynch’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/wanderers-fairytale-just-keeps-on-getting-better-20130412-2hrjz.html">article</a> in the Sydney Morning Herald last week included a familiar reference to the Wanderers “fairytale” season, and concluded that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Irrespective of the outcome next weekend, the Wanderers must surely go down in history as one of the most extraordinary success stories in Australian sport.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But fairytales, of course, often have a decidedly dark side. Logic and history dictate that a first year club in a professional sports league should struggle against established opposition on the pitch. The <a href="http://www.sportal.com.au/afl-news-display/saints-find-form,-thrash-giants-230309">near-weekly thrashings</a> handed out to the fledgling Greater Western Sydney AFL club should be the norm. </p>
<p>The ability of a team in any code to dominate an established league in its first season of existence says far more about the league itself. </p>
<p>Questionable decisions made by league officials in handing out the first batch of licences and the subsequent <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport-old/soccer-old/m-roar-bailout/story-e6frepmf-1225793153758">financial bailouts</a> of a number of clubs; an ad hoc expansion policy that saw clubs come and go on the <a href="http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/02/29/ffa-terminate-gold-coast-united-fc-full-press-release/">Gold Coast</a> and <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/football/ffa-cuts-north-queensland-fury-from-aleague-20110301-1bcs3.html">Townsville</a> in short order; and the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/referees-banished-to-sidelines-after-howlers-put-standards-under-scrutiny-20130409-2hjhg.html">often dire standard of refereeing</a> which has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/roar-deal-berishas-air-swing-guts-glory-as-brisbane-take-title-20120422-1xesz.html">blighted past finals</a> are examples of how badly the league has been run.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/philip-micallef/blog/1139491/Is-the-salary-cap-serving-its-purpose">salary cap</a>, however well-meaning, has become a real obstacle to keeping the sort of decent standard of Australian players that the league depends on. Star Australian players like Mark Schwarzer and Tim Cahill will always migrate to the big European leagues, but even lower level clubs (particular in the UK) and the burgeoning and better-financed leagues in Japan, Korea, China are all competing for players. </p>
<p>At the other end of the scale, the petro-dollar Qatari and UAE retirement leagues make them an increasingly attractive option for Australians who might otherwise commit to the A-League near the end of their careers. If the OzFootball website is an accurate indication, there are some <a href="http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/Abroad/index.html">175 Australians</a> playing in leagues across the globe. </p>
<p>A-League instability, however, creates a level playing field and doesn’t account for the Wanderers dominance. Some have pointed, <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/do-you-agree-with-a-leagues-decision-to-allow-western-sydney-wanderers-an-extra-foreign-player/story-e6frfkp9-1226587812922">often critically</a>, to the league’s concession that allows the Wanderers to have seven overseas players on their books, two more than the allowance for other clubs, in its first two years of operation. In effect, according to A-League boss Damien de Bohun, the policy <a href="http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/a-league/a-league-boss-damien-de-bohun-joins-foxsportscomau-to-answer-your-questions-about-the-league/story-e6frf4gl-1226581119090#.UXCK2mSPirb">reflects the very limited talent pool</a> Western Sydney had to work with when trying to form a squad last year</p>
<p>If having a couple of extra imports and the <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/football/western-sydney-wanderers-coach-tony-popovic-named-a-league-coach-of-the-year/story-fndejhj9-1226621155462">managerial nous</a> of A-League Coach of the Year Tony Popovic have contributed to the Wanderers success, the reality of their meteoric rise is that many of the long-standing clubs in the league have achieved little in terms of creating a stable organisation with a reliable youth system and scouting network. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22624/original/68k5gqf5-1366330765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22624/original/68k5gqf5-1366330765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22624/original/68k5gqf5-1366330765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22624/original/68k5gqf5-1366330765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22624/original/68k5gqf5-1366330765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22624/original/68k5gqf5-1366330765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22624/original/68k5gqf5-1366330765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Japanese midfielder Shinji Ono has been the Wanderers’ star player this season.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their opponents in today’s decider, the Central Coast Mariners, as well as Melbourne Victory (despite the ludicrous name) and - in recent years at least - Brisbane Roar are the only exceptions. Central Coast, given their perennial financial limitations, have been particularly impressive in building a successful organisation based largely on developing its own players.</p>
<p>The most obvious comparison with the Wanderers is Sydney FC, an A-League foundation club and champions in the first A-League season. They won the championship again in 2009/10, but for the most part, the organisation has been a basket case that has seen changes in ownership, seven chief executives, eight managers, and a conveyor belt of players that has been punctuated by reliance on often underachieving marquee signings. One effect of such mismanagement has been generally poor attendances that were finally improved by last season’s signing of legendary Italian player <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/del-piero-to-sign-with-sydney-fc-20120831-255tw.html">Alessandro Del Piero</a>.</p>
<p>Sydney FC may be the most explicit example of how not to run a soccer club, but things aren’t enormously different - or better - in Newcastle, Adelaide, Perth, Wellington or with Melbourne’s second team, the Heart.</p>
<p>Ironically, given its less than impressive overall record, the FFA administrators who run Western Sydney seem to have got this one right. But to a considerable extent, much of the Wanderers’ success was gifted to them by the ineptitude of many of the other teams in the league.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross MacKenzie has received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, Cancer Council NSW, and the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>Western Sydney Wanderers’ inaugural A-League season is the feel-good sports story of the year. The team is undefeated in 13 matches, won the league (generally regarded as the “real” championship in soccer…Ross MacKenzie, Lecturer in Health Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/56592012-03-01T05:16:24Z2012-03-01T05:16:24ZDon’t blame Clive Palmer – Gold Coast United was doomed from day one<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8242/original/y59hkmx8-1330563988.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With so few fans, Gold Coast United was never going to make it.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The decision taken by Football Federation Australia to <a href="http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/news-display/ffa-terminates-palmer-licence-%E2%80%93-all-efforts-to-be-made-to-field-team-to-complete-the-season/45760">revoke the Gold Coast United licence</a> should come as no surprise. </p>
<p>GCU owner Clive Palmer has been highly critical of the FFA in recent weeks. He slammed the league’s management then went on to breach the league’s participation agreement by removing the major sponsor’s name from the players’ shirts, replacing it with a slogan that read “<a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/soccer/freedom-of-speech-slogan-ffa-says-gold-coast-united-in-material-breach-of-its-a-league-club-participation-agreement/story-e6frepmf-1226281530150">Freedom of Speech</a>”. </p>
<p>This was apparently a response to FFA advice he was demonstrably disloyal to the league by claiming it had done nothing to assist GCU in sustaining its operations.</p>
<p>Suddenly, good will between Palmer and the FFA vanished in a couple of rush-of-blood-to-the-head decisions.</p>
<h2>Who is to blame?</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8243/original/fqrkfvpj-1330564382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8243/original/fqrkfvpj-1330564382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8243/original/fqrkfvpj-1330564382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8243/original/fqrkfvpj-1330564382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8243/original/fqrkfvpj-1330564382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8243/original/fqrkfvpj-1330564382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8243/original/fqrkfvpj-1330564382.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palmer threw a lot of money into GCU.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But this stoush is a sign of something much deeper than who is to blame for the dismal performances of GCU over recent times. </p>
<p>It is really about the economic viability of FFA in its current form, and its capacity to support a national league where nearly every club is battling to break even, and its national spread is dependent on the generosity of franchise owners. </p>
<p>Clive Palmer is a case in point. For all his bravado and off-the-top-of-the-head pronouncements on the league’s governance and management, he has sunk a lot on money into a team that was never going to be viable. The idea that Gold Coast could ever break even by having a team roster of full time professionals and attracting 4,000 fans to its weekly fixtures was pure fantasy.</p>
<p>But Clive Palmer should not be blamed for the current crisis. In fact he should be applauded for his risk-taking ability, and his preparedness to give it a go in full knowledge he was throwing his capital into a bottomless financial pit dug by FFA. </p>
<h2>Doomed to fail</h2>
<p>Gold Coast United was never going to make a profit for its owner, and because of its limited resource base, it was never going to attract the big name players, or secure the best credentialed coaches. It was never going to attract a large fan base, especially in the light of NRL team the <a href="http://www.titans.com.au/">Gold Coast Titans</a>’ solid supporter base and the <a href="http://goldcoastfc.com.au/">Gold Coast Suns</a>’ 2011 crash-bang entry into the AFL with a massive promotional edge in recruiting Karmichael Hunt and Gary Ablett. </p>
<p>It should also be noted that the early demise of an A-League franchise is not new. Townsville was touted as a team of enormous potential a few years ago. </p>
<p>But it became clear early on that the franchise was not going to survive unless it was able secure not only a remarkably generous corporate partner, but also an exceedingly wealthy benefactor-come-owner who would be quite comfortable throwing away money in order to keep a big name national league franchise in a frantically aspirational town somewhere in northern Queensland.</p>
<h2>Shaky ground</h2>
<p>The current fracas between Palmer and FFA highlights the economic fragility of the A-League. It might, on paper, have a nice spread of teams across the big cities. It has certainly secured a number of highly skilled players. It now has a few nice stadia in which to play its games with some solid coverage on Fox Sports, and it has managed to build up some good corporate partnerships. But it is also an exceedingly unbalanced competition from a financial perspective.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8244/original/pbnhzr59-1330564601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8244/original/pbnhzr59-1330564601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8244/original/pbnhzr59-1330564601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8244/original/pbnhzr59-1330564601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8244/original/pbnhzr59-1330564601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8244/original/pbnhzr59-1330564601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8244/original/pbnhzr59-1330564601.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gold Coast isn’t the first club to go, and it won’t be the last.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once Melbourne – in the form of the Victory and Heart – is taken out of the equation it all falls bit flat. </p>
<p>Perth and Adelaide will never become commercial drivers of the A-League’s vision to become the major football competition in Australia. </p>
<p>Brisbane has been captured by rugby league, with the AFL riding on its coat-tails, northern Queensland and the Gold Coast no longer have the confidence to support an A-League team any time soon, and a western Sydney franchise will take a lot of time and money to establish. </p>
<p>All that is left is a belt around Sydney comprising three teams, none of which have captured the hearts and minds of as many fans as first imagined. This is not a good foundation for building the soccer brand, and matching it with the big-boys of the AFL and NRL. </p>
<h2>A sign of things to come?</h2>
<p>The A-league is clearly a loss leader, but it is has difficulty doing what loss leaders are supposed to do, which is to capture a solid share of the market, and make it bigger sooner rather than later. </p>
<p>And if the A-League cannot secure a lot more support over the next few years, it will be just a matter of time before the whole commercial edifice comes under serious challenge, or even worse, collapses into a massive pile of sporting rubble. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The decision taken by Football Federation Australia to revoke the Gold Coast United licence should come as no surprise. GCU owner Clive Palmer has been highly critical of the FFA in recent weeks. He slammed…Bob Stewart, Associate Professor in the School of Sport and Exercise Science, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/56442012-03-01T02:18:29Z2012-03-01T02:18:29ZCash or glory? Funding the A-League and the quest for silverware<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8241/original/9qpdsdd6-1330562213.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Palmer and former Gold Coast coach Miron Bleiberg address a press conference.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Laine Clark</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/a-lowy-blow-as-palmer-pays-the-penalty-in-billionaires-shootout/story-e6frg7mf-1226285929205">public slanging match</a> between two heavy-hitters of Australian business, Clive Palmer and Frank Lowy, has highlighted football’s reliance on private ownership.</p>
<p>Private ownership is a logical model for a start-up competition such as the A-League to adopt because it gives the game the injection of capital it needs to get up and running.</p>
<h2>Keeping football afloat</h2>
<p>Funding football like this is a bit like the toll road a government can’t afford to build on its own. It needs the road now so it goes into partnership with the private sector. But like many infrastructure projects, the public/private funding model of football has led to acrimony between some club owners and the not-for-profit governing body.</p>
<p>Club owners tip in huge amounts of their own cash to keep clubs afloat, and therefore keep the league running. This was crucial while the A-League established credibility and a fan base. The next step was to continue to increase the standard and popularity of the competition. The pay-off for that should come soon with increased media rights revenue that will take the pressure off the capital investment by private owners.</p>
<p>But although he clearly could afford to wait, it seems Clive Palmer has become impatient with how quickly the <a href="http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/">Football Federation of Australia</a> (FFA) is moving away from the model that relies on private ownership to underpin the league.</p>
<h2>Bringing down the A-League</h2>
<p>In recent weeks, the billionaire mining magnate has been vitriolic in his criticism of the A-League competition, labelling it “<a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/soccer/a-league-a-joke-says-gold-coast-united-chairman-clive-palmer/story-e6frfg8x-1226275145515">a joke</a>” and calling football a “hopeless game”. </p>
<p>The FFA desperately needs wealthy private owners to bank roll the A-League, but it also decided it couldn’t afford Palmer’s price tag of what he called “freedom of speech”.</p>
<p>That is why the FFA severed ties with Palmer so swiftly. He wasn’t just a disgruntled private owner who wanted a better deal for his club, he was publicly questioning the market value of the A-League. </p>
<h2>Rights and responsibilities</h2>
<p>It wasn’t so long ago there were mutterings among the football community that Fox Sports had <a href="http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=97392">picked up the rights</a> to the A-League for a song, such was the popularity of the competition. </p>
<p>The seven-year contract might have been two years too long when it was signed in 2006, but its estimated value of A$120m saved the national competition. </p>
<p>The next contract is supposed to be the game’s pay day. A chance to increase the salary cap, attract better players and in turn develop a stronger and more attractive league. </p>
<p>The current dispute with Palmer probably doesn’t alter the equation for prospective rights bidders but it does raise the question of whether in the long run, football needs private ownership to survive.</p>
<p>It is unlikely rival broadcasters will try to outbid Fox Sports for the media rights but despite that, and the recent turmoil, the FFA is likely to be able to negotiate a television deal that will move private owners closer to a model where their clubs are self-funded.</p>
<h2>For love or money</h2>
<p>Professional clubs are one of two things – they are either win maximisers or profit maximisers. Several AFL clubs spend more than they earn chasing their holy grail, the Premiership Cup. Winning is everything and they spend everything and more, chasing victory. The AFL has the money to prop them up and does so because that relentless pursuit for the premiership is at the core of the code’s success in maximising rights revenue.</p>
<p>In the United Kingdom, the top premier league clubs chase silverware at almost any cost. The global popularity of the English Premier League, is due in part to the single-mindedness of private owners to invest or borrow to buy the best players in the world in order to win. In turn, the standard of play goes up and television viewership increases.</p>
<p>But many private owners in the NFL in the United States opt for a profit-maximiser model. They want to win but not at all costs. If this means a decade or more finishing mid-table with no prospect of a place in the Super Bowl, then so be it. </p>
<p>The last thing the local competition needs is for owners to rack up huge debts chasing silverware. </p>
<p>The introduction of a salary cap was a sensible and necessary measure, but the dilemma for the FFA is simple. How quickly can it move to a model where the A-League isn’t predominantly funded by private owners and their occasional, idiosyncratic whims?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lowden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The public slanging match between two heavy-hitters of Australian business, Clive Palmer and Frank Lowy, has highlighted football’s reliance on private ownership. Private ownership is a logical model for…David Lowden, Senior Lecturer, Sport Journalism, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/33552011-11-05T00:08:05Z2011-11-05T00:08:05ZA-League fans: don’t label them football hooligans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/5147/original/PIC_NAJ_Taylor_violence.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soccer fans in NSW in 2005 after a disturbance between supporters of rival teams.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The late Johnny Warren deftly described some <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/default.aspx?Page=Book&ID=9781740512220">Australians’ attitude to football</a> as being a game for “sheilas, wogs, and poofters”. </p>
<p>Whilst public interest has increased markedly following successive World Cups, a certain distance between Aussies and the world game notably persists – evident, for instance, in the local media’s frequent use of the American appellation, “soccer”.</p>
<p>This outsider image of football was readily apparent in the response to a small number of crowd disturbances towards the close of last season’s Hyundai A-League. </p>
<p>Speaking in February 2011, Superintendent of the Victorian Police Rod Wilson <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1486897/Row-over-Aussie-football-violence">publicly declared</a> that many of his officers had become “scared” of certain sections of Melbourne Victory’s supporter base. The problem has got so bad in the last seven matches, he said, that at one game, 23 supporters were ejected from the ground, and at another 14 flares were let off in crowded areas – as a result, many of his officers would now “rather volunteer for other sporting events”. </p>
<p>The solution, according to the Superintendent, “is that the Victory Club, the FFA – the governing body – and the Police, and the security, need to come together, and we need to resolve this […] to make the game safe”. </p>
<p>The football club <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/soccer/soccer-fans-are-the-most-violent-says-superintendent-rod-wilson/story-e6frfg8x-1226007831676">have indicated</a> that while they agree this sort of behaviour is “unacceptable”, they contend that it is not a ubiquitous feature of Melbourne Victory supporters. </p>
<h2>Careful who you call a hooligan</h2>
<p>The divergence in view is not merely definitional – its characterisation has consequences. </p>
<p>Whereas “football hooliganism” is typically reserved for those highly-coordinated violent and non-violent skirmishes between opposing sets of supporters that occur quite independently of the game itself, the term ‘football-related violence’ is employed where aggressions are predominately directed toward players and officials in the form of chants, taunts and violent displays in response to the events on the field. </p>
<p>However inadvertently, the use of the media by Victorian Police has served to amplify scattered incidents of spectator disorderliness into the image of the football hooligan. However, there is little historical evidence to suggest the level of salience and coordination necessary for that either characterisation is at all justified - in Melbourne or anywhere else in Australia. </p>
<p>Quite simply the Superintendent has contributed to the collective memory of the few, by making folk devils out of what appears to be an exceptionally small number of Melbourne Victory supporters. </p>
<p>In so doing the police have merely reaffirmed the outsider image of football that persists in Australia. Ill-advisedly, the Superintendent also seems to believe that it is the Police that “set standards in this city, about how we believe people should behave”. This implies that the police view themselves, not just as the enforcers of societal norms, but also as its moral entrepreneurs. </p>
<p>The false identification of the supporters as hooligans demands that the Victoria Police consider carefully their policing methods in light of the existing literature and European experience - given we can only assume their public statements are to influence their policing strategy for the coming season. </p>
<h2>Contending approaches to football hooliganism</h2>
<p>Scholars have examined the issue of violence surrounding football matches – especially football hooliganism in Europe – for decades. The different approaches may be usefully categorised as being predominately: “behavioural”, “ideational” or “relational”. </p>
<p>The ideational approach, evident in the statements by the Victoria Police, emphasises the ideas and actions of the individual in instigating and maintaining violent incidents. The implication is that targeted, aggressive policies might suppress or eliminate the destructive ideas of the hooligan element from an otherwise well-behaved group of spectators. </p>
<p>Behavioural advocates, who incidentally dominate the sociological scholarship into football hooliganism in Britain, stress the role of the individual. In this approach, the core drivers of collective violence are considered: the primal instincts inherent within masculinity, the attainment of respect from peers, the forging of identities, and the pursuit of a sense of belonging. </p>
<p>Least common in football hooliganism scholarship historically is the relational approach that elevates the influence of conversational transactions between people and groups, such that collective violence amounts to a conversation among participants. For its proponents, the relational approach explains the variability of violence by way of interactions, motives, impulses and opportunities inherent in the social relations of those involved. </p>
<p>Whereas the Victorian Police appear to favour the ideational approach, I would argue that violence at football matches is most often best studied as a hybrid of the behavioural and relational approach. Thus, football hooliganism is viewed as a kind of conversation between and among participants as they navigate what separates “us” from “them” – a feature that enables it to be studied as a “violent ritual” amongst other types of collective violence such as brawls, scattered attacks, and international conflict. </p>
<p>For students of collective violence, violent rituals occur when well-defined and coordinated group/s follow a known interaction script that typically results in the infliction of damage on others within a recognised arena. Team sporting events, especially ones with opposing “ends” (i.e. fans sitting in different sections of the ground) such as football, are ripe for the construction of violent and non-violent rituals as a result of the creation and activation of us-them boundaries. </p>
<p>In this way, as Charles Tilly once expertly remarked, “collective violence resembles weather: complicated, changing, and unpredictable in some regards, yet resulting from similar causes variously combined in different times and places”.</p>
<h2>Lessons from Europe</h2>
<p>Research I have conducted into Italian, German and British hooliganism that occurred between 1863 and 1989 suggests that a small number of causal mechanisms – there it was nationalism and masculinity – serve to create, escalate and sustain violent interactions between and among football spectators. </p>
<p>Simply put, the relationship between nationalism and masculinity only becomes “real” through social practice; at the football, the songs that are chanted, and the expression of strength and prowess on the field all serve to engender an imagined community amongst many supporters where masculinities and national identities can be forged. Whilst nationalism and masculinity primarily reinforce each other, in some instances, masculinity serves to create bonds across national groups of hooligans such that their behaviours are, at times, tempered towards opposing fans such as Dads, children and women. </p>
<p>Studying spectator disorderliness in this way raises three implications for those tasked with responding to last season’s incidents in Melbourne. First, it is the extent of coordination and salience that best identifies causal mechanisms behind collective claim making. Second, whilst different types of collective violence might have similar motives, it is their own unique casual mechanisms and processes that may best explain why they occur. Third, where brokerage and boundary activation are present, previously peaceful interactions between participants may shift rapidly into violence. </p>
<p>Here’s hoping the Victoria Police rethink their policing strategy for the A-League 2011/12 season – for to do so would recognise that collective violence is a sort of conversation among and between its participants, which cannot be combatted by merely suppressing violent ideas and punishing loutish behaviour. </p>
<p>One small step would be to refrain from again amplifying the actions of a few unruly football fans by inappropriately labelling them as hooligans in the media.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/3355/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>N.A.J. Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The late Johnny Warren deftly described some Australians’ attitude to football as being a game for “sheilas, wogs, and poofters”. Whilst public interest has increased markedly following successive World…N.A.J. Taylor, Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Dialogue, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.