Capital Football led the charge for an ACT Women's Team in the W League. Fantastic work and outstanding for Women's Football in our region - as long as we keep the ACT representation high and talented young ACT players get a start.
Now the men's side of things is in tatters. The "pathway" stops at our Premier League competition. Can you recall Capital Football raising a senior men's ACT representative team to play a fixture against a visting team of good standard (A league Youth team, visiting overseas or interstate team) in the ACT last season. Promoting the fixture, encouraging A league reps / scouts to attend and generally making a big deal of the whole thing. Nothing comes immediately to mind! Clubs have organised better opportunties as part of their preseason and off season programs, no thanks to Capital Football and no support. Pretty misreable record in 2010 come to think of it on this matter.
The prospect of an A League team for Canberra drifts further and further into the future. No A League Youth team in prospect. The whole endeavour has run aground and the FFA has shown little interest in the ACT.
The only two Premier League Clubs that are sufficiently resourced to seek entry to the NSW Premier League are the two that have done it before (and been thrown out) - Belconnen United and Canberra FC. Good, strong clubs both. Neither seem inclined to give it a go again and anyway, if they do make the step up again and provide a defacto football pathway for our best players, why should they do it without some assistance from Capital Football? But that's just speculation on my part as both will campaign in the 2011 Capital Football Premier League.
Our best young players are stuck firmly in the ACT and that does them no good at all if they want to go further in the game.
And then I read this on the SBS World Game website. Do I detect a glimmer of a chance for us? Is Capital Football fully engaged and all hands awake and alert?
Read this one...
FFA considers second-tier comp
23 November 2010-AAP
http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/australia/news/1033045/FFA-considers-second-tier-comp
Financial distress for several A-League clubs has failed to deter Football Federation Australia from eyeing off the possible creation of a second-tier competition.
FFA launched a National Competition Review (NCR) to examine the set-up of leagues throughout the country.
Central to that is the possible establishment of a second national league, which would enable FFA to appease Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) desire for a promotion-relegation system to be put into operation.
"Once we get it right we will be able to better underpin the A-League, lay the foundation for a National Cup Competition and potentially for a future second-tier competition framework below the A-League," FFA chief executive officer Ben Buckley said in a statement.
AFC, of which Australia is now a part, has regulations that recommend promotion and relegation.
"A club shall qualify for a domestic league championship by remaining in a certain division or by being promoted or relegated to another at the end of a season," the regulations state.
But the head of the A-League Lyall Gorman denies the AFC has been putting the heat on the FFA.
"We're not under any pressure to do with that at all," Gorman said.
"It certainly is an aspiration or a target of the AFC that all its participating countries have a promotion-relegation system.
"But would it ever preclude you from participating in the Asian Champions League? No.
"But is it something we want to work towards over time? Yes, there could be a lot of merit in that."
Any second-tier competition would be funded separately to the A-League clubs.
But with the financial struggles of various teams such as Newcastle Jets and North Queensland Fury well documented, there appears little realistic prospect of the code sustaining more clubs.
"You'd hope that there'd be a very robust discussion about that," Gorman added.
"I have no doubt that any framework that may come out of this review would clearly be driven by financial viability and sustainability."