THE INTEGRITY OF THE PREMIERSHIP

The end of the A League regular season has stimulated some important discussion relating to the Premiership race. In particular, concern has been expressed about the timing of the final round games and the confusing use of the term ‘minor-premiership’ in media and other discussions.

The FFA have tended to focus on the Champions title that goes to the Grand Final winner at the end of the Finals/Playoff, thereby diluting any prestige attaching to the ‘Premiers’ title awarded to the team that finishes top of the ladder at the end of the regular season. One can understand the thinking behind this. The FFA is keen to promote what is the marquee event on the domestic football calendar. Moreover, Australian sports fans are used to a heavy emphasis on the Grand Final winners in other sports, particularly the popular football codes run by the the AFL and the NRL. In those codes there is a clear winner and season achiever. Whereas a “two-tiered” system that recognises dual winners and season achievers can be seen to be confusing and a bit of a tangle. There is also the greater publicity, higher attendances and volume of ‘event goer’ spectators, and boosted revenue generation by the football economy at national level that goes with Finals/Playoff matches.

As things stand, however, the Premiership is too underdone. The A League and domestic football would benefit from appropriate recognition of the Premiership – after all it is the first target for teams wanting to play Asian Champions League. The top ladder position is the traditional measure of superiority in the football world. In our part of the world the K League has conventionally used a Playoff system. But the Premier competition in our region – the J League – uses the ‘first past the post system’, one that generates a particular and sometimes intense kind of excitement. The A League administration would do well to understand this fact and then act accordingly for the benefit of the local national football competition.

The first thing the FFA needs to do is act decisively and clarify unequivocally that the title is called the ‘Premiership’, consciously and deliberately distinguishing it from the ‘minor-premiership’ tag used in the AFL and NRL.

Second, the final round matches should all be played simultaneously – preferably on Saturday night to allow for post-match celebrations late into the night that are prohibited by Sunday night fixtures. The benefits of this are that all of the possible outcomes going into the final round are all still alive still when the matches start – not only in terms of the Premiership but also in terms of finals placements. This is not the case in the staggered round where anticipation can flatten out very quickly if the ‘wrong’ result occurs on the Friday night game.

The policy of having simultaneous games lifts the excitement and anticipation levels considerably and maintains the integrity of the ‘live’ matches in the round. The tension would be considerably higher with fans focused not only on their own teams game but also eagerly attached to their radios and updates flashing across the scoreboard or communicated by ground announcers.

Imagine this scenario in context of the last round of the Season 4 campaign:

Telstra Dome, the 81st minute: Melbourne have been 1–0 up for some time and just have their noses in front on the Premiers title, Queensland have rebounded against Perth and taken the lead in the 77th minute. Then news filters through that Cristiano has just put Adelaide in front against Central Coast. Adelaide now have the edge in the Premiership race. But the ground announcer then announces that Queensland have just scored their 4th goal in the 82nd minute; the goal difference gap is being closed. The excitement of lifts considerably as the Melbourne crowd urges its team on; they HAVE to score to win the plate. Standing in the way is a Wellington side spurred on by Central Coast going behind: if the Phoenix can somehow score two goals in the last 10 minutes they can nick the 4th spot away from Central Coast. If Melbourne concedes an equaliser it runs the serious risk of Queensland being able to pip it for a place in the top two.

The emotion in Melbourne is unbearable.

Lang Park. and Queensland have just gone up 3–2 in the 77nd minute. As things stand they are in second place; a Wellington equaliser can still see them win it all. Adelaide score just as the Roar score their 4th - down into third spot but there is still hope if Central Coast and Wellington equalise and Queensland score again, the excited crowd lift the decibel level and urge their team on.

Over to Bluetongue Stadium in Gosford. Central Coast have just gone down 1–0 to Adelaide; thankfully for them Melbourne are still 1–0 up over Wellington, but that can so easily change and they cannot relax. Mariner fans urge their team on to equalise and keep the finals spot safe.

Then the Adelaide fans: the clock has been ticking with the scores locked at 0–0. Melbourne’s 1–0 lead has meant Victory have had their noses in front. Then the substitution pays off as Cristiano scores in the 82nd minute, Adelaide with their noses in front with only 10 or so minutes of the season to go. Then Archie Thompson – the bane of the Reds – scores Melbourne’s second goal in the 89th minute – devastation for the Adelaide fans . . . but there is still a few minutes to furiously urge their team on and try to exploit Central Coast’s relief at the news of Melbourne’s second goal. After all, Wellington are unlikely to score 3 goals in the remaining few minutes and their finals place and bragging rights over close neighbours Newcastle and Sydney are safe.

Back to Melbourne: the fans are euphoric after Archie has scored the second goal, but at the back of their minds they are concerned that Central Coast have time to switch off and allow Adelaide to score a second in the few remaining minutes. Injury Time in unbearable; they cannot afford to concede.

In reality – while there is an argument that the sequence of goals would have been different with all games being played at the same time – after Friday Night’s game we knew that Queensland could not win the Premiership Trophy at all and Central Coast were safe. While there was still something to play for in those matches, some of the sting had been taken out of them and the nonetheless healthy crowds of 17,000 in Brisbane and 12,351 in Gosford were lower than they might have been.

Football in Australia needs to emphasise and celebrate what makes our game unique. This is especially important in the crowded Australian sports environment. The nature of the broadcast rights contract between the FFA and Fox Sports probably does not allow for the necessary changes at this time. Fox Sports despite having the ‘Viewers Choice’ technology and multiple sports channels will probably want to continue with the staggered final round format for its own reasons. But this is certainly an issue that needs to be front and centre in the next round of broadcast rights negotiations.

To facilitate the simultaneous games a number of Premiership replicas need to be made to allow for the multiple possible outcomes on the final day of the season. The Premiership plate and individual medals should be awarded on the ground to the winning team immediately after the match. While it would be a simpler and less drawn-out affair than the Grand Final presentation, the media images and footage of euphoric Premiership winners being awarded would serve the game much more than some obscure pre-game presentation, often made some time after the achievement and in an irrelevant stadium. This still holds for teams winning the trophy at away games. The image of players celebrating their Premiership win in front of the jubilant away fans is a powerful one that would in the long term also encourage away support.

The final hurdle will be to win over new fans to the idea of dual achievements in domestic competition. It has been argued that generalist sports fan in Australia, grounded largely in AFL or NRL, will find it hard to fathom the concept of splitting their recognition between two season achievers (this is without even mentioning recognition of continental cup efforts). Australian fans are deemed to be used to the more clearly determined single winner. Yet duality is commonplace in the football world. Most notably in England – the highest profile football league in Australia – the Premier League and FA Cup winners are recognised as a season’s major achievers. There are differences; the FA Cup and National League winners are two distinct competitions whereas in Australia the Premiership and Champions Trophy are derivatives of the same league.

The challenge will be to find the balance between appropriate acknowledgement of the Premiership and the recognition of the A League Grand Final as the marquee event of a magnitude similar to the FA Cup played at Wembley. It will be a fine balancing act in some respects, but it is achievable and the Premiership and Grand Finals can be seen as a celebration of different achievements and appeal to different components of the football or A League fan-base. The Premiership deserves more respect, and this need not be at the expense of the Grand Final winners or the integrity of the Grand Final event.

Victory fans celebrating after winning the Premiership.

Andrew Donald

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