Moot Point: Coverage? What coverage?

The Hyundai A-League has received zero coverage in mainstream media this week: no highlights, no mention and not even the scores flashed on the screen. So, is it just me or is there something seriously wrong here?

The A-League is the only football code being played at the moment. The start of the season was deliberately delayed to allow the AFL and NRL to finish their seasons, yet there seems to be some hesitation about promoting it to a level it deserves.

Scenario 1: Saturday morning I picked up a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald and turned to the Weekend Sport lift-out. 20 pages of sport, including extensive Melbourne Cup coverage - yet the previous night Brisbane Roar had just thumped Adelaide United 7-1. A magnificent score by a superb team which has broken all the football records in Australia, but the game was apparently not newsworthy enough to make it into the early pages.

So where was the coverage? Front page? No, bickering cricketers got that. Early pages? No, try again. Finally, on page 16 we get there. Towards the back and a total of less than one page of A-League coverage including the fact that Sydney FC was playing that night in Melbourne. By a rough calculation, about 4% of the sports section of the paper – a newspaper that calls itself Sports Newspaper of the Year.


Scenario 2: Channel Seven news at 6pm in Sydney on Saturday night. The sports report is hosted by Tony Squires in Melbourne for Derby Day at Flemington. Okay, we’ll soon get to the A-League. Or do we? No, what’s that? A commercial break before the weather!


But does the A-League deserve it? Perhaps we are really deluding ourselves into thinking that the A-League is anything more than a second-tier domestic football competition that caters for players who are trying to secure overseas contracts; returning from overseas contracts in the twilight of their careers; or only good enough to play at a level which is marginally above the various state leagues.

Personally, I don’t think so, but the perception exists and it needs to be changed. And real change can only come about when we have a product that is on free-to-air television and when stadiums are packed. Not when we try to bring down other codes, or compare ourselves to other codes.

In Australia there are, and always will be, room for four codes of football. We just have to claim our fair share of the pie.

SBS, the only real choice
As a football fanatic in the 1980's the only real coverage one could experience of the game was by watching SBS and in particular the Saturday night staple of World Soccer hosted by Les Murray and at various other times by George Donikian and Andy Paschalidis.

I recall horrifically how the ABC was only going to broadcast live five matches of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico before SBS stepped in and provided a daily game. For Italia 90, USA 94, France 98, Korea/Japan 2002 (in conjunction with Channel Nine), Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010, SBS has been there. And provided a first-class coverage in each case!

Last week, in the only sensible move possible, FIFA awarded SBS the broadcast rights for all FIFA competitions from 2015 to 2022 including: 2018 World Cup in Russia, 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Women’s World Cup in Canada in 2015 and Women’s World Cup in 2019.

“SBS has been a pioneer in football broadcasting over the past three decades and can be proud of what it’s achieved in bringing major FIFA tournaments to Australian viewers,” said Ben Buckley, the CEO of Football Federation Australia.

“The coverage of the Socceroos in the past two FIFA World Cups has allowed SBS to reach new audiences and that can only assist in the growth of football in Australia….on behalf of FFA I say congratulations to SBS. We look forward to working with SBS for all FIFA events that showcase our great Australian national teams.”

Amen to that, but now Mr Buckley, how about the Hyundai A-League? Will the governing body of the game in Australia guarantee that never again shall our premier football competition be relegated exclusively to pay television?

Short term money can never make up for long term vision!

Congrats to Miranda Magpies Girls
Moot Point's attention was drawn to, and as such would like to congratulate, the Miranda Magpies Under-21 women's team who recently won the Football NSW Champion of Champions tournament. A great 5-1 win over Burwood was the highlight of the tournament for them. This team was also the Under-18 champions two years ago.

Your friends and parents are very proud of you. Well done!