Cate Swannell ??|??December 29th, 2011
ANYONE who believes the A-League football competition is anything other than second-rate is kidding themselves.
There you go. That will get the round-ball fanatics gunning for me early.
Before any of you start telling me I don't know what I'm talking about and should shut my guts, bucko ... go google John Swannell (the footballer, not the photographer).
Add 14 years as a sports reporter, more than a passing interest in Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesborough and Tottenham Hotspur and I think I'm qualified enough. I've watched more football and heckled more referees than most of you have had hot dinners.
?So ... I say again, the A-League is, for the most part, rubbish, and I, for one, am sick of the hype.
Let me say right off the bat, this isn't a crack at Gold Coast United -- the club is doing the best it can with the resources available to it.
But the truth is, Monday's M1 derby between GCU and the Brisbane Roar -- the first half at least -- was unwatchable garbage.
The second half was a marginal improvement, mainly because United suddenly realised that having possession of the ball is pointless unless you do something about trying to put it in the back of the net.
They actually started pressing forward and what do you know, ended up with a penalty.
A rubbish bit of refereeing, admittedly, but at least United forced the game into positive territory.
Fair dinkum, being a Fox Sports cameraman at an A-League game must be the easiest job in sports broadcasting -- the ball barely moved out of the middle third of the pitch on Monday night.
What the commentators called Brisbane's 'patience' I call negative, indecisive, pointless football. Side to side, then a backpass to the 'keeper.
Pointless. Boring. Unwatchable.
As my Paternal Parental Unit -- twin brother of the aforementioned England representative, and a fair centre back in his own right in his day -- said on Monday night, 'if that's how Brisbane won 30-something games in a row, what does that say about the quality of the opposition'.
Not bloody much, Pater.
The FFA and Fox can tell us how good the Australian competition is as much as they like, they can't hide the fact that our best players go where the money and the quality play is -- Europe and Asia. Leaving a second-rate competition behind.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the A-League is the only one with this problem.
The National Basketball League has the same challenges.
Anybody who is good enough is off earning a huge living where the money is -- the NBA and Europe.
Here at goldcoast.com.au and the Gold Coast Bulletin we get a lot of people moaning at us about how we don't give football an equal run to rugby league and Aussie rules.
The short answer is, the NRL and AFL are the best competitions in their sport in the world.
The A-League, and the NBL, are not.
It's that simple.
?
Source: http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/12/29/377391_gold-coast-soccer.html
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