Like a beacon on a hill, the sold-out Grand Final between Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory shone radiantly for the A-League Men; a record 29,902 supporters in attendance to watch Aurelio Vidmar’s side become champions of Australia amid a wave of excitement and hope that it could augur a better tomorrow.
And the a day later, as if the light from that evening had burned too brightly, came the counter-punch; an A-League player was arrested by Victorian police over alleged offences related to spot-fixing, amid a wave of hyperbolic reporting painting Victory fans at the decider as a rogue horde of foreign barbarians, and revelations about how heavy-handed the police presence had been.
“Every time I’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s usually been an oncoming train,” Ange Postecoglou mused earlier this year, a well-trodden idiom aptly deployed by a coach who has been there and done that in the world of Australian football.
At times, it can indeed be tempting to feel a hex has been placed Down Under, with moments of promise snuffed out and replaced by apathy, stagnation, or crises. Soaring highs and crushing lows, wax melting in its wings whenever it dares stray too close to the sun.
But Australian football isn’t cursed. There is no maleficent force operating from the shadows doling out cosmic misfortune whenever a moment of optimism emerges. Certainly, some wouldn’t be considered friends of the game — see the aforementioned reaction to the Grand Final — and there exists a decades-long tradition of othering football and those who play it in Australia. But many of the wounds that have befallen it, often the deepest ones, and the scars that continue to mark its flesh, have been of the self-inflicted variety.
The good news is that this also means it possesses the inherent strengths to forge a position of robustness, sustainability, and health. Almost 30,000 people at AAMI Park is a sign of that. The thousands of clubs that continue to achieve, week-in and week-out, across the country, bringing the sport the largest participation base in the country, are proof of that.
And while they need to be accounted for, to be certain, football doesn’t need to compete with the AFL and NRL to capitalise on these strengths. Attempting to do so, in fact, could serve to minimise them. As part of a truly global game, football doesn’t have to measure success based on a narrow scope of Australian sport alone. By looking beyond this framework, it can seek to offer a point of comparison through the traditions of the football in a more sustainable manner rather than simply trying to beat the dominant codes at their own game.
But the A-League’s path to the promised land, whatever that looks like, is a long one. During this offseason, the challenge for the Australian top flight isn’t so much delivering on promises made but, instead, giving those invested — at any angle, from players and coaches to media and supporters — a reason to stay on this journey. Selling out a Melbourne Derby decider was fantastic and provided a strong ending to a season, but so did selling out last season’s Grand Final in Gosford and basking in the community spirit that marked the Central Coast Mariners’ back-to-back titles. Mainstream demonisation of supporters has delivered a (rightful) rally-around-the-flag moment, but it doesn’t address the long-term health of the league.
Because if one were to sit down and ask what the league’s aspirations are on a medium- to long-term scale, there’s not a lot of specifics, and those that exist don’t inspire joy.
At present, the dominant theme of the A-League’s future is that it cannot sustain itself in its current state. That’s not conjecture, rumour, or muckraking from outside the tent, but, instead, the clear message being sent by league administrators, the Australian Professional Leagues, by their efforts to introduce a hard cap of AU$3 million with just a singular marquee player from the 2026-27 season. This is taking place against a backdrop of ownership and financial uncertainty across several clubs, zero transparency surrounding expansion, and more.
“What we’re seeing is what we frankly think is an unsustainable trend in terms of [club] performance, their profitability, their losses,” A-League executive chairman Stephen Conroy said in April. “Behind the scenes … the level of the financial stress the clubs are under is significant, and it’s getting worse.”
The league is preaching sustainability and finding a size reflective of its capabilities, and itself expects to break even soon. These are good things. But football’s disproportionately young fanbase has seen the effects that austerity has had on their quality of life across the past decade, and it’s benefited others far more than their own. Now the league and clubs they follow are doing it.
And it’s austerity in pursuit of what? What comes after the bottoming out? Moving towards full-time professionalism in the A-League Women? More teams and more games? Great connectivity with the pyramid? There’s been a (necessary) correction from the hyperbolic ambitions of the first few years of independence and a replacement with a much-needed focus on the game, but at what stage is there an over-correction, wherein a league burned by an overambitious agenda has replaced it with a target so small it’s undeterminable?
Since his sudden move into a leadership role, Conroy has been almost completely absent from public discourse on the competition. Undoubtedly, he’s been busy. And there would be an inevitable reticence to speak if one felt major announcements were imminent. But the only time the executive has spoken publicly was at the unveiling of the league’s plan to reduce spending via a hard cap. A cut. There has been a void, one that has not only bred uncertainty but also allowed or forced others to step in to fill it. Interim Matildas boss Tom Sermanni, for instance, occupied the space when he bemoaned the state and trajectory of the A-League Women. It fell to the Victory leadership to speak up after the demonisation of their fans.
Competent and dispassionate administration is important, no doubt. Lord knows Australian football hasn’t been rich in it over the years. Nobody is going to say the league doesn’t need to level out and find sustainability, and those invested in covering the game and its everyday nuances don’t want to needlessly bring down the mood, especially when there are plenty of others all too happy to do that. But scrutiny is important.
And there’s an elephant in the room. The A-League, even in its privatised state, operates on a social contract with Australian football. Twenty years ago, a competition that has since been privatised and run as a for-profit entity was given exclusive access and control of the Australian top flight. It came under the assumption that it would provide a level of investment and facilities that would otherwise be unattainable. Existing clubs were banished to the state leagues, a scorched earth approach that most, in hindsight, recognised was heavy-handed.
Wins followed. There has been an ever-presence at men’s and women’s World Cups, continued last week through the Socceroos qualifying for a sixth-straight FIFA World Cup. There is now a women’s league with a full home-and-away season. Australian players are increasingly being joined by coaches and even administrators in striking out abroad. And, of course, memories of the packed crowds, significant mainstream interest, and all-around sense of momentum of the league’s peak years in the early 2010s live on.
But progress isn’t constant, and with every budget cut, contraction, and story that comes out — be it payments to players being missed, teams being understaffed and resourced, analysts going unpaid as they operate a pizza shop — the landscape shifts.
The A-League’s exclusive, protected status is built on the idea that the benefits it brings to Australian football cannot exist without it. But if that bargain is going to continue to exist, scrutiny must always exist to ensure they’re delivering on it.
