The Weekender: Has Canberra missed the A-League boat?

The Weekender:

Aims to provide football, opinions, analysis or just a good old rant written by a Canberran. Where else can you get football on a Saturday written or spoken by one of our own?

This week it's me, trying to make sense of our lack of A-League noise, not to mention bid!

Have you heard all the noise about Canberra's A-League bid? Me neither!

Eight teams in the A-League, the Gold Coast just accepted, a further nine bids on the FFA table, and not a peep from the nations capital, Canberra.

How come? And are we well and truly out of the mix?

Firstly, a Danny Moulis led consortium got the approval, official or otherwise, of most favoured A-League bid team by Capital Football.

This didn't negate others putting their own bid together, but despite some rumblings no-one ever did, and now Moulis has officially stepped down.

As the FFA deadline passed on Tuesday this week, ten bids were received, and nothing was forthcoming from Canberra.

There had been discussions with various, local, interstate and international parties over the previous years but seemingly little interest has been sparked.

Too many failed teams from Canberra.
Too many remember the Cosmos.
The Raiders and the Brumbies are struggling as it is.
Too cold to invest in Canberra.

The list is many and varied.

But where was the noise, the passion of the game, of the people.

Why would you invest in Canberra Football?

We have no A-League vision or noise, no opportunity for football folk, the diehards, to push towards something for the future of the city.

Why would a Canberra Federal Politician jump on board. There is nothing to jump on.

Kevin 07 is doing his bit for football, indeed an Austrade delegation with Australian business are in Dubai and Qatar as we speak for the Socceroos games.

We need a bigger group of supporters, and another separate group of business people who are interested in and passionate about football and the Capital, the region.

Why else has the richest man in Australia, Clive Palmer, jumped on board the Gold Coast bid. Because there was a bid, a noise for two years and he see's the benefit of football to his business.

No-one could jump on Canberra's bid because it was the most secretive, quietest, smallest squeak, you've ever heard.

Each city, each bid is different. Each method of garnering support varied. And don't be fooled. Ten bids doesn't mean much, not yet.

Townsville have two bids. As if! One suspects neither has the funds.
Wollongong, no Bruce Gordon, no bid, and the last I heard he's out.
Sydney and Melbourne three bids each.
Only the Gold Coast have a secure bid at this stage. In fact they just being given the ninth place officially.

In Canberra many still talk about the decline of the Cosmos. Not the young people, but the people who run the city. For that reason we needed air, football hype, a lot of possibilities, to encourage people to talk football, to talk about the future, to get on aboard.

Slowly but surely we can turn the community, the committed football people around. To give them the opportunity to come out and support, to talk about the future.

Of course we need money. Big money. We always did, always will.

But how can you garner support from those with the dough, when they feel they are having to gather every single individual supporter. Clive Palmer came at the death!

We've had 7,200 to watch an A-League pre-season game involving no Canberra teams. Where were the opportunities to sign a petition, to pledge support. Indeed what is the point of having these games if they don't serve our bigger purpose?

Where was the gathering of the grassroots support. Simple statements. Media coverage. Business breakfasts, The A-League future. The benefits of the professional game to Canberra.

And now we're where exactly.

We need a grassroots campaign. Capital Football could fund and support this to grow the game. They could join it with a broader "get to know football" thus ensuring they are not involved in the A-League bid.

And of course we need the Bid team, separate from Capital Football, who will gather the tender dollars, the community leaders who will lead the bid. And who knows we may just get our Knight in shining armour bashing the door down.

The Gold Coast did. Even the Mariners were up and running before Peter Turnbull joined up. And that's the point they could join because there was something to join.

What have we got to lose.

I also believe we(Canberra and it's businesses) should have financed the Wellington Phoenix Youth team. Why? Because we'd now have a team, and can you imagine the interest that would have created in the football people of the city. A lost opportunity? Time will tell.

We're the Capital of Australia. We've 17,000 registered players. Football, the Socceroos and Matildas, has a new profile. It's time this city went forward in a football sense.

The alternative:

Come back in 2020 and we'll still be a city without a Professional football team, without any of the benefits that an A-League team, and its relationship with Asia, can bring.

Don't hold your breadth but we may not be dead just yet.

But it's time to rethink our approach.

Senators Kate Lundy, Bob McMullen and Gary Humphries need to be asked to push buttons. Encourage backers, and promoters.

Do they want to see this city missing out, on a Rudd led football bonanza?

Capital Football could have a "Football Promotion" group. A long term vision to promote professional football. All the notable Pollies, businessmen and women and should be invited to a "football presentation, on the future of the game in Canberra."The benefits football bring and can bring to the city. It needs a professional job.

Football ain't going away. Canberra ain't going away. And it's not that hard to envisage a new approach.

More noise would be a great start.