Season Four

Release of the draw this week, and other announcements concerning season four. The most significant of which was the resigning of Hyundai for another four year years as the naming rights sponsor for the A-League (apparently on much improved terms). This will take the partnership between the FFA and Hyundai to the end of the 2011-2012 season and it is no coincidence that this will coincide with the new TV rights deal at around that time as well. It seems the FFA are lining up their ducks for a tilt at some big money come the end of 2012.

Speaking from a Melbourne fans point of view the draw itself was a little disappointing. If you include the preseason, Victory fans will need to wait 6 weeks for their first home game (Melbourne have no preseason games in Victoria). There is also the poor scheduling in the middle of the draw where Melbourne travels to Wellington one week and then plays across to Perth the next. This really should never happen in a well constructed draw.

Not sure why all the fuss about the Saturday Night final. Sure, it is a good idea (I am sure the winner’s fans will appreciate the ability to party with the team on the Sunday but groundbreaking it isn’t). It was good to see that the official FIFA dates are now break weeks, as this was an issue last season.

Most of the other announcements had already been released previously (Marquee Under 23 Player, Salary Cap Increase to 1.9 Million, Squad size increase to 30 - 35 Players) but it was good to see the loophole around Injury Players closed. No longer will teams be allowed to sign injury players to salaries that fall outside the cap, teams will only be able to sign players for cover on salaries the same of lower than the player being replaced. This was the loophole that Central Coast made use of last year to sign John Aloisi. With the closure of this loophole and the introduction of the youth league it will be interesting to see how clubs deal with injuries this season.

Was very surprised that more was not made of the introduction of the youth league in the announcement, with the delay to the expansion of the comp to next year (hopefully) easily the most exciting development this year will be the introduction of youth/reserve teams and it is a pity that the league didn’t use the official release of the draw to also provide more details of the NYL Comp. Of course this may be due to the fact that most teams might not have worked out the details of grounds, time etc yet and hopefully we will see more details in a month or so.

All in all though this is the start of the three month build up to the new season and I for one am eagerly awaiting Season Four. Bring it on !

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