NO BETTER TIME TO ALIGN
Former A-League stars on national competition’s winter shift
IF Australia’s national football competition is to align with the National Premier Leagues and Asia’s top competitions, the adjustment has to happen now, according to former Socceroos defender Michael Thwaite.
The 37-year-old spent two seasons in the now-defunct National Soccer League at the start of his professional career, and returned for more than 200 A-League games after five years in Europe.
Now an integral member of Gold Coast United, the former Saints junior is at the coalface of an NPL club’s push to grow and develop into one of the south-east corner’s biggest clubs – and potentially, a return to the A-League.
Thwaite didn’t have a preference as to whether the ALeague
was played in winter or summer, but stressed now was the time for football to unite and make decisions in the best interest of the game.
“Looking back at my experience in the NSL and A-League, it was always played in the summer with NPL in winter,” he said. “It would be difficult to align the competitions, but if there was any time to do it, it would be now.”
Thwaite warned it wouldn’t be as simple as just shifting the draw, with TV rights, direct competition with the NRL and AFL and ground availability among the chief concerns.
Fellow FNQ product and former A-League player Zenon Caravella backed a shift to winter, a move which could increase quality of the on-field product as well as finally align the national competition with every other level of football in the country.
“It would be brilliant, playing in the cooler weather adds to the speed of the game, especially in football,” Caravella said. “Sometimes it gets so hot out there it just turns to sh--.
“It’s just too hot to play at that level for so long.”
The A-League will likely be on the agenda of the newly formed Starting XI, a panel formed by FFA which will discuss and debate the growth and development of football.
Cairns product and former Socceroos player and coach Frank Farina will serve a twoyear voluntary term alongside the likes of Mark Viduka, Josip Skoko, Clare Polkinghorne, and Mark Bosnich.
The group will share its “insights and ideas” with FFA on matters from grassroots and community football to international level, player pathways, national teams and the “overall wellbeing of the game”.