But we have a some significant points of difference between our Men's PL Clubs that raise more questions than is easy to answer or perhaps good for the game in our region.
Leaving aside all the detail, a licence may be granted if these very basic requirements are thought to be able to be provided by the Club at commencement and sustained to a competitive level throughout the season:
- Enough money to run the PL teams
- A quality ground to play home fixtures
- Ability to field competitive teams across the PL16, PL18, PPL and PL
- Suitable home ground facilties for players and referees and spectators
Applications are often put together at Club level, by a very willing few. Volunteerism only goes so far in most Clubs which is a pity.
Capital Football establishes a separate "committee" to evaluate PL Club applications, in order to make recommendations to the Capital Football Board. The licences are awarded for specific periods of time and Clubs must reapply when the licence period expires. Some Clubs have come and gone. Its a tricky business.
The first and most obvious observation of the current Men's PL structure is that there are several different, very different Club structures that constitute a PL Club in our current competition. At one end a Club with all the resources necessary to be thought of as a "professional" style of football Club, while at the other, the community based cash strapped local Club with bugger all by way of assets but just as frequently lots of junior players. And a couple of other soutions in between these two, some seemingly parasitic in nature and others a genuine combination of different levels of football resources (players). Its a real patchwork quilt. Reflective as it is of the fashion in which Football has grown in our region. Not a criticism, just a fact.
And remember, we are only talking of Mens PL football, not the Women's PL football, though it is important to say that not every Men's PL licence at a club is matched by a Women's Pl licence.
To kick this off, lets give this an international flavour. This article form the BBC was brought to my attention by Alan Hinde, the former President of Woden Valley FC (Mens and Womens).
People see the status of a Club in different ways and interestingly, a season of Football is not the same from one country to another. Makes you think!
Have a read and stay tuned for more on this local football development subject.
Go to this address for Tim Vickory's BBC Sports Blog, its a good one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/2010/05/vickery_16.html
Beating the drop by any means necessary
Sheffield Wednesday fans don't need to be told that relegation is a painful blow, almost like a death in the family.
It is so traumatic that the major South American leagues have a history of trying to ensure that it never happens to their big clubs. There were years in Brazil when it was decreed that no former First Division champion could go down.
Even when this clause was not in effect, there were times when big clubs finished bottom of the table, and still stayed up. All kinds of strange justifications were employed to keep them in the top flight - such as scrapping relegation altogether to save Fluminense from the drop.
People in Brazilian football would argue, in all seriousness and with a totally straight face, that it was absurd for big clubs to be in the Second Division, no matter how bad their results. It was feudalism in action, the exact opposite of meritocracy of the game.
It is an indicator of how much progress the country has made in the last few years that this way of thinking is now obsolete. Even Corinthians have been relegated to the Second Division - and with over 20m supporters, this is a giant club indeed - and other big names have also fallen, including Palmeiras, Vasco da Gama, Botafogo, Gremio and Atletico Mineiro.
The Second Division has benefited enormously as a result from TV deals and greater publicity and there is no doubt that Brazil is more than big enough to support a good standard second tier.
The clubs have benefited as well and with the exception of Bahia, all have bounced back at the first attempt, stronger for the experience.
Argentina has a different system. Since the early 90s, in a bid to keep the interest level high, the season is split into two short and separate championships. The Apertura (Opening) runs from August to December, and the Clausura (Closing) from February to May, each with the 20 teams playing each other once.
It would clearly be unfair to relegate clubs after one campaign of 19 games, but using a combined total of points from the two championships (38 games) would surely be a fair solution. That's not the way it works, however.
The perceived problem is that even the biggest clubs are forever selling their best players and are thus frequently caught in a spell of transition, when results can suffer as one team is deconstructed and another built. So, to protect the giants from the consequences of such a situation, relegation is worked out on an average of points accumulated over three years, or six championships.
This system helps the big clubs, but it's not foolproof, not if a transitional phase becomes an institutional crisis, as has happened with River Plate.
The Buenos Aires giants enjoyed their last taste of success when they won the 2007/8 Clausura, but since then the wheels have come off. Over the two championships in that season they accumulated 66 points, but in in 2008/9 they managed just 41 and with two games to go in the current campaign, they only have 40.
What has gone wrong? Coaches have come and gone, with no improvement in results. Traditionally a great producer of players, the club's talented youngsters have not been making the progress expected. Both are signs of something fundamentally wrong in the set up.
Supporters groups, meanwhile, have been battling for control, prompting suspicions that they may have been receiving a cut of transfer fees.
River's former great Daniel Passarella took over as president at the turn of the year and announced that he found the club in a financial coma. He recently appointed Angel Cappa as the new coach, an old style footballing romantic, whose preference for a pass-and-move game puts him right in line with the tradition of the club. It should be a perfect fit - and it needs to be.
River are not in immediate relegation danger. The two teams with the worst points average go down, the next two go into play-offs. Of the 20 clubs, River currently lie 12th in the relegation standings - saved by those 66 points accumulated in 2007/8.
But next August, when the new season kicks off, they lose those points. Only their disastrous results from the next two seasons will count, along, of course, with the points they pick up in 2010/11.
They will therefore go into the next campaign under pressure and if they do badly in the Apertura they could find themselves in a strange situation - needing to win the Clausura to stay up, simultaneously fighting for the championship and to avoid relegation.
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