What's the point of the A-League?

Is it to provide the foundations of a successful national team? Pim Verbeek didn't seem to think so.

Is it to be a stand-alone revenue-generating industry like the EPL? The financial difficulties of Gold Coast, Newcastle and North Queensland to name just three suggests not.

Does it exist then to satisfy the need demanded by Australian soccer fans? Perhaps, but painfully low attendance figures for the sixth season suggests even this argument is flawed.

On Fox Sports FC last week, Andy Harper said: "What we must defend against, and I'm certainly going to do it, is people attacking the validity of football in Australia. They somehow make this ridiculous leap between a club or two clubs in the competition having a couple of financial issues, as serious as they may be, with the validity of the whole sport. It's ridiculous. The A-League is here, the football is good and I can't wait for this week's round."

As much as I admire his passion and desire to defend a sport and competition he clearly loves, I can't help but feel Andy is allowing his heart to overrule his head. By the three measures I suggested above, the A-League is barely a valid competition.

This problem is compounded by soccer not having the weight of history to support it through difficult times and provide the unquestionable mandate of, for example Australian Rules football.

Earlier in the same show, Harper compared the state of the A-League with the recent history of the AFL, citing five (unnamed) sides in recent times unable to attract a major sponsor and, over the previous 15 years, eight sides at any one time struggling financially. "The key difference," he posited, "is that nobody ever challenges the validity of Australian Rules football."

Harper clearly intended that statement to be a challenge to commentators to apply equivalent standards of reporting when considering the financial health of football clubs.

I think he touched upon a far more significant issue, however, by suggesting Australian Rules football, in its current format as the AFL, has a guaranteed mandate. To which I think the answer, especially in Victoria, is that it does. Soccer might be the world game but in this country, it's not even football and outside of the Socceroos, has yet to find a sustainable place in the sporting marketplace.

Football Federation Australia needs to work out exactly what its product is and how to market it successfully in a congested arena. Right now, its inability to answer the overarching question about the point of the A-League has turned a massive post-World Cup opportunity into a damage-limitation exercise.

It need not all be doom and gloom. Participation rates for both juniors and adults, male and female, show that soccer is thriving at the grassroots. Considerably more soccer is played throughout Australia than Australian Rules football for example. The difficulty is converting this into A-League interest and attendance.

The Four Diegos charged Australia's casual soccer fans with responsibility.

On their recent ABC show, Carlos Alberto Diego, warned that the A-League is only as viable as the fans prepared to turn up and support their clubs on match day. "The fans out there, if they want these leagues, they've got to support them through thick and thin, and not only go yourself but also take three or four of your mates along as well ... Without these fans the clubs will die and the league will die."

Sentiments supported by Rodrigo Rodriguez, who said, "If you say you're a supporter of a football team, go to the football, buy yourself a membership because that's the only way it seems these clubs are going to survive."

And herein lies the most difficult of the A-League's problems. Like it or not, the A-League is inferior to the big leagues of Europe. The standard of play is less attractive, the players are of poorer quality and the overall product is less appealing.

The casual soccer fan is aware of this and happy to watch Serie A, La Liga and the EPL remotely for their soccer-fix. Why make the effort and spend $20 to sit in a deserted stadium and watch a development league when you can stay at home and watch the world's elite from your sofa with a full-strength beer in your hand?

The A-League's response to this dilemma is understandable but fundamentally flawed: to sell the competition not on the football but on the terrace experience.

The current advertising campaign focuses on the match-day experience that soccer offers, suggesting it is unrivalled in other Australian ball sports.

Under the banner of ‘Fan Made' the league is selling the atmosphere of attending a soccer match: the singing, the passion and the tribal edge that the A-League has admirably attempted to import from overseas.

However, as a disappointed A-League member, active within his own side's support, shared with me recently, such a campaign only preaches to the converted.

If being part of soccer's terrace culture appealed, the chances are you would already have signed up by now. The target market should instead be casual-interest supporters and fans of other sports - notably AFL and NRL - looking for a summer game to follow while their primary league is in its off-season.

Many of these potential supporters find soccer's terrace rivalry an active turn-off and are still deterred by historical tales of violence at matches.

The A-League has no divine mandate to exist. Unlike the AFL it also does not yet have a heritage that can sustain it through difficult situations. The league is currently disproving the Field of Dreams aphorism that "if you build it, he will come."

The product is not yet of sufficient quality to guarantee spectators in the face of stiff competition from domestic codes and international leagues.

There is clearly a market for soccer in Australia and that market is only likely to increase as the number of soccer players increases. A wise decision needs to be made soon, however, about exactly what market capitalisation looks like, because at the moment, the A-League is limping through what should be a celebratory sixth season.

There has to be much closer alignment between whatever domestic competition exists and the national side.

There has to be more realistic budgeting practices for A-League clubs. If Gold Coast has to close stands or Newcastle requires 13,000 fans to break even, something is wrong with the financial structures underpinning the game in this country.

Finally, soccer remains the realm of die-hard soccer-fans. Until the game is able to reach out to more casual supporters, it will remain a niche sport.

The success of the Socceroos has shown this can be achieved; the domestic competition needs to follow suit.

Soccer has one trump card left to play, the bid to host the 2022 World Cup. While all FFA's eggs are not quite yet in this basket, they are not far off.

Ben Buckley's decision to remain in China recently, rather than return to extinguish A-League fires, highlights current priorities.

A successful bid would provide a much-needed shot in the arm to soccer in this country and the build-up, match attendance and legacy should surely provide a solid foundation from which the A-League should remain prosperous.

However, failure to secure the bid within such financial difficulties and decreasing supporter goodwill could spell disaster for soccer.

The picture painted may seem bleak but soccer in Australia is far from out on its feet.

A push in the right direction would help secure its immediate future and build the foundations necessary to lead the game safely into a position where it is no longer second-guessing its own existence.

I would like to see FFA and the soccer community begin by answering the most basic of questions: what is the point of the A-League?

Until that question is comprehensively answered, I fear the same confused approach to the game in this country is destined to remain.