Why Is Soccer On The Decline in Australia?

across the world the trend is very clear football or soccer is the most popular sport on the planet and in countries where it doesn't yet reign supreme it is firmly on the march in venezuela the historic black sheep of south american football in a country where baseball has been the biggest sport since the early 1940s huge strides have been made over the last 10 to 15 years from failing to win a single game in 1998 world cup qualifying they almost made the interconfederation playoffs to the finals in 2010 and 2014 as well as reaching the semi-finals of the copper america in 2011 and the quarterfinals in 2007 2016 and 2019 having never previously even made the knockout stage venezuela's under-20 team also made history in 2017 by reaching the final of the under-20 world cup where they lost one nil to england suggesting that a bright future in football may well lie ahead for the tumultuous nation in the united states where football faces first competition for supremacy a hugely promising crop of young players including the likes of sergino dest eunice moussa and giovanni rayner spearheaded about the nation's biggest star of all christian paulistic all of whom play in europe have given plenty of cause for optimism ahead of the upcoming world cup and particularly the tournaments in 2026 of which they will be their primary hosts and just to give one last example their co-hosts at that tournament canada a country which has not historically had the closest cultural ties to football has perhaps been the most remarkable story of all led by englishman john herdman canada not only qualified for their first world cup since 1986 in 2022 they did so as concacaf third round champions ahead of both mexico and the united states it is a quite extraordinary rise indicative of years of hard work a fabulous team spirit and a nation where soccer only seems to be heading in one direction yet at the opposite end of the globe to canada and on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of optimism and future prospects when it comes to association football australia is currently in a quagmire since winning the afc asian cup in 2015 where they beat sun hyung min south korea 2-1 in the final it has been a story of not just stagnation but deep decline despite qualifying for the world cup in 2014 and 2018 australia didn't win a single one of their six group games across both tournaments finishing bottom of their group on both occasions and having come so close to failing to even qualify for the upcoming finals in qatar there are concerns among some that the socceroos succeeding only in sparing their blushes via a penalty shootout against peru might just have papered over some of the pretty big cracks in australian soccer that upon closer inspection only appear to be getting worse so we are going to take a trip down under to a land that loves sport more so than almost anywhere else but where that sport hasn't always been association football in an attempt to understand why australia is bucking the trend of venezuela the united states canada and others and why football is in such a terrible rut in the land of us if we cast our minds back to 2006 there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic about australian football at the country's first world cup since 1974 australia qualified from a group containing croatia japan and brazil to reach the knockout stage of a world cup for the very first time where they were only beaten as the result of a controversial 95th minute francesco totti penalty against eventual tournament winners italy that was an australia team that contained the likes of tim cahill mark the duker and harry kuhl almost half of their squad played in the premier league meanwhile others starred for the likes of ac milan palmer and psv they were a group of players that beat england 3-1 in wayne rooney's international debut in 2003 had overcome the might of two-time world champions uruguay in a play-off to qualify for that tournament and who would go on to qualify automatically for the following world cup in 2010. they did not fear the likes of croatia england or the netherlands all of whom they earned positive results against because they played against a lot of these players on a weekly basis they knew that they could go toe-to-toe with them although the australia team of the 2000s is now considered to have been a golden generation rather than a sign of even greater things that were still to come as was hoped at the time even as recently as june 2018 australia was still top dogs in the asian football confederation at least according to the fifa world rankings now they rank fourth in asia in those very same rankings just four years on and they are closer to being leapfrogged by both qatar and saudi arabia in fifth and sixth place respectively than they are to catching up with iran south korea and japan ahead of them you need only take the most fleeting of glances at the current socceroos squad to see that an awful lot has changed since 2006 and even since 2018. from the 13 australian internationals that played in the premier league in the 2005-06 season that number has stood at zero since matt ryan left brighton to join real sociedad not that long after aaron moy also brought his own time on england's south coast to an end muay as it happens was released just last week and is now a free agent currently linked with a move to celtic where australia's old national team boss angeposta coglu is head catch it's not just in the premier league though where the number of aussies competing at the highest level has been massively depleted in recent years it is right across the board this season just two australian internationals competed in any of europe's top five leagues compared to more than half of australia's 2006 world cup squad though that figure will rise to at least three next season following our mabel's move from midgeland to cadiz in la liga this summer this isn't just the organic decline and regression toward the mean for a national team that enjoyed a brief moment in the sun whilst there is probably an element of that an awful lot has happened in australian soccer over the last couple of decades for a start the national soccer league or nsl which had been australian football's top flight since its inception in 1977 collapsed in 2004. the league had enjoyed increasing popularity attendances and television audiences during the 1990s until the 7 network acquired the league's broadcasting rates on a 10-year deal and removed virtually all of the league's free-to-air content some people believe deliberately in an attempt to quash the league's growing popularity that combined with the 2001 fifa club world championship getting cancelled led to five nsl teams and three newly created clubs forming the a-league which took the place of the national soccer league as australian football's new top flight then in 2006 australia made the rare switch from one confederation to another as they were granted permission to leave the ofc the oceania football confederation to join the afc the asian football confederation despite you know not being in asia the move was made due to australia being by far the biggest and strongest nation and national team in the ofc and football australia deeming that their development and progress would be better served by facing stronger opposition on a more consistent basis rather than just battering the solomon island 17 nil every international break whilst in theory both the creation of the a-league and switching from the ofc to the afc ought to have been positive moves for the future of australian football both presented their own pitfalls particularly when it came to youth development prior to both changes when the likes of tim cahill mark schwarzer and the rest of australia's golden generation emerged whilst professional football in australia was generally in pretty bad shape the pathway for young players was at least fairly well defined you started out at your local team you fought to establish yourself with them if you were good enough you might break into the state team and from there the best players would be plucked by the ais they would go into the national youth teams and then hopefully onto the senior team and to a move overseas it wasn't straightforward by any means in fact just how difficult it was and the toughness and mental strength that was therefore required to tick off every step along the way is considered by many players of that generation to be a major reason as to why they were so successful but it was at least tangible and easily understood what has happened since then starting with the collapse of the nsl has been a breakdown of each and every one of the major steps along that chain local clubs have been decimated replaced by private and professional club academies youth team players are playing far too few games to fully develop or get noticed the ais which was later renamed the ffa center of excellence where the best young male australian soccer players had been trained since 1981 was finally abolished in 2017 following years of decline and the national youth teams no longer regularly compete against the best of their peers from across the world that is partly because australia's youth teams seem to take far fewer tours across the globe these days unlike in the 1990s when trips to south america were a fairly regular occurrence but also the fact that they are part of the afc now which has several strong underage national teams competing for places at major international tournaments has made it much more difficult for australia's youth teams to qualify for those tournaments australia's under-20s for example have failed to qualify for the last three under-20 world cups and haven't actually won a game at a finals since 2003. the under-17s somewhat similarly failed to qualify in 2009 2013 and 2017 having qualified for four successive tournaments and even having reached the final in 1999 prior to australia leaving the ofc for the afc these are brief but often vital learning curves for young players and increasingly australia has been isolated at youth team level leaving their young players untested against the best possible opposition the ffa center of excellence founded in 1981 as the ais was hugely successful during the 1990s similar to the football association's programme at lillishall in england which ran from 1984 to 1999 it invited 20 to 24 of the best under 16 and under 17 players in australia each year to be trained by elite coaches where they would be playing against the best players in their age group in every single training session the benefits of such a program are obvious and for many years it worked a treat just as lila shaw helped to nurture the likes of sol campbell joe cole and michael owen the ais churned out future australian internationals such as john aliossi marc breziano brett emerton and mark vadooka in fact there were 13 players at the 2010 world cup in south africa who spent a year training at the center of excellence 12 of whom made up more than half of australia's squad at the finals and also joseph simeonic who was born and raised in australia but went on to win more than 100 caps for croatia however during the last decade of the census existence trent sainsbury was just about the only notable alumni and with over half of the programme's students never even going on to turn professional by the end at a cost of 1.6 million australian dollars a year it is unsurprising that football australia decided to call timelines the center of excellence has served australian football well over a long period but the time has come for change said the ffa's chief executive david gallup at the time that's fine but the center of excellence would have to be replaced by new pathways and youth development programs which as of yet and despite promises that it would be at the time has not yet been the case one of the biggest problems in youth soccer in australia is simply the lack of games it is a problem throughout australian soccer in fact even at the senior level teams are isolated the inflexible pyramid is fractured and as i said competitive local clubs have all but been wiped out more damaging than all of that though which i only briefly alluded to a moment ago is what has replaced those local clubs whilst in the 1990s anyone could join their local soccer club in australia which would be the very difficult but nonetheless conceivable starting point in becoming a professional a future international and even playing abroad now access has become far more restricted and not restricted by talent hard work or potential but restricted by finances or more to the point at that age your parents finances the user pay model of private and professional academies is one that i spoke about at length in an entire video dedicated to that system in reference to youth development in the united states and it is telling that it is one that has not been widely adopted by any nation that has ever won the men's world cup in every one of the world's major footballing nations whether that be argentina brazil italy france spain uruguay germany or england it is from slums shanty houses council estates and working-class communities that the nation's future superstars are generally born the impoverished bondlears of paris's suburbs dominated by first or second generation immigrant communities currently give birth to more brilliant footballers than any other region on earth and there are individual districts in rio and sao paulo that have historically given rise to more great footballers than entire countries with more than a billion inhabitants by demanding that parents pay as much as 2 500 to register their children at a club as is the case at some user pay academies in australia you cut off these communities and with it you destroy the greatest chance of success in football that any nation has instead what you have in australian and in a lot of american football academies is a lot of under-skilled over-trained kids from increasingly privileged backgrounds not exclusively of course and it is not their fault but it is the reality in an awful lot of cases it also isn't particularly beneficial to a lot of those kids themselves whose parents have the required connections and or wealth to parachute their children into these academies because if they are nowhere near good enough it is a complete waste of their time and their parents can often put totally unreasonable expectations on them which have never been based on their actual ability were they ball at their feet when they would probably be far better served by just playing football for fun or taking up another sport entirely if it is of little interest to them and they are just subject to extremely pushy parents of course not all of those issues are unique to fee paying academies and financially restrictive academy systems but they make almost all of those problems worse nor is the issue of over training young players unique to the youtube game in australia i spoke about it at length in the context of european and indeed global football in my video about how footballers are dehumanized and their devastating consequences for young players but it does seem to be particularly prevalent in australia a little bit like english football up to 10 or maybe 15 years ago if we are being kind there is much too great a focus on the physical aspect of a young player's game than there is on their tactical or technical abilities that leads to early developers being given preferential treatment whilst youngsters with far greater potential can be overlooked there is also far too much focus on actually winning games and whilst that might sound daft at first the purpose of an academy after all is not to win games or even trophies but to nurture young players and to best serve their development it may well be the case that the best way to win a game as an under 13 team is to have a 5 foot 10 inch very early developed 12 year old up front who can run the 100 meter dash in under 12 seconds and then to smash balls up either for him to head or run onto but it almost certainly isn't the best way to develop him or the rest of his team it has been commented on by a number of australian coaches that they are unsure whether someone like harry kuhl who was one of the most talented young players on the planet at one point would be given the freedom to express himself and enjoy himself as he was in australia as a youngster during the 1990s now that's all to be a serious concern and it is worth noting that australia should theoretically be producing far more talented footballers now than the country was doing during the 1990s because participation in soccer especially among young people has skyrocketed since then soccer is the single most popular team sport in australia for participation among six to 13 year olds with close to 50 percent overall participation that is an enormous number of people in a country that is obsessed with sports more so than just about any other nation on earth and it illustrates that contrary to some claims the popularity of football in terms of participation at least has not collapsed in australia in recent years that is not to say that it hasn't contracted according to some reports participation has declined by around 14 over the last three years which is significant among that age group and it is most likely tied to the declining standards of the socceroos and the stagnation of the a-league meaning that young people in australia are less likely to be drawn towards the sport it's for that reason actually that whilst australia's penalty shootout win against peru which saw them qualify for this winter's world cup did certainly paper over a lot of cracks it is still likely to be a major positive for the nation simply due to the enormous impact that both that moment itself had and the representation at a world cup will have on young australians even if young players do manage to somehow navigate the fractured dysfunctional and downright unfair aussie youth system and earn themselves a professional contract at an a-league side there are still a number of fresh pitfalls that didn't exist when the golden generation came through every a-league team is allowed five foreign players currently they include the likes of adam lafondra jack rodwell and until recently at least daniel sturridge from england alone and biggish names like alessandro diamante alexander priyovich and roderick miranda from elsewhere since foreign players as is the case with most so-called developing leagues tend to be among the biggest names and highest earners they tend to play most games and they also tend to be more attacking players that has made it even more difficult for young players and particularly young forward players to break through in the a-league resulting in calls from some quarters for the number of foreign players permitted per team to be slashed from five to only two one issue that i haven't yet addressed but should which is out of australia's own hands is the rise of other asian national teams whilst australia have certainly regressed over the last 15 years as a national team at least many asian countries have made huge strides whilst the usual south asian suspects of japan and south korea have remained competitive and have far more players in europe's top five leagues than australia have western asian nations like qatar the uae and saudi arabia have also poured quite literally billions of dollars into the sport which has unsurprisingly led to a significant improvement in the standard of their squads and in their results the australian government on the other hand for a variety of different reasons has not funded australian soccer to anything like the extent that their rival gulf nations have and is unlikely to do so anytime soon that means that australia will have to be smart and organized if they are to avoid being left behind especially since many of these countries have larger populations than australia and football faces much less sporting competition there incidentally china has quite possibly invested more money in football in recent years than any other asian nation but unlike the others they are yet to see any market improvements just yet the rise of these nations also presents another problem for australia as instead of heading to one of europe's big leagues where the standard is highest a number of their best players are now heading to other countries in asia who are their rivals on the international stage and where the standard of football is much poorer aaron muy for example left brighton to join shanghai port in the chinese super league in 2020 martin boyle recently left scottish outfit hibernian to join al faisali in saudi arabia and a friend of ryan mcgowan who previously played for hearts dunder united and bradford city now plays his club football in kuwait not to mention the numerous aussies who currently play in the j-league the attraction of these teams countries and leagues is patently obvious they are not only closer to home they are also offering enormous wages but the standard of football particularly in the emerging leagues less so the j-league is not only far worse than that on offer in europe in some cases it is no better than the standard of the a-league itself i am simply ticking through the problems with australian football from my notes and as you can probably tell by this stage they are numerous there is also the fact that unlike in other countries where football is on the rise such as in the united states rival sports are not on the decline in australia and as sports mad as the nation is there are only so many great athletes that a nation of 25 million people can produce and if the vast majority are funneled into other sports football is always likely to struggle to a certain extent having said that i have made a point of not laboring the point too much of football's competitors some of the negative attitudes that still persist around soccer in australia particularly within the media and other cultural issues primarily because i wanted to focus on australia's decline and the reasons behind it rather than why they aren't footballing powerhouses full stop and all of those issues have always existed for all of australia's struggles it is likely that they will continue to qualify for the world cup perhaps with even greater ease than they have done in recent years as a result of the tournament's expansion from 32 to 48 teams from 2026 onwards that is a bit of a double-edged sword for australia in some respects since qualifying for the world cup is so important for a sports popularity status and the national association and team's funding but there are also those who feel that failure to qualify for the world cup might be the kick up the ass that aussie soccer requires and that without it radical change won't be implemented the nation's football will continue to stagnate and whilst they might qualify for the world cup they'll be even less likely to actually achieve anything when they get there in terms of what those changes might look like if they were implemented the first one would have to be scrapping the user pay academy system which is not only fundamentally unfair but is also extremely counterproductive if your intention is actually to create talented footballers the a-league it would seem also needs to be reformed in some sense as things stand the league is neither so bad that talented young players automatically get plenty of firsting football and a chance to develop nor is it so good that it is immensely popular profitable and capable of churning out ready-made international players one suggestion that has been floated about four as long as most people care to remember is a second division below the a-league which has promotion and relegation linking it to the country's top flight thus effectively doubling the number of professional footballers in australia creating far more opportunities for both young and senior players and the perennial problem of too few games that i mentioned earlier on alternatively some people have suggested just having a secondary league made up of a league reserve or under 23 teams allowing those younger players who can't quite break into the first team a chance to showcase their talent develop their ability and yes eventually break into the first team all of these seem like sensible and reasonable suggestions unfortunately i don't see much evidence of any of them being imminent albeit as someone who is watching on from almost 10 000 miles away with the possible exception of the foreign player cap being reduced which i also think is just about the least significant measure out of the lot i normally end these kinds of videos with some kind of reason to be cheerful and i suppose in the case of australia it would be that they have still qualified for the world cup and should continue to do so for the foreseeable future at least but that does seem like quite a hollow victory in many ways there is just no way of shirking the fact that australia are a much worse team now than they were 15 years ago and there isn't any real sense of urgency about putting that right and rectifying all of the deep lying issues that i've raised in this video and even lesser ones that i have left out for brevity i suppose it is worth pointing out that for a country of 25 million people where football isn't the most popular sport and arguably isn't even among the top three among adults at least to still be qualifying for the world cup and to have even a semi-decent team at all is some going yeah all right that probably hasn't lifted too many aussie soccer fan spirits i know but it is the best that i can do and it's true even if it's not all that reassuring so that is it for today's video but thank you all very much as ever for watching i hope you enjoyed it hit the like button if that was the case let me know your thoughts down below in the comments and make sure that you are subscribed and have notifications turned on for hitc sentence you could also find me alfie over on twitter and on instagram by the username at hitc7 on both should you wish to do so i'd highly recommend it have a great day

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 277,978

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Australia, Socceroos, Decline, Documentary, National Team, World Cup, FIFA World Cup, What On Earth, Rise and Fall, Australian, A-League, A League, Premier League, AFC

Id: 2AMhu8jCIng

Length: 29min 14sec (1754 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 13 2022