Soccer: Kingz await nod for new league

By TERRY MADDAFORD in Sydney

The Australian Soccer Association will announce the eight teams for its much-awaited National Premier League today and insists it has done its homework and closed all loopholes.

If the ASA has got it right, and early indications suggest it has, there should be no repeat of the adverse reaction in New Zealand when rejected bidders Ole Madrids and East Auckland challenged (unsuccessfully) the national body after the eight franchises for the New Zealand Football Championship were announced.

Like New Zealand Soccer, the ASA drew up an extensive list of criteria for prospective franchises and set out to ensure that those who best fitted those criteria would get the nod.

As the sole New Zealand bidder, and given the support of New Zealand Soccer, the Football Kingz seem certain to be handed a licence. The remaining seven will, almost certainly, be spread throughout Australia with no city having two teams.

There was, as in New Zealand, an early push for 10, or more, franchises but those pleas have fallen on deaf ears with soccer bosses determined their new competition should be elite with the very best players.

It seems Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane will join Auckland as bases in the new league. The eighth, for some time expected to be a second team from one of the major cities, is likely to come from a smaller centre with the Central Coast [Coffs Harbour] the most favoured.

Today's announcement, headed by ASA chairman Frank Lowy, chief executive John O'Neill and head of operations Matt Carroll, will reveal not only the eight teams for the league but its logo, competition name and sponsors.

There will be particular interest in the naming of the ASA's commercial partners and the implications that will bring.

The invitation for today's launch tagged the event as a special announcement regarding the future of Australian soccer. The concessions made to the role the Kingz will play in this will be interesting.

Already there is confusion over representation in next year's Oceania club championship. While the winner of the NZ Football Championship will automatically grab New Zealand's spot, the Australians do not have a competition from which to find their representative.

There have been suggestions Perth Glory, as winner of the 2003-04 National Soccer League, should take that spot in Tahiti. There has been opposition to that, however, as many of the players from that winning team have moved on.

The answer to that, and other questions, will be answered today.

The Kingz will be represented at the glamour function at Darling Harbour by new chairman Anthony Lee and general manager Guy Hedderwick.