The A-League is the top Australasian professional association football (soccer) league. Run by Australian governing body Football Federation Australia (FFA), it was founded in 2004 following the folding of the National Soccer League and staged its inaugural season in 2005 06. It is sponsored by Hyundai Motor Company Australia and Qantas, and is officially known as the Hyundai A-League. The league is contested by ten teams: nine in Australia and one from New Zealand.^[1] Related leagues include a National Youth League and the Women's Westfield W-League.

Format

Pre-Season Cup

Prior to the 2009 10 season, a pre-season competition was held in August, as a precursor to the main season. In the Pre-Season Cup, the teams were evenly placed into two groups. Each team played the others in the group once over three rounds.

Beginning in 2006, an additional bonus round was then held, with each team playing a cross-over match with a team from a different group. In addition to the standard points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw), there were special bonus points on offer for the bonus round matches:

• 1 bonus point for 2 goals scored by a team,
• 2 bonus points for 3 goals scored by a team, or
• 3 bonus points for 4 or more goals scored by a team.
• 4 bonus points for scoring 5 goals by a player.

This format was edited for the 2007 competition. The bonus round was removed, and the bonus points system introduced into each of the first three rounds. All eight teams then entered a knock-out round, culminating in the final in late August.

The Pre-Season Cup was removed from 2009-10's A-League schedule in order to give the clubs more control over their own pre-season training.^[2]

Regular season

The regular season runs mainly during the Australian summer, from early October to February of the following year. The competition consists of 27 matches over 25 weeks, with each team playing every other team three times twice at home and once away. The teams allotted two home matches against an opponent in one season are allotted one home match against that opponent in the following season. Each match sees the winning team awarded three competition points, with one point each for a draw. At the end of the season the teams are ranked firstly by competition points accumulated, then goal difference, total goals scored, head-to-head records between tying teams and finally the number of cards each team has received.^[3] The club at the top of this ladder is crowned A-League Premiers, and as of the 2006 07 season, will be entered into the AFC Champions League.^[4]

At the completion of the regular season teams are ranked from one to ten with the top six teams progressing to the finals series. The position of each team is determined by the highest number of points accumulated during the Regular Season. If two or more teams are level on points, the following criteria are applied in order until one of the teams can be determined as the higher ranked:

1. Highest goal difference;
2. Highest number of goals scored;
3. Highest number of points accumulated in matches between the teams concerned;
4. Highest goal difference in matches between the teams concerned;
5. Highest number of goals scored in matches between the teams concerned;
6. Lowest number of red cards accumulated;
7. Lowest number of yellow cards accumulated;
8. Toss of a coin.

Finals series

The top six teams at the end of the regular season are entered into a finals series,^[5] where the top two ranked teams in the regular season compete over two legs (with ties decided by the away goals rule, including extra time), the winner progressing straight to and hosting the Grand Final.

On the same weekend, the third and sixth-ranked teams play each other, the same for the fourth and fifth-ranked teams. The winners of these matches play each other, the winner of which goes ahead to play in a Preliminary Final against the loser of the two-legged match between the top two teams. The winner of this match progresses to the Grand Final. As of the 2006 07 season, this team will also contest the AFC Champions League, although if the team that wins the Premiership goes through to the Grand Final then the other Grand Final competitor will be awarded the second spot in the competition, win or lose.^[4] In previous seasons the finals series had four teams, and has been extended to accommodate for the increased number of clubs in the competition.

FFA Cup

The FFA Cup will be a knock-out style cup, running from March 2012 to January 2013 ^[6] during the 2012-13 A-League season, with games to be played midweek and the final to be held on Australia Day. All football clubs will be available to enter the cup and smaller teams will have to survive earlier knockout rounds before mixing with A-League clubs in the last-32 stage.

The winner of the cup is expected to gain qualification to the AFC Champions League. It is hoped that the cup will help engage local football fans in the community, consequently boosting interest in the A-League.

Promotion

The A-League logo, designed by Coast Design Sydney, is a three-dimensional sphere. The two-toned ochre colours represent the sun, earth and desert while the 'glow' emanating from the centre of the logo depicts the playing season's spring and summer time span. The eight 'A' figures that make up the ball shape represent the eight foundation clubs.^[7]

At the start of the inaugural season, an 3 million dollar advertising campaign was launched, with the television and film advertisements produced by Ridley Scott's production company. The theme for the campaign was: "Football, but not as you know it".

A new television advertisement was created for the start of the 2007 08 season, which debuted on Foxtel's program Total Football. It was filmed at Bob Jane Stadium in Melbourne. The theme of the current campaign is "90 minutes, 90 emotions".^[8] This promotional campaign continued into the 2008 09 season, along with music track "My People" from Australian act The Presets.

The A-League has been featured in the FIFA series by EA SPORTS since the 2008 edition of the game, as well as the Football Manager series by SI Games and the Championship Manager series by Beautiful Game Studios.^[9]

In 2008, 2009 and 2010 a Fox reality show, Football Superstar, offered as a prize a contract with an A-League club. The clubs that have participated so far are Sydney FC, Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar.

Current Clubs

There are nine clubs from Australia and one from New Zealand in the A-League. Only four of these clubs, , Brisbane Roar (as Queensland Roar), Newcastle Jets, and , existed before the A-League was formed.

Unlike most European leagues, there is no system for promotion and relegation of teams nor a national knockout cup competition along the lines of the FA Cup. The A-League system thus shares some franchising elements with most other professional leagues in Australia, Major League Soccer and other major American-based sports leagues.

Wellington Phoenix replaced the at the start of the 2007 08 season.^[10][11]

On 1 March 2011 the FFA officially announced that the licence held by franchise North Queensland Fury had been revoked for financial reasons.^[12]

On 29 February 2012, a second Queensland club, Gold Coast United, also had its licence revoked. This was later confirmed by the announcement of the new Western Sydney based club to take over its licence.^[13][14]

On 4 April 2012 it was announced that a new club in Western Sydney would take part in the 2012-13 A-League season.^[15]

Expansion

While making a relatively modest start in order to ensure future stability, both Football Federation Australia and the media have indicated significant interest in expanding the league. The eight foundation clubs had exclusivity clauses for their respective cities valid for five years, but this does not exclude teams from other areas. Some have questioned the logic in expanding the league so soon as many clubs are struggling to stay afloat and think by expanding they are only diluting the playing talent even further.

Before the introduction of the A-League, FFA chairman Frank Lowy speculated that he hoped to expand the league into other cities, mentioning Canberra, Hobart, Wollongong, Geelong, Bendigo, Cairns, Ballarat, Albury, Wodonga, Launceston, Christchurch, Auckland, Sunshine Coast and possibly Darwin.^{[16][17][18][19]}

On 29 September 2009 West Sydney were given an A-League license for the 2011 12 season.^[20][21] On 2 October, the club was officially named Sydney Rovers FC.^[22] This was to be short lived as on the 10 December 2010 it was officially announced that Sydney Rovers FC would not be admitted to the competition and that the league administration would commence the search for a new Western Sydney Franchise.^[23] Consortiums from Wollongong, Tasmania and Canberra are seeking to convince the FFA to instead award the 12th licence to their bids. In April 2012 the FFA announced that a new license would indeed be given to create a Western Sydney team in time for the 2012-2013 season.^[24]

Squad and salary cap

An A-League squad must have between 20 and 23 players, with a maximum of 5 players from outside Australia (and New Zealand, in the case of Wellington Phoenix).^[25] The squad must also include at least three under-20 players^[26] and may have one additional player from the Asian Football Confederation.

For the 2012-13 season, each club has a salary cap of 2.48 million (excluding Marquee, guest and replacement players) on top of Third Party Agreements.^[25] The minimum salary is A$48,507.^[25][27]

These players do not fill a Visa position:
¹Those players who were born and started their professional career abroad but have since gained Australian Residency (and New Zealand Residency, in the case of Wellington Phoenix);
²Australian residents (and New Zealand residents, in the case of Wellington Phoenix) who have chosen to represent another national team;
³Injury Replacement Players;
⁴Guest Players (eligible to play a maximum of ten games).

Marquee player

In order to combat fears that the salary cap would reduce the capacity of the clubs to attract crowds through big-name players, the league allows each team to have one "marquee" player, whose salary is exempt from the salary cap. Arguably the best-known example of a marquee player in the A-League was the prominent former FA Premier League player Dwight Yorke, who played for Sydney FC in the inaugural season. From the 2008 09 season, A-League clubs may have a Junior Marquee player who is under the age of 23. The Junior Marquee can be paid up to A$150,000 above the salary cap. On 19 April 2010 the A-League announced that in addition to marquee players and junior marquee, the 2010-11 season would also allow for an Australian marquee player.^[28]

Youth league

Before the A-League 2008-09 season, a national youth league was set up in conjunction with the A-League in order to continue to blood young Australian talent into the league as well as into the Australian national team and its affiliates such as the under 17, under 20 and under 23 teams. The league's inaugural season was made up of seven teams, each linked to the corresponding Australian club in the A-League (excluding ) and had strong links to players training at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). Some changes were implemented for the 2009 10 season, including the addition of the and a team from the AIS. Wellington Phoenix does not have a team in the youth league.

The original format of the youth league was similar to the previous A-league, made up of 21 rounds (18 games each plus three byes) corresponding with the A-League fixtures and occasionally used as curtain raisers. The new format has 27 rounds, however each team has three byes over the season.

Stadiums

Primary venues used in the A-League:

Crowds

Average crowds for the regular season are listed below. These figures do not include finals, international friendlies or AFC Champions League matches.

Referees

The A-League also features some of Australia and New Zealand's top match officials.^[54] Referees include:

Champions and premiers

The club that accumulates the most points during the regular season receives the title of Premiers. Media reports sometimes erroneously refer to the Premiers as the minor premiers, a term used in other football codes in Australia. The team that wins the Grand Final receives the title of Champions.^[55]

No team has ever successfully defended the Premiership. See also the list of champions from 1977 to 2004 in the previous National Soccer League competition.

Premiership Winners

Championship Winners