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Archie Fraser says it is not a new concept for a structure appointed by the club owners to manage and run the professional league in a country. Photo: Darren Pateman

THE prospect of a breakaway A-League competition managed and run by the owners of the existing clubs is not as fanciful as the FFA might think.

After years of significant losses, some as much as $6 million each year by individual club owners, and A-League annual accumulated losses in excess of $28 million, understandably owners are running out of patience. For now it's all about control by the FFA and the fear that it might lose something, even though by holding on to the A-League it will eventually kill it off.

It is not a new concept for a structure appointed by the club owners to manage and run the professional league in a country.

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After all, the English Premier League was founded on the same premise, where the clubs took over the running of the old League Division 1 from the Football League to form the EPL.

When it was formed the English FA cried foul. However, the results since control passed from the bureaucrats to the owners have been spectacular.

Many question the ability of a governing body to run all aspects of the game and the conflicting priorities they face when the responsibility stretches from junior game development through to World Cup campaigns and the compliance that is required by the Asian Football Confederation and FIFA.

The owners have been more than patient and the FFA must step back and allow this to happen so it can focus on what it is good at - running our national teams and game development.

FFA should keep the media rights to Socceroos games and any sponsorships it can derive.

A breakaway league would need to be sanctioned by the AFC, which is the body to which the FFA reports. Or the FFA could support the new league and the structure, just as the English FA did. If the owners of the A-League clubs want to make this a reality, then they will have to call the FFA's bluff.

My reading of the 10 A-League club owners is that there could be more than half who would like to be part of a structure that allowed them to be driving their own destiny. This group certainly has the business talent and money to make this a success.

Clearly the test is the past and what the FFA has achieved. There has been some progress but the financial plight of the governing body and the clubs is well documented and it does not read well. Sponsors and media will judge how the FFA manages the game and the current crisis, which ultimately affects the total value of the A-League brand.

With a TV and new media deal being integral to the future of the A-League, owners want to know they are getting the best possible result for their product.

They are concerned that based on a string of failed ventures and an inability by the FFA to deliver substantial added value to the A-League brand there will be less on the table when the media offers start rolling in.

The owners believe - and rightly so - that the revenues derived from the A-League through sponsorship and media rights would be more than enough to manage, promote, market and expand the game if the total value of these were applied directly to the A-League.

Long term this would be an outstanding investment for the owners: the A-League brand would grow and the media rights would become increasingly valuable.

Sponsors would flock to a new entity, owners would invest in building their clubs and they would infuse themselves further into the communities, all of which would deliver a larger audience that is starved of free-to-air viewing.

The A-League ownership group has significant intellect, money and desire. When it's your reputation and money on the line you look at things differently.

The new A-League with a new media deal, expansion plans, marquee players, professional referees and a developing brand profile would be a true competitor to the other codes.

The owners are asking for the opportunity to invest more money, be allowed to actually drive the business model and to be in charge of their own destiny.

Just as the Crawford report suggested.

Archie Fraser was head of the A-League in 2009-10.

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Owners must take control of A-League

The beauty of the current birth-control conversation for Democrats is that they not only have public opinion on their side but also have cannily managed to make contraception a front-burner election-year campaign issue — by complaining that Republicans are making it front-burner election-year campaign issue.

The answer, in other words, to the many who are wondering why the Republicans would want to ride such a losing pony is: They don’t.

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“No one is making birth control a topic,” Rick Santorum’s long-time media consultant and friend John Brabender told me. “It’s not an agenda that anyone’s running on. But it’s a distortion that works to [the other side’s] benefit to imply we’re for limiting access to birth control.’’

The narrative that it’s conservatives who won’t stop talking about pills, gels and contraceptive foam is probably set in stone at this point; a story in today’s Washington Post reports that contraception has “suddenly become an obsession of the 2012 presidential campaign. To many observers, it seems that the clock has indeed been turned back.”

The first two such observers quoted in the piece are leaders of the contraception lobby, whose job is to monetize real and perceived attacks, exactly as their counterparts on the right do: “As Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, said incredulously on Saturday during a rally in Austin: “Somehow in this country, in 2012, this election might turn on whether women should have access to birth control.’ ”

Incredulously, or hopefully? It’s Democrats like Richards who keep saying this is what the election will turn on. Which is smart, if you are Cecile Richards, because for any campaign or cause these days, outrage is oxygen. (See Komen vs. Planned Parenthood.) And if the election does turn on contraception, her team wins.

When I looked back at a tape of what Republicans have been saying on the topic, what’s striking is how reluctant they are to go there.

Yes, even including Santorum’s 71-year-old bankroller, Foster Friess, whose assets may until now have buffered him from the news that his jokes need work.

But when he recycled a fragment of an (at least) 50-year-old funny about an aspirin held between the knees being all the birth control a nice girl needs, it was in response to Andrea Mitchell’s question about whether he was concerned that Santorum’s views on birth control and women in combat roles could hurt his viability as a candidate.

His first response was to deflect the question: “I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex!”

The aspirin inanity that followed has been successfully cast as his candidate’s “agenda,” mainly through the efforts of Democratic fundraisers: “We’ve already accumulated 65,000 signatures on our petition opposing their Aspirin Agenda,” Sen. Patty Murray said in a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraising letter Friday. “But I’m too mad to stop at ‘opposing.’ It’s time we punished the people responsible by taking away their jobs. The DSCC is ready to send the GOP agenda back to the 1950s where it belongs — and send these Republicans packing. Will you click here and give $5 or $10 to help us raise $100,000 by the end of today to fire anti-choice Republicans?’’

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Birth-control debate a winner for Democrats

VALENCIA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

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(Media Points)

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New Qtrac® Media Manager from Lavi Industries Centralizes Control of Retail Customer Queue Digital Media and Messaging

20-02-2012 11:08 2011 XBox 360 Media Remote Review. Buy your X360 Media Remote here amzn.to Useful Links My 2nd Channel http://www.youtube.com Website http://www.geekanoids.co.uk Twitter http://www.twitter.com Facebook http://www.facebook.com

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2011 XBox 360 Media Remote Review - Video

21-02-2012 09:09 The Zionist State of Israel is desperately trying to start a war with Iran which could ultimately be the start of a catastrophic World War III.Any act of aggression against Iran by Zionist Israel will undoubtedly cause Russia and China to be drawn into the conflict resulting in dire consequences for all people.The Zionist owned media has been aggressively leading the charge to start this insane war with their lies and manipulation.Stand up and oppose the Zionist State of Israel.

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Zionist Israel and War With Iran - Dr.David Duke - Video