A-League gives in to inevitable as season stops

The A-League’s season looks set to be formally consigned to history, with the brutal spread of the coronavirus forcing the last football code still playing to call a halt.

Jamie Maclaren of Melbourne City walks out to start the game during the round 26 A-League match at McDonald Jones Stadium on Monday. Picture: Getty

The A-League’s season looks set to be formally consigned to history on Tuesday, with the brutal spread of the coronavirus forcing the last football code still playing to call a halt.

Though discussions were still going on late on Monday between the clubs and Football Federation Australia, there is an acceptance among officials that restarting the current campaign is an increasingly remote prospect given the government has warned of six months of restrictions on the population.

It will quickly become impractical to keep players match fit, coupled with a growing likelihood that players and coaches will be caught in the spread of COVID-19, sending teammates into quarantine.

Assuming the final decision is made to finish the season at this point, it remains to be seen whether Sydney FC will be declared champions as the team at the top of the ladder – and what happens to Australia’s positions in the Asian Champions League.

A conference call of club owners and senior FFA staff on Monday afternoon took the decision to halt the season as of tomorrow, with Newcastle’s game against Melbourne City on Monday night bizarrely going ahead at McDonald Jones Stadium.

Newcastle won what could be the final game of the season, with Steven Ugarkovic scoring a 78th minute matchwinner in a 2-1 win over City.

Nicholas Fitzgerald had opened the scoring at the end of the first half before City struck back via Florin Berenguer in the second half.

FFA CEO James Johnson is expected to confirm the end of the season on Tuesday morning at a press conference.

League officials had hoped to somehow finish the season with a truncated fixture list, but growing border controls within Australia and for anyone entering New Zealand forced a rethink shortly after the NRL announced it was pulling the pin.

In particular the severe restrictions imposed by the New Zealand government from Wednesday lunchtime onwards threatened to leave the Wellington Phoenix squad stranded in Australia for months if they had stayed here to try to see out the season.

There was also confusion over Brisbane Roar’s situation, with the Queensland government introducing border controls but hinting that there would be some exemptions.

With WA and SA also putting border controls in place, A-League officials had sought to put together a radical plan to base all the teams in Sydney and try to race through the remaining games.

As recently as Monday afternoon, Perth owner Tony Sage had said he was ready to fly the Glory squad to Sydney to play under those terms, but the rapidly changing environment overtook them.

Clubs and the league had moved heaven and earth to keep playing in order to fulfil the terms of their broadcast contracts, with players under effective quarantine in their own homes and at training grounds.

Though the loss of ticket income from the games left will hit A-League clubs, the potential loss of TV income is a far greater existential threat. The financial realities have started to bite clubs already.

Several clubs are understood to have started taking steps to cut back their workforce, and FFA will have to address its own wage bill given the redundancies at both the NRL and AFL.

Each game played behind closed doors was estimated to cost the clubs between $150,000-$250,000 in lost revenue, while the ticket revenue from the finals series has always been a major earner for FFA. The A-League was one of the final football leagues to remain alive.