A-League: Robbie Fowler slams ‘ridiculous’ byes

Brisbane Roar coach Robbie Fowler has slammed the A-League’s lack of professionalism for having “ridiculous” byes.

The Roar have been playing catch-up since an early bye, says coach Robbie Fowler

Brisbane Roar coach Robbie Fowler has slammed the A-League’s lack of professionalism for having “ridiculous” byes.

With the competition having expanded to 11 teams this season following the introduction of Western United, there have been weekly byes.

Next season there won’t be the need for a bye due to the entry of another club, Macarthur FC.

It can’t come soon enough for Fowler, whose struggling side this weekend have their second bye of an A-League season that’s only 10 rounds old.

“The bye’s ridiculous,” the Liverpool legend said. “It’s professional football — we’re not an amateur league … it’s not a Mickey Mouse league starting off.”

Fowler said the byes particularly affected clubs who had them early in the season.

The Roar had their first bye in round two.

“It changes the mentality of players. It’s totally catch-up that you’ve got to do. What we’ve been doing all season is essentially catching up after the early bye,” he said.

“It can change the attitude of players. It shouldn’t, but it can do.”

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While 12 teams will ensure there is no bye next season, Fowler wants more sides in the league and future expansion to be done two or four clubs at a time, rather than one or three.

“Don’t settle for 12, settle for a few more,” he said. “We’re footballers, we want to play as many games as we can.

“You should never have a league with odd numbers. It should always be even.

“We’re a professional league, so it should be professionally run with teams playing every week.”

Fowler had no problems with midweek games being played in a bigger league to ensure the competition was completed in a certain amount of time.

“If you’ve got games midweek, you’re going into the next game with the chance to rectify what you’ve done as soon as possible,” he said.

“We’ve got to wait more than a week to try to rectify that.”

The Roar’s 2-0 loss to Western United last Friday was Brisbane’s fifth defeat of a season that has yielded them just eight points from nine matches.

They don’t play again until Saturday week when they take on fellow strugglers Newcastle at McDonald Jones Stadium.

“We have the bye again this weekend so the game after the bye again becomes mega important for us because we feel as though we’ve been playing catch-up from the (start),” Fowler said.

“Everyone should have an even keel. It should be a level playing field.”

The Courier Mail