Soccer should ditch finals and reward the table-topping team

Sydney FC’s Alex Brosque celebrates with the A-League trophy after victory against Perth Glory in the grand final last Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

It is about time Australia grew up as a soccer nation and joined the real world.

And that means whoever eventually runs the national competition, be it Football Federation Australia or an independent A-League body, needs to have the courage to ditch the finals series and determine the true champion by the team that tops the table at the end of the season.

I get it that Australian sporting culture is a different beast and that we have been brought up on the finals concept where a team that performs on the day, or maybe gets a piece of luck with a referee’s decision or a bounce of the ball, can be crowned the best in the country.

I get it about the big crowds they bring, and the financial rewards to the governing body.

I get it too, especially in Australian soccer, that the grand final can be the highlight of the season, a publicity magnet, a crowd and television ratings puller. We saw it on Sunday with the record crowd of 56,000 for Sydney FC’s penalty shootout win over Perth Glory at Optus Stadium.

I don’t get it that A-League clubs will not see a red cent from the $2.6 million windfall from that grand final because there is no prizemoney allocated, despite suggestions from headquarters that it would be seriously considered.

More importantly, I don’t get how a team that consistently proves itself week in and week out, overcomes all sorts of adversity and plays consistently good football over seven, eight or nine months, can end up with a simple “hey, bad luck”.

The two best clubs over the season contested the decider with the team that finished second — eight points adrift after 27 rounds — ending up with the trophy, the medals and the accolades. Good luck to Sydney FC who held their nerve to the end.

You must feel for Perth, whose coach Tony Popovic has now suffered four grand final defeats out of four. Glory led the competition from round four, defying all efforts to run them down, but despite winning the Premiers Plate will largely be remembered for what happened in one game.

The anomaly doesn’t stop there.

Sydney FC were on the wrong end of it last season. They won the Premiers Plate by 14 points and were a staggering 21 points ahead of Melbourne Victory, who finished fourth. Victory knocked Sydney out of the finals and ended up beating Newcastle Jets in a controversial grand final decided by an appalling breakdown in the VAR system.

Despite being on the right end of things this season, Sydney captain Alex Brosque bravely came out in support of getting rid of the finals. And good on him for having the courage of his convictions to call it out.

The retiring attacker had plenty of sympathy for Perth Glory, acknowledging they were the best team all season. Much like his team were last season when they ran away with the Premiers Plate.

Former Sydney FC goalkeeper Danny Vukovic, who performed the heroics in the penalty shootout that saw the Sky Blues claim the 2016-17 grand final and title against Melbourne Victory, backed up Brosque.

Now playing in Belgium where he helped KRC Genk win the league this season, Vukovic said he did not agree with the finals concept.

Posting on Twitter, he wrote: “We (Genk) didn’t get 56k (but) sellout crowds last 5 games at home. Roughly 25k. A lot of sellouts during the regular season also. I don’t agree with argument of keeping finals series because you get a lot of people to the last game. Most of whom didn’t go to a match at all.”

Vukovic makes a salient point about fair-weather fans who simply turn up for the occasion.

How many bother to go to a game during the season? How many are bothered to become members? How many will bother to turn up for a regular game next season?

Yet we want to shout to the rooftops about the size of the attendance for a one-off game.

The sooner the A-League gets to 16 teams, the better. Throw in the champion being crowned at the end of the regular season as well as promotion and relegation and you have the ingredients for success.

You could have the champion decided weeks before the end of the season or the top six decided two months in advance as happened in the A-League this season. Those things happen.

But you could also have it all go down to the last game, as happened in the English Premier League this season when Manchester City triumphed.

Imagine the interest, the build-up, the crowd attendances? We could have two separate games that could decide the title, and they would bring in big crowds anyway. And at least the money would go back to the clubs.

That, coupled with a relegation battle, would keep interest all the way to the very end.

We don’t need the contrived finish of a grand final. Let’s leave that to the non-global sports of AFL and rugby league.