Over the next three months, each bid was reviewed and on 1 November 2004, the eight successful bidders and the major sponsor were revealed, for what would be known as the Hyundai A-League, with the Hyundai Motor Company unveiled as the official naming rights sponsor for the league. Three bids were received from Melbourne, two each from Sydney and Brisbane, one from each of the remaining preferred cities and a bid from the New South Wales Central Coast city of Gosford. īy June of that year, 20 submissions had been received and a month later 12 consortiums sent in their final bids for the eight spots. The competition start date was set for August 2005.
#Little man svg plus#
Eight teams would be part of the new national competition, with one team from each city of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Newcastle, plus a New Zealand team and one from a remaining expressions of interest from either Melbourne or Sydney. The A-League was announced in April 2004, as a successor to the NSL. In December 2003, the Crawford Report found that the NSL was financially unviable, and in response the chairman of the sports new governing body, Frank Lowy of the Football Federation Australia, announced that a task force would be formed to create a new national competition as a successor to the NSL which dissolved at the conclusion of the 2003–04 season after 27 years of operation. In April 2003, the Australian Federal Government initiated the Independent Soccer Review Committee to investigate the governance and management of the sport in Australia, including that of the NSL. Few clubs continued to grow with Sydney Olympic, Perth Glory, and the newly established Adelaide United the exception in a dying league. Under the guidance of the then-governing body, the Australian Soccer Federation (later Soccer Australia), the NSL flourished through the 1980s and early 1990s but then fell into decline with the increasing departure of Australian players to overseas leagues, a disastrous television deal with the Seven Network and the resulting lack of sponsorship. The formation of the NSL came after Australia's qualification for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, which led to discussion of a national league, with 14 teams eventually chosen to participate in the inaugural season of the NSL in 1977. The current champions are Melbourne City FC, who won the 2021 A-League Grand Final and their first championship.Ī national round-robin tournament existed in various forms prior to the formation of the A-League, with the most notable being the National Soccer League (NSL). The current premier is Melbourne City FC, who finished first in the 2020–21 A-League. Since the league's inaugural season, a total of seven clubs have been crowned A-League Premiers and six clubs have been crowned A-League Champions.
#Little man svg professional#
Similar to the United States and Canada's Major League Soccer, as well as other professional sports leagues in Australia, A-League Men does not practice promotion and relegation. In 2014, the Western Sydney Wanderers became the first and only winning Australian club. Successful A-League Men clubs gain qualification into the Asian continental club competition, the Asian Football Confederation Champions League (ACL), also known as the "AFC Champions League". This differs from the other major football codes in Australia, where 'premier' refers to the winner of the grand final and the winner of the regular season is the ' minor premier'. The winner of the regular season tournament is dubbed the 'Premier' while the winner of the grand final is the season's 'Champion'.
#Little man svg series#
Seasons run from October to May and include a 26-round regular season followed by a Finals Series playoff involving the six highest-placed teams, culminating in a grand final match. The men's, women's and youth leagues brought together under a unified A-Leagues banner.
The league is currently contested by twelve teams eleven based in Australia and one based in New Zealand. A-League Men was established in 2004 as the A-League by the Football Federation Australia (FFA) as a successor to the National Soccer League (NSL) and competition commenced in August 2005. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's primary men's competition for the sport. A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League Men for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand.