Victory in Melbourne 

With Kevin Muscat venting his frustration at the end of Wednesday night’s match against Beijing Guoan, taking aim at everything to do with the ACL it surely wasn’t long before we would get a comment from Ben Buckley. And again he showed why he starting to look out of his depth as the man in charge of Australian football.

Buckley went on to slam Melbourne’s attitude towards the ACL, suggesting if the Victory didn’t want to compete they would be better off forfeiting their place to another A-League side.

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If Kevin’s comments reflect the attitude of the leadership of Melbourne Victory, then they should withdraw from the competition and let others who want to participate take part,” Buckley said. ”Such an attitude is clearly an impediment to success and Melbourne Victory’s performance in the tournament is reflective of that.

Of course we want to participate in the ACL tournament, why the hell do you think we tried our darndest to qualify for next year’s competition much to the detriment of this year’s ACL campaign. And as I have said before a little support from the FFA would not have gone astray instead of these cheap shots at a team who have had just had a tough run of results in the last month and a half. The comments from Buckley were ill-conceived and untimely and he should take some of his own advice and haul himself over some coals.

I was originally going to submit this diatribe as part of my weekly blogs for 442, but circumstances got beyond me and I never got round to submitting it. It is tad out of date, but the argument is still relevant.

So with little else on his plate apart from choosing the pre-Grand Final entertainment, FFA CEO Ben Buckley obviously decided it was an opportune time to tell the Melbourne Victory hierarchy to quit its continual complaints about its current fixture pile-up.

So as the most unofficial No.1 Victory spokesperson out there I have seen it as my duty to rebut some of the arguments put forward by our esteemed leader in my own indomitable style.

First cab of the rank, is his comment that:

”We already moved the first leg of the A-League major semi-final for Victory, allowing them to play Sydney on the Thursday night [February 18] so they could travel to China for their first ACL game. That gave them a four-day break after playing Sydney on the previous Sunday in the last game of the home and away season. We would have given them a five-day break but their home ground [Etihad Stadium] was not available on the Friday.”

How accommodating of you Mr Buckley but I’ll think you find that the request for a final on the Thursday night came from Melbourne Victory officials even though it put them at a disadvantage in terms of preparation and crowd numbers.

You see Mr Buckley, teams in the ACL are required to be in the host city a minimum of two days before kick-off. Seeing that the stadium was already booked out of the Friday night that meant a match on Saturday night was out of the question as it takes approximately thirteen hours to fly to Beiljing from Melbourne. Therefore it was Thursday night by default, not by any of your grand benefaction.

Next up, is his comment that:

“There are 46 leagues in the AFC and things have to be done to accommodate all those leagues and all the participating clubs. They can’t make exceptions for one team.”

It must also be noted that Melbourne did put a request into the AFC to have the match switched from Beijing to Melbourne but our esteemed organisation deemed it an unreasonable request even though it would have had little impact on Beijing Guoan who at that stage were still in pre-season and thus had no league requirements.

See Mr Buckley, there is the possibility of making exceptions for one team, so stop towing the inflexible AFC line. In fact, you should be doing as much as you can to accommodate the teams from your own league. Look at how much positive press, Adelaide’s efforts of two years ago generated.

And finally, he states that:

”Teams from other countries seem to be able to juggle their timetables. We know it is difficult and not ideal, but that is the situation.”

Thanks, Captain Obvious. Of course it is not ideal having to play a game pretty much 48 hours after your last one. Also I’m pretty sure teams from other countries don’t juggle their timetables, their federations to do it for them in order to gain the best possible advantage in the competition for their teams.

And I am not alone in my criticism of Melbourne’s tight scheduling with PFA CEO Brendan Schwab weighing into the debate with his comment that:

“I think it’s unacceptable. The fact is that the players have been asked to travel on nine to 15-hour flights and play games with a 48-hour break. It’s inevitable that a player will be seriously injured in those circumstances, and it’s also inevitable that the quality of the competition will be compromised.”

Whilst I am not using this is as an excuse for our loss in the Grand Final or our poor performances in the ACL and the issue is probably compounded by the fact that the scheduling of the ACL has been brought forward to accommodate that thing called the World Cup. However, it highlights a serious issue that needs addressing before next year’s ACL campaign comes around in order for all A-League teams to have the best opportunity to make their mark on the region’s most important club competition.