Soccer Reform: Canada vs Australia

By Steven Sandor The 11

Does Australia’s radical soccer reform hold lessons for Canada?
You can draw a lot of comparisons between Australia and Canada. We are both Commonwealth nations, with small populations relative to our land masses. Australia has about 23 million people, Canada has 34 million.

Ask any foreigner to name any urban centres outside of Canada or Australia’s top three or four cities, and they’ll struggle.

Soccer in both nations takes a back seat to other more popular mainstreams sports; in Canada, we have hockey. Australia has rugby, Aussie Rules football and even cricket. In fact, you can argue that, in Australia, soccer has less of a hold than it does in Canada, as A-League teams generally draw fewer fans per game than the Canadian MLS teams (albeit that Australia does have its own professional league).

So, with so much to compare the two nations, can Canadian soccer fans draw anything from Football Federation Australia’s new strategic plan?

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