It didn’t take long for the new A-League season to trigger an existential crisis. It took just one game: last week’s stinker of a Sydney derby, which prompted a series of sky-is-falling takes about the quality of the two clubs and the overall direction of the competition.
Just a few days later, we’re already up to existential crisis No.2.
In a classic club-versus-country row, Sydney FC have decided to block Akol Akon from playing for Australia in next month’s FIFA U-17 World Cup. Cue the predictable outrage about self-interested clubs damaging our national teams, and how Australian soccer continues to cut off its nose to spite its face.
It’s tempting to frame Sydney FC as the big, bad, privately owned villain here, working against the game’s broader interests. That would be unfair.
Here’s a thought: maybe this is a good thing, actually. Rather than being a symptom of a sick code that can never get anything right, perhaps it is a sign of the growing maturity of our footballing ecosystem.
Sydney FC may not have made the right decision here – that’s open to debate – but as the club responsible for Akon’s day-to-day development, they should have the right to make whatever decision they like.
The under-17 World Cup kicks off in Qatar on November 19. The tournament sits outside an international window. There used to be an agreement between Football Australia and the Australian Professional Leagues in which A-League clubs had to let their players go, but that agreement has lapsed, which means it’s up to the clubs to release or withhold as they see fit. That’s how it is in most football countries. It is hardly unusual for the best teenagers in world football to miss youth World Cups because they’re already too important to their clubs.
For years, people have been calling for A-League clubs to focus more on youth development, and to build their business model around it. Our best teenagers should be playing senior football week in, week out, so that they can become assets valuable enough to be sold on the transfer market and then progress in their careers to a point where they can help the Socceroos at a senior World Cup.
Well, it’s happening now.
Tension between the clubs who produce them and the national teams who benefit from their work is a natural consequence of these complementary but occasionally competing agendas. That doesn’t make every disagreement healthy, but it does make them inevitable.
If there’s a fight about who gets to use them, it might show that the system is working.
Akon, 17, is a unique case. He is already playing for the Olyroos, Australia’s under-23s national team, and according to sources, was on Socceroos coach Tony Popovic’s longlist for last month’s friendlies against Brazil. He could yet be selected for next month’s friendlies, the last ones before January’s Asian Cup, if it happens.
It’s not like Sydney FC are working against the national teams. They have released a slew of other players from their academy to play at the World Cup. The difference is that, unlike Akon, they are not important first-team players, so the club can afford to let them go.
The Sky Blues don’t need to put him in the shop window and parade Akon in front of scouts from the world’s top clubs because they’ve already sold him to the Colorado Rapids. And when they announced that deal, the Rapids described him as having “uncommon physical and competitive maturity”, which anyone who has watched him play would agree with.
It’s therefore a perfectly defensible view that what Akon needs most right now is not another youth tournament – however prestigious – but the chance to establish himself as a senior professional. While it would be great to see him carving it up for the Joeys, what Australian soccer needs more than that is for him to become the best possible player, and for him to be ready to make an immediate impact when he arrives in Major League Soccer next year. Sydney reckon the best way to do that is by leaving him at home, uninterrupted, so that he can produce a rhythm of consistent form to give himself the best possible chance. And they deserve the autonomy to make that decision.
The World Cup experience, of course, would have been beneficial for Akon – and if he had his way, he’d probably want to go. Who wouldn’t? It’s a World Cup, and there’s no guarantee he’ll ever have the chance to play at another one. But he’s also one of Sydney’s most important attacking players. If he’s unhappy with their call, that’s for them to manage internally.
If coach Patrick Kisnorbo gives him only sparing minutes in the games when he otherwise would have been playing for Australia, then their argument diminishes greatly, and they will lose the benefit of the doubt.
But if Football Australia wants to avoid a repeat scenario – the under-17 World Cup is now an annual event, so this discussion isn’t going away – then they should nut out a new agreement with the APL. They should, however, recognise that the clubs they are dealing with today are different beasts to even five years ago.
They are no longer being merely encouraged to develop young players. They depend on them to deliver results on the pitch and transfer revenue off it. That’s good for Australian soccer – but it changes the relationship. If FA wants to take, there has to be some give in return.
What that looks like is up to them to sort out. But if we’re serious about the A-League being a factory for future Socceroos, we have to accept the friction that comes with getting what we all wanted.
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