Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou has thrown his support behind an eventual promotion and relegation system in Australian football, but believes the A-League needs to be expanded first.
Postecoglou spoke on the Daily Football Show about one of the hottest topics surrounding football in Australia, and said that patience is key for the future of promotion and relegation to succeed.
“I lived it (promotion and relegation) through the old NSL (National Soccer League),” he said.
“Some of the powerful clubs at the time were the biggest objectors to it because they wanted to protect their position in the top league, and are now they're the clubs who want promotion and relegation. Which is not a bad thing, that's the way the cycle of football works.
“I guess before we start talking promotion/relegation, the first question we need to ask is that going to grow the game? If it is, then we go ahead with it. As I said, I think expansion comes before promotion/relegation.”
The former A-League coach said both new and existing areas of Australia could house new professional franchises, and used last season's runners-up as a success story.
“We know expansion happens. It may happen with existing clubs or it may happen with a new entity as we saw with Western Sydney, an experiment that worked out very, very well for the game.
“I think that's more important than what the hot topic is. In the past we've seemed to jump at shadows, and try to manufacture something that didn't need manufacturing.
“The growth is there, we've just got to make sure that wherever the game is being loved, there's games representing it.”
