The Age reports:
IT HAS the A-League licence and a home ground. It has a coaching staff and has begun to sign players. Melbourne Heart is starting to take shape. But will it have any fans? And where will those supporters come from?
When the A-League was launched five years ago the big push from then Football Federation Australia chief executive John O'Neill was to ''unite the tribes''. The one-team one-city model was designed to end the sectarianism and tribalism that had fractured soccer's development and allowed most mainstream media outlets to sideline the sport as an ethnic minority pursuit.
In general terms - and in Melbourne in particular - the strategy has worked well enough. Melbourne Victory has been the competition's outstanding success, winning two championships and attracting average crowds well over 20,000 (more than some English Premier League teams) since it moved to Etihad Stadium during the competition's second season. Victory is on top of the table and is expecting a 25,000-plus crowd for its blockbuster against old rival Sydney on Saturday night.
The thinking, certainly among some sections of the game, has long been that in this city, at least, Victory did ''unite the tribes'', and that soccer fans of all persuasions have been able to get behind the one club to make it a success.
Some are fearful that bringing in a new team will only dilute that support and fracture the backing for a club that has become the template for the rest of the league. They reason that any soccer fans who want to follow the A-League and a team have already got one.
But, both the FFA, the investors behind Heart - businessmen such as Peter Sidwell, Michael Catalano and Joe Mirabella - and disparate elements within the local game believe there is enough interest in soccer and enough people who didn't buy into the Victory vision, to make the Heart a goer.
Scott Munn, the Heart's CEO, is confident his fledgling team will gain enough support to ensure it is a viable business right from the off. He points to the overall number of soccer fans in this city, the number of supporters from the old NSL who for a variety of reasons did not climb aboard the Victory bandwagon, and the number of potential converts to the game, as target markets for the new club.
''We are really comfortable with our supporter base. Before I started here I knew that over the last two years the FFA had been doing a lot of work around the supporter numbers in Victoria,'' Munn says. ''Their research was telling us who the active consumers of the game are in Victoria. We know that there are 300,000 'football fanatics' who consume a whole range of football, either the A-League or overseas football. They watch it on Fox, go to Victory, or sometimes to the Victorian Premier League. This was verified by an independent group, Gemba … They verified the FFA data to within 1 or 2 per cent.
''Victory are currently attracting 18,000 to 20,000 fans, so we know that there is an active audience to whom we can market that are not going to games - a large number of people who are not engaging with the A-League for a whole range of reasons. They might find it cost prohibitive, they get what they want on pay television, or they feel disenfranchised by the Victory and don't want to support them.''
The latter group, mainly comprising fans who used to support ''traditional'' clubs in the old NSL, are an obvious starting point for Heart. Some naysayers have labelled this a recipe for disaster, but Munn is quick to play down fears that targeting ''ethnic'' fans who may have spurned Victory because they felt left out of the new competition is a recipe for some of the old rivalries to resurface. ''No, we have all moved on from the old days. We are not going to get fights. It's about engaging with everyone and getting them all to come to games. We think people who may have felt aggrieved five or six years ago have moved on, the game has changed, the grounds and venues have changed and the whole climate around it is different now,'' he says.
Munn suggests, however, that Heart will be a ''traditional'' club in a way that Victory perhaps could not be given that it had to break the mould and start afresh to create something new - a job it has done superbly well.
He argues that Heart's decision to hire people from the European heartland of the game in key coaching positions - former Dutch international and Ajax star John van't Schip as head coach and ex-Manchester United, Ajax and Denmark international Jesper Olsen as his assistant - will appeal to soccer purists.
''We know that there are football supporters who like the traditional game, a technical style and have an historical respect for the sport. Some of them felt that their NSL teams were removed, some don't believe that existing A-League teams have engaged enough with the previous history of the sport and respect it. Words like authentic have been used to us in our market research. We feel that appointing people like John van't Schip will strike a chord with some of these people. His background touches at the heartstrings, he's a technical coach who comes from one of the most authentic clubs in the world.
''We will also appeal with an historical style of strip. There won't be any lightning bolts or anything like that on our uniform. We are not going to pretend we are something we are not. We are not the best league in the world. You can get that for $59.99 a month on Foxtel and watch all the Premiership games you want,'' he says.
Instead, Munn promises supporters an adventure and a sense of belonging and ownership. ''We are looking to provide our fans with a journey. They can watch our young players come through, develop, play for the first team and if they are good enough they can go to Europe to become bigger stars. That's part of the football journey, the traditional development, and we want our fans to enjoy that as well as watching the team.
''We are trying to be honest with the supporters and we believe that the fans will buy into that. We also hope that the new stadium, the experience and the atmosphere will be attractive. That's why we are going to play every one of our games at the new stadium. That's the only way you can say you own the stadium.''
And for those who feel they might be priced out of home games - particularly families - Munn has some good news. ''Cost is particularly sensitive for families. It's really important for us,'' he says.
John O'Sullivan, the head of FFA's commercial department when the expansion decision was taken, says: ''Our research shows that there will be new fans, but also some slight crossover because there will be some fans who are members of existing clubs who want to try something new. But it also showed that there was a large untapped population. There was also some evidence to suggest that people would follow multiple teams.''
O'Sullivan added: ''Commercially it's a no-brainer for us to expand. We have to.''
