A-League booms, but J.League scores for innovation

Especially so given the fair warning all A-League players were given following last year's Grand Final with the Danny Vukovic case that abuse of officials wouldn't be tolerated.

Even still, the prospect of an 18-month suspension on a R3 (red card 3) category charge seems ridiculously heavy-handed and over the top, especially considering the iniquity that exists in the Australian game when it comes to meting out punishment for player-referee incidents.

I heard on the grapevine that a youth league player got just 12 months from a Football NSW tribunal for punching a referee in the face.

Since when was a gob of spit - an alleged one, and apparently misdirected at that - potentially more heinous than a closed fist?

Djulbic/Green aside, though, it was a great weekend of A-League action and highlighted for me by the imperious display of Melbourne Victory over defending champions Newcastle Jets in Melbourne on Friday night.

I haven't seen fluency like that by Melbourne since 'Version 2.0' of the A-League. Ney Fabiano is proving a tremendous recruit and it's worth repeating that he came to Australia via the Thai league, where there are plenty of other good footballers waiting to be picked up by A-League clubs.

The key word here is waiting.

The success of the Socceroos at the last World Cup and the explosive growth of the A-League has been both a blessing and a hindrance: blessing in the game kicking on like never before, but a hindrance in there still existing a prevailing attitude that Australia is the centre of the Asian football universe.

We're clearly, demonstrably not.

The travails of the Socceroos at the 2007 Asian Cup and the underwhelming performances of A-League teams in two editions of the Asian Champions League have been a much-needed reality check.

In Asia, there's still a long way to go for Australian football.

It is Japan that, in my opinion, remains the benchmark for Asian football, both on the park and off.

Australia, all things considered, is a good 10 or 15 years behind Japan in terms of its football development. There is much catch-up work to do in regards professionalism, training methods, commercial ideas, technical standards and so on, but it's not an impossible gap and the FFA is doing a fantastic job in closing it.

However, just as that gap closes, Japan keeps pulling away.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the J.League's brilliant idea of introducing an 'Asian berth' player in team rosters, above and beyond the normal foreign-player quotas in place.

This means that a player from any of the Asian Football Confederation's 46 member states - from Lebanon in the west to Indonesia in the east - can be signed by a J.League club in addition to the usual three imports at each club.

JFA president Motoaki Inukai says the idea behind the scheme is 'to give opportunities to players from other Asian countries' but also for the Japanese league 'to be a model and leading member association of Asia in all aspects including standard of football, spectators, development and administration'.

Notice has been served to the A-League.

It must - simply must - start taking a punt on Asian talent.

The A-League's record in this department so far has been very poor.

Only half-a-dozen Asian players, mostly Koreans, have played in the A-League, while superb Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese players haven't yet had a look-in.

It can't continue.

If Australian football continues on its ostensibly 'isolationist' path it is not only not fulfilling its potential as a member of the AFC but not advancing its own cause.

The future growth of the A-League is not in Australian regional centres but our own region - South-East Asia.

Japan, typically, has had the good sense to realise that before us and stolen our thunder once again.

As it stands right now the score is Japan 1, Australia 0, and this is another contest the Japanese look like running away with.

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