A-League boss admits competition needs to repair fan relationship after Sydney grand final fizzer

Australian Professional Leagues (APL) CEO Danny Townsend admits the league still needs to mend relationships with fans damaged by the drastically unpopular decision to sell the A-Leagues grand final to Sydney.

But he is adamantly the 2022-23 ALM decider, and the week in NSW surrounding it was a success.

Saturday night’s match at Sydney’s CommBank Stadium drew a crowd of 26,523 – helped immensely by Central Coast reaching the main event.

And the Mariners stunned the fans with an incredible 6-1 victory over the higher-ranked side Melbourne City.

But despite ill-will towards the APL, a “festival of football”, culminating in Friday night’s Grand Finals party at Moore Park, which included legends five-on-five matches and the presentation of both Grand Final teams, fizzed.

Many Mariners fans were able to drive down the F3 to support their side after the A-League decided to sell the Grand Final to NSW

A-League boss Danny Townsend, pictured at a media event ahead of the grand final, said the week couldn’t have gone better for the league and dismissed the criticism

“I don’t think we could have done much more during the week,” Townsend told AAP.

“The APL staff has been working very hard over the past three to six months to prepare for this. Things like that don’t happen without careful planning and all the hard work. So I’m really proud of the effort they put in to execute this week.

“If you go back to the announcement, that’s still something that’s hanging over us, that we’re trying to work through with engagement and the things we’re doing with our fans to rebuild that relationship.

“I think we are on the right track with our fan groups. We held regular meetings with various stakeholders to further refine it.

“If you go back, what could you change, it was certainly the way I made that announcement, but we can’t (change) that now.”

“What we can do is work hard to fix it and that’s what we’re doing.”

That clearly does not mean a departure from the three-year deal with Destination NSW.

City and ALW Grand Finalists Western United would both have earned the right to receive a decider, but instead lost to NSW clubs on ‘neutral’ ground.

A City fan is rallying behind his team, despite the club going down by five goals on Saturday night

Danny Townsend insisted the grand final was a success, although he admitted the league would need to ‘rebuild’ its relationship with irate fans

Melbourne City supporters could have attended a grand final at home had the A-League not sold the grand final to Sydney

“People have to go beyond that, right,” Townsend said.

That was the old structure. We have a new structure. The hosting rights are a thing of the past. We have an event. It’s a one time match. A fixed location. As time goes by, it is at least for the next three years.

“Everyone has to agree with that.”

But the leagues will review the decision to have a two-week run-up to the decider, which was originally a COVID-19 contingency move.

The APL hopes to revisit the All Stars concept in the future after Bayern Munich pulled out of a scheduled match last month, dealing a huge blow to the scheduled run-up.

“To be clear, the All Stars would always be a bonus,” Townsend said.

“We didn’t make the decision based on the All Stars, the NSW Government’s support for Football Week was never contingent on the All Stars.

“We had the four events that we felt we executed really well.

“The government is very excited about our first year – we had nine months to prepare for it and I think we did very well.”