Head of the A-League Greg O’Rourke has confirmed the competition is set to have its regular season cut from 27 to 26 games.
Speaking in Canberra, O’Rourke reiterated his desire to see the A-League expand to 14 teams in the near future and stressed fewer games and not more are the answer to creating more interest in the competition.
“It’s been announced softly and it will become more public in the next couple weeks that we’re going from 27 rounds to 26 rounds,” O’Rourke said at a Canberra community summit on Wednesday.
“You might say ‘big deal’ but 26 rounds is the strategic answer to move away from playing three games (against one side)…the A-League gets stale quickly.
“We get to a situation where if you have 26 games, that’s 14 teams, 1 home and away (game).
“That’s the strategic place we want to land at. You see the AFL has 18 teams into 23 rounds so a lot of teams don’t even play twice, let alone three times.”
With Western United and Macarthur South-West Sydney set to make the A-League a 12-team competition by the 2020/21 season, O’Rourke admitted further expansion is on the horizon.
After Canberra fell short in their latest expansion bid, the A-League boss conceded the nation’s capital has a strong chance of earning a place in the competition when and if a 13th and 14th side are added.
“That mix is becoming a much shorter list because we see strength in Brisbane and we see strength in Canberra, and we’ve already populated Sydney and Melbourne,” O’Rourke said.
“So they’re not going to be two teams out of seven, they’re more likely to be two teams out of four.
“The fact (Canberra) have been in the application process for quite a while, plus they have a well-supported W-League team and they’ve got their own stadium, which is also a bonus.”
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