I think the ACT struggles to strongly support League, Union and W-League.
Given the general weakness of A-League in comparison to the first two in particular, can Canberra sustain a club that won't have the same embarrassment in terms of crowds and support as GCU?
I think the support is there. From memory, the junior numbers for soccer in Canberra absolutely blow every other sport out of the water. I know that doesn't always translate into success, but it's a good start.
The corporate support is there, and a crowd of over 20,000 to see a distinctly A-League Socceroos team is another good indicator.
But the biggest thing I think is that Canberrans don't have a team to support once the NRL season ends. Canberrans love sport, and I think it would be well within the realms of possibility to see an average crowd of between 9-10,000.
But even ignoring my Canberra agenda, I don't think it can be denied that Gold Coast United are an absolute embarrassment to the game. Surely there's a region somewhere that could do a lot better. I think that should be Canberra after we had the best bid last time and were still dudded, but there are other areas around the country that could also do it a lot better than GCU.
