FFA Revoke the License of Gold Coast United

There's been trouble brewing between Clive Palmer, billionaire owner of the Hyundai A League franchise Gold Coast United, and the Football Federation of Australia. Recently Palmer called the A League a joke, and said his club is insignificant. The FFA and the rest of the A League took serious umbrage with that, obviously.

Well Wednesday afternoon, Australia time, the FFA took action against Palmer and his self confessed "insignificant club." Fellow billionaire and FFA chief Frank Lowy revoked the license of Gold Coast United, effectively banning the club from the league at the end of season and leaving the league with only 9 teams. With 4 matches left to play, Gold Coast is bottom of the A League table. The FFA has tried to be in contact with the club about fielding a team for these matches, but the situation seems to be fluid.

The reasons cited for terminating the license are: contraventions of FFA policies, deliberate defiance of an FFA direction and repeated public statements that brought the game into disrepute. Lowy is quoted as saying: "We can't let anybody thumb their noses at us saying 'we're going to do what we want to do but I want to stay'."

For his part, Palmer has vowed to fight the ban, saying he will take the battle to the court system.

As I said, the situation and reaction is still unfolding. You can follow the news on the official site of the Hyundai A-League Here.

(Information from FIFA.com was used for this report.)

A League Action: Central Coast Mariners vs. Gold Coast United

I have to admit that the coolest thing about this match to me was seeing another pretty good sized crowd at an A League match. I've said before in my blog and tweets that the A League reminds me a lot of MLS, albeit a little bit younger. I think the league and the clubs are really going about it the right way. Fox Soccer here in the USA plays at least one game live every week and then usually replays it once or twice later. That's good because it catches hardcore footy fans like myself in the USA that can contribute as well.

I had to watch this one on the interwebs though, lol.

It was a fairly entertaining match to watch, especially being only two weeks into the new season. Both sides had some pretty good chances in the opening half. For Central Coast Matt Simon took a nice ball from Pellegrino on 9 minutes, but had his driven shot saved by Glen Moss in goal for Gold Coast.

A little later Gold Coast had their best chance of the half when James Brown sliced a ball in that somehow found it's way to the foot of Ben Halloran. Unfortunately for Gold Coast, he hit the shot high and we went to the interval at 0-0.

James Brown showed up again for Gold Coast just a couple of minutes into the second half. He's been doing pretty well for himself. Last week he had the A League goal of the week in rescuing a draw against Wellington Phoenix. This week he banged a shot in from just inside the area in the 47th minute to give Gold Coast the lead.

Central Coast was guilty of looking perhaps a little lethargic at times, but in the end they showed their colors and came back. In the 87th minute, Captain Patrick Zwaanswijk headed home a goal to earn the late draw.

Not the best match from either side, but all in all some pretty decent football to stay up late and watch. It's nice to have the A League back.