The Australian Soccer Federation is to become the Football Federation of Australia. It seems the soccer powers want to abolish the name 'soccer' on the way to becoming a viable organisation.

As Richard Hinds put it in Saturday's Herald ....

Soccer. For a long time the term has been necessary to distinguish the rest-of-the-world's game from our dominant football codes.

Apparently, soccer purists don't like the name 'soccer' because it's not what the code is called in other countries. They ignore that in most other soccer, sorry, 'football' countries, there are no other brands of footy to compete with. They feel that giving it back its 'propper' name will help establish its dominance.

... the assumption [is] that soccer will take over here merely because it is the supreme footballing being in other parts of the planet is both defensive and underestimates the strength and quality of the other codes.

I wish them luck.

As an AFL tragic living in Sydney, I know first hand how difficult it is to change a sporting culture. No matter how superior you think your code is over all the others (and, of course, Aus footy is the best code of all!), the people who follow the other inferior codes just won't get it. The Sydney Swans have been in Sydney for over 20 years, and although they have a reasonable following, the game is still a curiosity to most native Sydney-siders.

I think the new soccer competion will do better than previously. Having one team in the major capitals should draw reasonable crowds. Larger crowds will draw media interest and exposure.

Needless to say, soccer won't go anywhere close to becoming the dominant code, for one major reason over which the local administration has no control.

Any player who has talent soon gets scouted, often at junior level, by the rich European clubs. The local competition can't match the money and just doesn't get a look in, causing the local competition to be substandard. It's hard to see a way round this impediment.

Soccer will always have a place in the Australian sporting scene, but not as the dominant football code.