To an outsider, it would seem unwise to create a second national league at a time when the first is battling to stay alive.

The beleaguered A-League has shrunk to 12 teams, after the collapse of Western United, and all of them are bleeding money. The outlook for domestic soccer in Australia is challenging. Now a rival has emerged from within.

The Australian Championship launches on Friday night. It is the result of years of debate between soccer fans and administrators about the absence of promotion and relegation from the A-League, and relentless lobbying from clubs that were banished to the state leagues when the old National Soccer League collapsed.

Australian soccer, they argued, was missing a trick with the closed shop model: there was no incentive for aspiration outside the A-Le

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