SYDNEY OLYMPIC – 2024 SEASON REVIEW

For the 2^nd season in a row, Sydney Olympic has ended the year in a mid-table position in the League. Finishing 9^th in 2023 and now 8^th in 2024.

One poor season is unacceptable, but most supporters can give a benefit of the doubt to the club for an off-year and even forgive it.

The fact that the club then decided to go with “same again” for 2024 and has now suffered 2 shockingly poor seasons in a row, makes it all the more worse. It is just simply not good enough.

In the 60 combined matches of seasons 2023 and 2024, we have lost 25 of those 60 matches, that is unheard of, winning only 23 and the rest of the 12 ended in draws.

To delve deeper into who we lost to in 2024, Sydney Olympic lost to the team that ran stone motherless last, Hills United (WHO?) TWICE!

To expand on this further, the bottom 6 sides of the NSW NPL this season, who were all absolutely dreadful for most of the year by the way, all beat Sydney Olympic throughout the season.

We lost to WSW NPL, SFC NPL, CCM NPL, Hills - twice, St George - twice and lost and drew in both of our matches this season against Sutherland. To say that these clubs are kafeneia, would be an insult to kafeneia.

Additionally, in both of the past 2 seasons there has been no saving grace for the club in the Cup competitions, where we have also experienced awful Cup runs.

We have failed to progress to the latter stages of the Waratah Cup and we have not made it to the Australia Cup Round of 32 Main Draw, in either of the last 2 seasons.

In fact, we have made it to the Australia Cup Round of the 32 Main Draw, only 3 times in 11 attempts since the competition was re-introduced in 2014 and we have not made a Waratah Cup Final since 2008 and in the 16 years since that time, we have reached the Semi-Final stage of the Waratah Cup only twice.

Some will say, what about the fact we have a lot of younger players and the club is building up to something? That would be great, if this was the type of League where you could keep a core of young players together. But it is not, players are enticed, move and come and go every year, for as little as a packet of chips, for an extra $100 a week, or for some other off-field favour.

The irony of course, is that outside of a near 40 year-old forward, our best players this season have been some of our youngest players who have saved us in matches this season, on numerous occasions.

Our so called experienced players are the ones who haven’t been pulling their weight.

Is it the coach, is it the players, is it the one who signs the players, is it the board?

In my opinion, it is probably all of those, but on the player front, we need a proper Centre-Forward, we need a couple of good Central-Midfielders and probably a Goalkeeper.

One of the running gags of the supporters this season has been the Haliti Out comments.

The fact of the matter is, that any other coach in Sydney Olympic’s long history with that poor of a win-loss record, would have been shown the door a long time ago. It is a miracle he is still there.

It is not personal against Labinot Haliti, although seeing supporters constantly calling for his head, it probably does seem personal to him. We as Sydney Olympic Supporters are into seeing the club be successful, that is what interests us, that is our priority at the end of the day. The club is there to win, not to be a charity.

Losing 25 out of 60 matches in 2 full seasons is no one’s idea of success.

So the question then becomes, does the club want to make a change now, or once more will they go with same again for 2025? Go an entire off-season/pre-season with the same people in the coaching staff and in the player ranks and then 6-8 weeks into the new season, we've started horribly again, we’re out of the Title race again, we’re out of the Cup competitions again and the season is a write off, again.

Then it won’t only be Haliti Out, it will be the whole lot of you Out.

The club has embarrassed itself these last 2 seasons and if there are no changes, we will continue to be an embarrassment.

Onto the National 2^nd Division now, whatever happened with that? Still no official word from anybody involved.

I noted with much amusement, the meeting held by the clubs involved in the formation of the National 2nd Division - with 1 of those clubs being our Sydney Olympic - with the FFA, to resolve the impasse over the failure of the announcement and implementation of said National 2^nd Division.

One would expect some sort of decision or determination by now, about if it is going ahead or not, instead, the “announcement” we got was an announcement that they had agreed to once again meet in the future, to resolve whatever issues there are.

These statements are what piss people off. There was a meeting held where it would be decided that there would be in the future, more meetings? Farcical.

Sydney Olympic as well as the other clubs, have put up an estimated $1 Million each so far to get this thing off the ground. The legal ramifications for the FFA if this National 2^nd Division doesn’t get off the ground, must also not be ignored.

It will also surely spell big trouble for the FFA, which is already a failure of an organisation to begin with and the people running it have no idea how to administer the sport.

In any event, $1 Million would have been much better spent in my opinion, on a base for the club finally, instead of its 67 year nomadic existence. A place for the club to call home, but then again, long term planning has never been the clubs strong suit.

Especially, as we are in a situation currently where we barely train out of Belmore anymore these days and we don’t play all our home games out of Belmore anymore either.

Once again the Bulldogs flex their political muscle with the council and get whatever they want, despite abandoning and attempting to abandon Belmore on numerous occasions throughout the years, remember Kelso Park in East Hills? Stardome in Liverpool? Homebush? Bass Hill?

And every time, Sydney Olympic never stood in the Bulldogs way whenever they came crawling back to Belmore. Sure the club would never be in a position or have the power, to refuse them back anyway, but the point still stands.

Everyone is also aware by now, about the $50 Million centre of excellence which will be built at Belmore Sports Ground for the Bulldogs and there’s a high chance, Sydney Olympic’s time at Belmore will be coming to an end.

My advice to the club, if they wanted to hear it, would be this: If the Bulldogs want us out of Belmore fine. But cough up $5 Million of that 50 for us to move, plus the Bulldogs and the Council should work together with the club to find us another site in the area. Then we’ll gladly leave.

Sydney Olympic as a result, have had to play numerous home games at Kogarah this year, don’t get me wrong, Kogarah is a great place to play, but surely it would be easier and better for the club, to have its junior and senior men’s and women’s teams and its office, all based in the one location.

In terms of engagement by the club, the juveniles behind the club’s social media platforms barely post or produce anything and when they do, they are pretty quick on the trigger in terms of deleting any comments critical of the club and of the performances of its employees and I’m talking about genuine criticism here directed at the club that is deserved, not moronic troll comments.

Funnily enough, while the club is quick to delete comments of supporters and members, they let those spam betting accounts go on posting virus link after virus link and allow trolls who support other clubs to write whatever they want, no dramas.

Club personnel have even blocked the Sydney Olympic Supporters twitter account and sent messages to us on facebook, making ridiculous demands.

They should worry less about what we’re doing and worry more about how they are going to turn things around.

It remains to be seen what happens over the next few months at Sydney Olympic, but at this moment in time, we don’t know where we will be based out of, where we will be playing and in which competition we will be competing.

Sounds promising.