Regional Leagues Championship.

Can anyone shed any light on why we can't have a winter clubs Championship each season to find the countries top domestic club. At the end of each of the Northern, Central and Southern leagues the winners of those three meet in a home and away series to find the top club. 

Great idea but would cut into the build up for players in the ISPS Handa National League.

$$$$$$

We used to have one - it was called the Winfield Superclub and was used as a "National League".  3 teams from Northern and Central Leagues and 2 from the South Island League.

Still, arguably, the best concept on record economically and competitively. Personally I would still rather see this type of format replacing our Summer National League. 

Regional leagues running March to August and then into a top 6 or 8 with a decent break over summer.

Looking at the wage bills of the Federations surely money should not be a problem. Our administration costs across the country for what we get, compared with other sports, seem somewhat out of kilter. 

I remember the "Superclub" well. The regional components were dreadful - elite players spread over 30 teams - and it was not until the one round national component that the standard rose to an acceptable level. Player payments ballooned as more teams chasing the same pool of players. No thanks

I see a Championship as taking a maximum of 4 matches per team to complete a Champion of New Zealand. Two of those would be at home for each club and two away so the $$$$$ shouldn't be to astronomical. The winner of the Northern, Central and either a play off between Mainland and Dunedin/Southland leagues to produce the South Island winner or the winner of the new (continuing ?) South Island league.

  So lets say that Birkenhead Utd, Napier City Rovers and Cashmere Technical are our 3 clubs. The winner of the 4 games per club are the NZ Champions. Should only add one extra month to the winter season. Matches to be played at the clubs home grounds. I think it would garner a lot of interest.

This could be just the platform to introduce promotion relegation for the National League.

Winners could be promoted to the National League while last place from National league is relegated to regional league.

2nd place could also have play-off for promotion vs 2nd last from National League.

Second thoughts this could be a huge cluster fudge as one of the regional leagues will have one extra team added depending where they are from.

Don't we have a national champion when a team wins 6 or so games across their region and then the country in the Chatham Cup?

Seems good to me. 

Well the Cup is on a knockout basis compared to a club playing home and away. 

I guess it's hard to see how such a series would be financially viable, or fit into a pretty crowded domestic calendar? Winter leagues are just about to send, and the various national leagues are starting in ~10 weeks. Not sure that player exhaustion is an actively useful goal?

4 games is hardly a proper way of deciding a national champion either though, is it?

Well it is when there are only 3 clubs involved who have already  played between 18 to 22 league matches in the season plus Chatham Cup. Either you'll have tied players or very intense games as clubs vie to be the best in the land. 

  I just think the domestic (winter) game needs to go to another level. The summer franchises aren't even allowed to enter the Chatham Cup so to me the real "meat" are the winter leagues with real clubs playing both League and Cup. The icing on the cake would be a National (league) Champion.

A 3 team home and away round robin would take 6 playing dates, and a 3 team round robin is never inherently fair with the way someone has to have the bye in the first, someone has to have the bye in the last week, and only one team gets the bye in the middle week.

Australia has the National Premier League finals where the 8 state Premier League winners play in an 8 team one-legged knockout in the last 3 weeks of September.  I don't know how that works out for them and the players, wether it is a burden or not.  They do have the luxury of the winner receiving direct entry to the round of 32 in next years FFA Cup so there is some incentive.

An equivalent knock-out for us with 4 league winners would only take 2 playing dates but wouldn't guarantee a team a home game.  Making the rounds (or at least the first round) two-legged would guarantee everyone a home game but at the cost of an extra date or two.

More games between the various leagues would help ensure parity among the leagues.  With the Chatham Cup draw being open only from the quarters, that doesn't really happen.  This season it would be good if for example Western Suburbs got to play more of the better teams from the other regions.  I wonder if during the season there is room for another knock-out cup "League Cup" for just the 37 teams in the 4 top leagues, or a "Champions League" style competition involving 16 teams (4 groups of 4) based on finishing positions in previous season (e.g. 6 northern, 4 central, 3 mainland, 3 southern), that would see the best teams getting a few more higher level games..  That would add a bit of spice to the end of the season in the respective leagues as they jostle for spots, but would require teams to budget for a number of plane rides per season.  But if we can't afford the Chatham Cup to be open from the round of 16, then we probably can't afford such extra competitions.