BEFORE Mino Raiola and Jorge Mendes became football’s well known ‘super agents’, Jon Smith was one of the big movers and shakers in the football world.

Smith, a player agent and football entrepreneur who is credited as one of the visionaries who helped kick-start the Premier League and turn it into the phenomenon that it is today, has revealed details in a new book about a pitch to Football Federation Australia in 2014 to expand the A-League into south-east Asia.

Smith’s advice was to link the A-League even more intrinsically with Asia than by just being a part of the Asian confederation, an intriguing suggestion given the chatter at the moment about potential A-League expansion, and which regions or cities to add teams from.

He also claims he had political support from the government and football’s corridors of power for those concepts to evolve, but ultimately, FFA wanted consolidation within Australia first.

“During 2014, I was brought in to look at the possibilities for growth in Australian football by a contact I had at A-League club Central Coast Mariners,” he reveals in his book The Deal.

“The club’s majority share owner Mike Charlseworth was familiar with the work I had done in the Premier League and asked for my take on the available options.

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“The A-league only spans Australia and the problem with that country in this context is the lack of major cities.

“They have ten franchises, including one in New Zealand and there is simply nowhere else to go.”

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He continues: “We came up with an idea to take the A-League and its excellent organisation into south-east Asia.

“It was a no-brainer.

“The Australian Sports Ministry loved it because that region boasts some of their strongest trading partners.

“The logistics worked in terms of road trips through Malaysia, even as far north as Hong Kong.

“In the end, having shown all the research to Football Federation Australia and the ways it could work, they decided instead to consolidate at home first.

New signing Tim Cahill is greeted by FFA CEO David Gallop. Source: Getty Images

“Chief Executive David Gallop was instructed to proceed on that patch.

“We disagreed over that course of action but nevertheless David has great insight into the game and is undoubtedly a name for the future in that corner of the world.

“And it is still a conversation waiting to happen because neither FIFA nor the Asian Football Confederation were saying no.

“Small leagues in that region – Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore – will probably join up and form a south-east Asian Super League to then attract big money.”