If a great goal is scored in an empty stadium, did it really happen?

It's a twist on an old philosophical question that the A-League is struggling with right now.

So far, 2017-18 is set to record the worst average crowds in the past six seasons — attendances slipping back towards the bad old days when Clive Palmer's Gold Coast United limited crowds to less than 5,000 and the North Queensland Fury experiment flopped.

To date, the national average attendance is 11,332, down from between 12-13,000 over the past five years.

It may not seem like a huge drop, but this is a relatively young league that's supposed to be growing, with ambitions to add extra teams over the next few years.

It's hard to make the case for more teams when the established ones are struggling to get bums on seats.

TV audience slides on new network as big teams struggle

It's not like people are staying at home to watch the football on TV either.

There's a relatively stable but small audience on Foxtel, and Network Ten is struggling to attract viewers — free-to-air ratings had fallen 15 per cent early in the season compared to last year's SBS 2 coverage to an average of just 112,000.

Perhaps most worryingly for Football Federation Australia, it is the biggest clubs that are struggling to draw the crowds this season.

Despite massive derbies, both the Sky Blues and the Wanderers are down on last year's attendances. Melbourne Victory is also posting its worst home crowds since 2011-12.

This is understandable for the Wanderers, who have put in mixed performances on the field and are away from their geographical and spiritual heartland of Parramatta Stadium while it's rebuilt.

Victory also had a tough start to the year but, on paper, their squad looks to be one of the most potent attacking forces in the A-League.

Attractive, attacking football not drawing fans

However, the lack of crowds is completely incomprehensible for a Sydney FC team not only playing the best football in its history, but widely considered to be the best team seen in the first 13 years of the A-League.

While its success over the past season-and-a-half has been built on a miserly defence, this season in particular, its attack has been among the finest seen on these shores.

I was one of just 13,322 people on hand to watch Sydney FC thump Perth Glory 6-0 at Allianz Stadium in their last match of 2017 — a match that included what was arguably then the goal of the season from Brazilian striker Bobo.

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But it only took until the next match, the first of 2018, for Bobo's heroics to be bettered by Serbian midfield maestro Milos Ninkovic.

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Sydney is not alone. There have been cracking goals flying in from most teams, top to bottom of the table, with attacking flair the order of the season.

I watch quite a bit of football from many of the top overseas leagues and I can honestly say some of the best goals I've seen this year have been in the A-League.

Set piece specialist Ross McCormack, a former top scorer in the English Championship, has been cracking them in from left, right, centre and a long, long way out.

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Newcastle's star of the season so far, Dimitri Petratos, shows there are local players who can match the marquee imports.

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The Jets' deadly counter-attacks have been a regular highlight and its crowds have risen this year, but they're still well off previous peaks.

The football this season is high-quality, fast-paced and attacking.

If you play well, they will come … or will they?

So where are the people?

It's a question Brisbane Roar's star Italian import Massimo Maccarone recently pondered.

"I think it's not good that it's always empty — there's no people coming to see the game," he bemoaned.

"When you go to these stadiums and it's full, it's very good … I think you play better."

It's a question the FFA should be also asking itself, along with the individual A-League clubs.

Sydney FC captain Alex Brosque had a few thoughts when he spoke to FourFourTwo magazine in December.

"It's very frustrating as a player," he lamented.

"It's definitely disappointing because there have been weeks where all the talk has been on FIFA coming to Australia and FIFA coming to taking over the FFA board.

"We all know how hard it is already in this country to get that exposure and media and when it's for the wrong reasons and when it's not being focused on the football it's disappointing."

Worse than the media distraction from the FFA's internal shambles appears to be the organisation's complete distraction from effective marketing and promotion of the A-League.

Former Socceroo and Fox Sports commentator Robbie Slater lambasted the FFA office for being shut down over Christmas and New Year, reopening only last week, despite a heavy schedule of games in the middle of school holidays when it is easier for parents to come along with their kids.

Like Alex Brosque, he slammed the FFA for a lack of promotion, noting that there's not much point in having a "kids go free" Summer of Football Festival if hardly anyone knows about it.

The FFA has responded to early season criticism of its marketing (or lack thereof) by saying it was spreading its ad budget over the whole season, not just front loading it.

But the season is halfway over, the crowds are pathetic and it seems folly to think the masses will suddenly spring forth.

The strategy seems to be to avoid advertising pre-season because it clashes with the AFL and NRL grand finals, but then you hit cricket test season, now the Big Bash and one-day internationals and by the time the cricket is winding down we'll back to the league and Aussie rules pre-seasons.

The lesson is that there's always some major sport you'll be competing with.

Winning over football snobs

Instead, the FFA would be better off concentrating on converting the 1.8 million Australians who already play football into people who also watch the local game, not just the top overseas leagues.

According to Roy Morgan, two-thirds of those footballers are kids aged 6-13, who are the game's future spectators and, in some cases, its future stars.

The main target of the FFA's A-League marketing campaign should be a widespread element of football fan snobbery.

I've spoken to many people who play or have played football, love the sport, and have either never been to an A-League game or went to one or two many years ago, wrote it off as substandard, and have never been back.

Unlike rugby league, cricket or Aussie rules (where there is really only one country playing), Australia doesn't have the best football competition, so people tune-in to overseas leagues that are undoubtedly of a better standard.

Australia's never going to have the money to attract Premier League or La Liga stars in their prime (probably not even in their retirement), but neither does Belgium, where average attendances are similar to the A-League despite six extra first division teams and less than half the national population.

Belgians turn out to watch their local clubs even though only three members of their national squad play in the league, which is ranked the ninth best in Europe by UEFA.

But many of those international stars started out in their domestic league — Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne played three seasons for Genk before transferring to the Premier League with Chelsea.

Imagine the thrill of watching an 18-year-old De Bruyne start weaving his magic, honing his skills, and being able to do so in person.

It's an experience of the kind that the hardy band of Marinators — that's the Central Coast Mariners fan club for the uninitiated — had in 2012-13.

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That's when they watched current Socceroos Tom Rogic, Mat Ryan and Trent Sainsbury, and a host of other exciting young talent, carry the team to the A-League championship.

FFA's major marketing fail

One of this season's main ads, featuring the league's major sponsor, makes reference to the Australian talent that's emerged through the A-League.

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But it mainly features players juggling a ball in front of the sponsor's car, with precious little on-pitch action.

It leaves the football snobs who refuse to watch an A-League match ignorant about just how good the competition actually is.

It also fails to urge you to actually get out and watch the A-League in person.

Likewise the campaign aimed at children saying "you've gotta have a team" doesn't explain why, and again doesn't explicitly promote going to the games, or even watching them on the telly.

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Contrast that with the some of the unforgettable ads the AFL produces, with this mid-1990s effort almost persuading someone who dislikes the sport (yes, I'm from Sydney) that I should go to a game.

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Obviously, massive broadcast and sponsorship deals give the AFL and NRL deep pockets for advertising, but surely it's worth the FFA investing some hard earned to get more bums on seats and in front of TVs.

Perhaps it should run an ad campaign showing how some of the great goals, saves, passes and tackles in the A-League live up to what happens overseas (as we saw above, there are plenty of contenders).

A campaign that highlights the unbeatable atmosphere of being at a game, especially a derby, rather than watching someone else's local rivalry half a world away.

One that reminds you that you don't need to wake up at 2am to watch a decent game of football.

I'd like to see that.