Soccer-Record numbers will watch meaty A-League, says official

SYDNEY, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The 10th season of the A-League, which kicks-off on Friday, will shatter all previous attendance records, Football Federation Australia (FFA) chief executive David Gallop predicted on Tuesday. With the Australian Football League and National Rugby League seasons over, it was A-League's golden opportunity to breach the two million attendance mark, said a bullish Gallop. "I like to think that Australian football is the hamburger with the lot in Australian sport at the moment," Gallop said. "And the meat in the hamburger is the A-League. That's the engine room of Australian football. "In this competitive environment we're in, the other competitions have gone to sleep now. It's our time." The former NRL boss said the league had set some "ambitious benchmarks" in its 10th season to be headlined by Melbourne City's Spanish striker David Villa. "We're going to go through the two-million crowd barrier for the first time," Gallop said. "Two million web users. One million social media followers. We expect to go through the 100,000 membership mark." (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by Patrick Johnston)