It should be no surprise to anyone that Les Murray, in his current TWG op-ed, links the issues of national coach Pim Verbeek’s perhaps over-blunt assessment of the A-League’s standard and that of the salary cap that exists within the league.
We went into the final round of the regular season with no less than 4 clubs on equal points, and all capable of becoming minor premiers. And yet our national coach doubts that he could assemble a single team from these 4 leading squads (not to mention the other 4 clubs in the comp) that he would confidently put up against … wait for it … Qatar.
Now, I applaud the progress that domestic football has made over the last three years and am a regular attendee at the SFS, enjoying the competition and the new energy around football in Australia. However, I cannot help but think that the architects of the “new football” order have been overly concerned at creating an internally competitive league, at the expense of Australian football’s development vis-a-vis external benchmarks.
Artificial levelling devices such as salary caps, player drafts and other restrictions have their place in the closed environment of a single league. And they have certainly contributed to the success of sports such as Rugby League and AFL in creating interesting, dynamic competitions and therefore a level of fan support that is perhaps at a premium to what these closed, small-market sports should naturally achieve.
But the context for football is not just the Australian market, nor the Australian market plus one or two ‘also ran’ nations. We have a much bigger context — Asia and the world. It may therefore not be so important to produce 8, 10 or 12 clubs that are competitive among themselves. Rather, maybe it’s a better objective to produce those 1, 2 or 3 of our clubs that are truly competitive by external standards, that can take it to the world, even at the cost of them dominating our domestic league.
The most prominent case in point is Scotland — a country with only a third of Australia’s population. Celtic and Rangers dominate their league, and provide that nation with internationally recognisable, indeed iconic, clubs that compete at the highest of European levels. Does the rest of the league suffer for this in terms of playing standard, club support or fan enjoyment? Check with your local supporter of Hearts, of Hibs, of Aberdeen. I think not. And Scotland is not the only instance of a league with dominant clubs. Milan, Inter and Juve in Italy. Real and Barca in Spain. The big 4 in England.
I think that we fear the creation of super-clubs too much here, and that this fear is wedded with the Aussie notion of a ‘fair go’ and also the risk of stepping away from the internally competitive model of sports that exists — in reality — in a totally different and far more limited context than football.
I think the psyche of the fan is also more complex than the A-League architects think. Just as is already starting to occur with Sydney, the super-clubs are likely to raise attendances and profiles for all clubs through a combination of antipathy and aspiration when they play in domestic competition. Everyone likes to try to knock off the big guy after all! And when they play as ‘the’ Aussie club abroad’ in ACL or other competitions, the country (even if reluctantly) is likely to rally around them.
Australian clubs have incredible opportunities before them, especially in the Asian region in which we compete. And at the appropriate time, and in the appropriate way, I would like to see them unleashed to pursue those opportunities — including removal of the salary cap, and increasing each club’s freedom to raise and spend funds in general. This has to be done carefully and in a phased manner, of course. But if the net result of relaxing the artificial levellers in our game is to encourage more investment in high quality players, coaches, youth development and club facilities, and ultimately the lifting of the Australian club game to an internationally competitive standard, then — even if the benefits are not evenly spread — we are surely shooting ourselves in the foot to not be progressing down this path of liberalisation.
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