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The Crowd Says (94) | Page 1 of Comments

• Gaz said | July 24th 2009 @ 6:11am | Report comment

  Gold Coast United might well have signed Coyne, Sterj and maybe a few more Socceroos if not for the salary cap, so I wouldn’t assume a change in the rules means MV go unchallenged. No doubt a few other clubs (Perth? SFC?) would lift their spending to stay competitive.

  Then you would have a two-tiered comp like the EPL, where lower teams are looking to build up a team over several seasons, but would still be watching players disappear on a regular basis. I guess the advantage is that the richer HAL clubs could poach them rather than the Chinese and Koreans.

  Let’s hope we have some better crowds this season and then Lowy negotiates a better TV deal, bringing more money into the game. Good for everybody. Onwards and upwards!

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    GeneralAshnak said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:44am | Report comment

    Oh my… I feel a bit weird, but I actually agree with you here Gaz…

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  • Andrew said | July 24th 2009 @ 6:16pm | Report comment

    We are not a buying league we are a selling league.
    We should be aiming at producing better players for
    A) Help the national team
    B) Increase Revenue from the sale of players
    C) Increase the standard of the league

    Raising the cap beyond a certain point will just inflate prices same with you’re turnover idea. If we continuely produce better prices will raise with the quality.

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  • StiflersMom said | July 25th 2009 @ 7:30am | Report comment

    I see your logic Gaz but then we’d end up like the Scottish 12 or so teams but the same clubs fighting to win the comp each year.

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  • Paul said | July 26th 2009 @ 5:00am | Report comment

    I just did a wiki check on game attendances. I’d say things are looking up when you consider that only 2 AFL matches managed to pull more people than the Melb V Adel game yesterday. A bit of interesting reading actually. I checked all the AFL crowds from march onwards. A Footbal ( soccer ) match in melbourne is a far better investment than an AFL game in Brisbane. It’s hard to say if people are staying home more now with the likes of extra TV stations, movie downloads and what have you or the culture is changing slightly. The AFL model wev’e held in such high esteem for years, i’d say is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Maybe people have become more selective. It’s hard to say. And of course population comes into it. The more options people are given, the more thinly spread they become. With football being a world game, it’s getting easier to see it being the dominant Australian sport in the near future.

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• Midfielder said | July 24th 2009 @ 6:44am | Report comment

  Jes

  Within reason it’s a good idea … to keep teams somewhat equal as we still need to grow the domestic competition … I would allow with a percentage of budget allow a team to spend … but to a limit over the cap…

  The cap is 2.25 million excluding marquee … so you can spend a percentage of your income up to say 3.25 million …

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• agga78 said | July 24th 2009 @ 8:09am | Report comment

  Fury mistake was letting Jade North go, even though he was a very poor marquee imo and Robbie Fowler is better, to allow him to go to Korea set a precedent for others lin the club ike Felipe and now Santalab to follow, which now disables the club.
  To allow the bigger clubs like Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne to spend bigger money on players would be a huge mistake at this point in time, yes these clubs will get healthy crowds and their playing standard will rise but teams like CCM, Newcastle or NQ Fury will have crowds of 2 or 4 thousand people, is that what we for football in Australia? It’s ok in Europe where smaller teams have a rusted on support because they are 120 years old, A league clubs are 5 years old and don’t have rusted on support .
  All I would suggest to improve the game further without hitting the smaller clubs to hard is to allow clubs to spend a bit more on a Asian marquee or a better option imo a South American marquee spot, it’s only one player and should not harm the other teams to much.

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    AndyRoo said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:33am | Report comment

    I agree with this. It’s too early to allow an arms race as it means teams that are 5 years old will be spending as much as they can on players.

    As long as the salary cap stays at a relevant level (which the players association will make dam sure it does) I am happy for Victory to have some money in the bank. I think there stupid for spending it on Basketball and Rugby teams unless it’s part of some greater plan.

    They should be spending that money on better youth development, facilities, coaching support systems, scouts and scouting trips and even marketing. Make there club something that wow’s prospective players off the pitch not just on it. That will be one of the things that will get us an extra spot in the Asian Champions League.

    Unfortunately we do have to protect clubs from themselves and I think the cap is the best way. It means the standard will improve a little bit slower than if there was no cap but it’s steady and doesn’t leave many clubs behind. Take the best and worse club out of consideration and then decide on a cap based on what the other 8 can realistically afford.

    I think the Mariners youth plan is excellent but if they were getting blown away in the A league because all the other clubs were spending 4 times as much they would go under before the project was finished.

    I also was a little disappointed with this article because the reference to the Bundisliga meant I thought you were going to talk about how awesome cheap tickets are

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• Brett McKay said | July 24th 2009 @ 8:42am | Report comment

  I’m with you Midfielder, within reason it could just work. Before the English rugby league became the Super League, clubs were allowed to spend either a percentage, or their entire annual turnover, and the net result was that Wigan and St.Helens essentially played off annually for the title. Other clubs came and went, but there was always the couple of dominating clubs. The intorduction of the salary cap for SL has had the same effect as in the NRL, the comp is more even.

  I still believe there is some merit in the ‘natural selection’ theory though, and clubs being able to spend a percentage of turnover at least rewards the successful clubs, while at the same time providing incentive for the trailing clubs to lift their game..

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• whiskeymac said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:24am | Report comment

  bundesliga model has been touted before as a reasonable model, and once the game is able to grow to the stage where the competition would still be viable, and not financially troubled as it is now with Adelaide and Brisbane etc effectively under FFA control, then am sure the FFA and bean counters will modify the salary constraints.
  We lose Santalab but gain DWilliams; lose Ogenovski but develop Devere or Jurman or Golec or Danning… the league will always lose players , it’s how we replace them that will be the real litmus test for the HAl and the games development in this country.

  Why be held to ransom for average players like Santalab? by this i mean, why pay someone more just because you can under the cap? it doesnt make you a better club or competition paying more money to average players. it makes you a naive one, or one sponsored by undisclosed owners who havent passed the fit and proper test. in which case money is not the issue which it is for all other dilligent organisations.
  - if he had the opportunity to play overseas and the club makes money off the transfer thats a win -win. better than having an unsettled player. all clubs lose contracted players. even ManUtd and AC Milan. it’s a facet of the game that inspires loathing (i will never forgive cashley cole’s treachery but hypocritically was happy when sol campbell came over for the gunners…. but for a more local aspect how about colosimo from perth… or petrovski’s moves up the motorway) and makes the game interesting at the same time.
  - surely there are enough players in the world game for NQ to replace Santalab. and am sure there are players who can fit under the salry caps.
  - better contracts and onselling transfer amounts are more important than vain attempts to try and force players to uphold an employment contract. good luck with trying to force a player back to play for you btw, wld be an interesting court case (not to say expensive and futile). dont swim against the current with players leaving overseas, but ensure you get the money you deserve (Vidmar brought this up yesterday on the fox website re Ogenovski being sold for 350K but valued now at 1.7m (seems a bit high but ya know what he means))

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    GeneralAshnak said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:43am | Report comment

    Whiskey you are spot on the money with regard to the Og monster, Viddie was saying how allowing our players to be under valued would result in our league experiencing negetive growth in playerskill. If you have a player who is worth $1.7m dont sell them for $350k – all you do is set a precident that you are happy to be bent over a table, and will smile nicely while it happens.

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• Tom said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:30am | Report comment

  I always thought the point of an A-league salary cap was to equalise the competition, rather than to prevent clubs from going bankrupt.

  Turnover based salary caps only really make sense where you have promotion or relegation, to prevent yoyo teams from going under, or elite leagues where you can get wage bubbles, like the National Hockey League.

  Personally, I’d prefer to see some equalisation between the teams, at least for the moment. Makes it easier for new franchises coming in. Not sure how a new club would be able to attract players from established clubs under this system.

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  Kazama said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:35am | Report comment

  Agree with agga78 – raising / removing the cap would be great for the richer clubs like Melbourne, Gold Coast, Sydney etc but for teams like Newcastle, Adelaide, Brisbane, Fury, Mariners it would be a death sentence, and the reality is that you wouldn’t be able to replace those clubs without a salary cap either. Clive Palmers don’t grow on trees – if they did, then how come no one wants to buy Adelaide or Brisbane?

  You say you want to reward Melbourne, Jesse. Well, I’m sure most Victory fans would be happy to see Adelaide United go under, as any major adjustments to the cap to favour clubs like Melbourne would see the end of my club. As agga78 says, you can’t expect fans who have been supporting a club for 5 years or less, and in our case accustomed to being around at the business end of the season, to think that finshing about 7th every year is ok. In Europe, where people have been lifelong supporters of their clubs like their parents and grandparents before them low expectations are fine, because it’s their club; “rusted on support” as agga78 says. Here it is different. If United have no chance to win the title people will give up on them in a hurry. Just look at that weak as piss crowd at the Preliminary Final following the hammering we copped from Melbourne in the Major Semi and Vidmar’s ensuing outburst. And once United are gone, that’s it, South Australia is gone too because the only club that would be willing to come in is Adelaide City, and quite frankly no one but the Italian community gives a toss about them. The FFA would probably prefer to have another team in Sydney than any at all in SA.

  Wouldn’t mind seeing clubs granted an extra marquee spot, maybe an Asian marquee like I think we’ve discussed in the past. At this time IMO only marginal increases should be considered. If we have to lose players like Brendon Santalab it’s dissapointing but it’s where we are truthfully at right now – a long, long way down the pecking order. And what you are suggesting wouldn’t have saved Santalab unless he was at Melbourne anyway. What’s the point of having a system to help the big clubs save their players if it’s actually the little ones who are losing them? I’m sorry Jesse but I have to disagree with you here.

  TBH I’d rather see the extra money go into the proposed youth academies instead of being added as “incentive” to the contracts of players the calibre of Santalab anyway.

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    GeneralAshnak said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:40am | Report comment

    Bloody well said Kazma! Wish I could cheer that post!

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      Kazama said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:56am | Report comment

      Thanks mate. I’d better start doing some actual work soon though…

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  • onside said | July 24th 2009 @ 7:30pm | Report comment

    The clubs that financially fail are often those that overspend.
    It’s more likely Newcastle,Adelaide,Brisbane, Fury ,and CCM
    would survive by having to run a tight budget ,than the big
    spenders that underacheive. There can only be one winner.

    At this stage of the A leagues development,tired old big name
    footballers can be ‘marque’ players.This will change.The time
    will come when twenty year olds who can play every week
    of the season ,injury free, provide the razzle dazzle.

    I don’t have a firm opinion on the salary cap. I struggle with it.
    I do know Mr Lowry sunk many millions into Sydney to keep it
    afloat,and the owner of Newcastle has put quite a few million
    dollars into his team. It’s a slog.

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  GeneralAshnak said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:37am | Report comment

  AUFC is not in financial trouble. Can people stop saying that? The owner of AUFC was affected by his off field concerns (ie his actual business) and needed to sell out of AUFC. It is interesting to note that if AUFC wasn’t forced to give away 60% of its prize money for the season they would have made a great profit. The reason they didn’t is because of the FFA.

  I personally am totally against changing the salary cap. Until the HAL is not going to expand any further you need to maintain a level playing field, once we have reached a stable platform of 16-20 teams then I would be happy to remove the level cap and convert it to a proportion of income cap. It is premature to be doing so now. Also one must note that it would be quite easy for a club to spend their income cap and go into debt in the current climate. You are talking about the previous financial years income after all, and a massive downturn in revenue from one year to the next is quite possible. Especially in a league that is only 5 years old.

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• Nick D said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:42am | Report comment

  What if the FFA provided an incentive for players to stay in the A-league by having an all A-league team compete in the Asian Cup (and qualifiers). Yes we might suffer in the short term but at least fringe NT members might be more likely to hang around rather than head overseas to say Norway, Romania etc.

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  • granty09 said | July 24th 2009 @ 3:20pm | Report comment

    totally disagree becuz they dont hand out baggy greens to any joe bloe, think they have all ready saturated the honour of pulling on a socceroos jersey and id hate to see them de-value it more
    how do you think tim cahill would feel if say player x from the a league played in all the asian cup qualifiers for the next ten years and ended up with 15 less caps and 5 less goals than cahill despite never playing in a team with him

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  AndyRoo said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:42am | Report comment

  It would be a sad day if the Pissants (with surely the best nickname in world football) were to leave the A League.

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    GeneralAshnak said | July 24th 2009 @ 9:46am | Report comment

    I agree totally Andy, actually I would be devastated if any of the current teams folded – we are just starting to see some actual history form between the clubs which is what this comp has been craving.

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