By Davidde Corran
November 4th 2009 @ 2:11am
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There’s no point dreaming about Roberto Carlos
There’s been some misguided and unconstructive talk this week that Brazilian World Cup winner Roberto Carlos is looking to join an A-League club.
According to the Australian FourFourTwo website, the Brazilian is looking for a new club once his time at Fenerbahce finishes at the end of this month and Carlos “has employed a local agent to help secure a guest stint in the A-League.”
The story by one of Australian football’s good guys, Aidan Ormond, goes on to explain that the drop in crowds and tough financial times means the one time Real Madrid player is unlikely to be gracing our shores anytime soon.
This is nothing new, however.
The chances of Roberto Carlos, or any other player of a similar profile, joining an A-League club are zero to slim (and closer to zero).
All a story like this does is unfairly raise the hopes of fans to an unrealistic level. If a player like Roberto Carlos showing interest in the A-League was a rare occurrence then it’d be understandable but it’s not.
You could run a story like that almost every week.
A-League clubs receive e-mails and faxes on a regular basis from agents representing ‘big name’ footballers and you’d be surprised by how unprofessional some of these approaches can be. Some make it into the press and some don’t.
A few do get a club’s attention, but every single one ends as soon as the player’s salary expectations are mentioned.
I could give you a pretty amazing starting 11 with some of the names I know have been shopped around the A-League, but very few of them ever had even a remote chance of signing.
While the A-League has been graced by two players who are of a similar profile to Roberto Carlos, they were specific circumstances.
Dwight Yorke in season one of the A-League came for ‘lifestyle’ reasons. He loved the city of Sydney so much that he actively tried to return after he joined Roy Keane’s Sunderland.
While nearly every player in the A-League is trying to get to a big European league like the English Premiership ‘All Night Dwight’ was trying to go the other way.
North Queensland Fury’s Robbie Fowler is the other example.
Despite being one of the top paid footballers of any code in Australia, Fowler’s move to the A-League wasn’t for financial reasons.
Thanks to Fowler’s real estate investments, the former Liverpool player will never need to work again.
So the key point here is that these great names of modern football came to Australia to play for very specific reasons that didn’t solely involve money.
Players who are willing to come for reasons that aren’t financial are the only kind of high profile marque player the A-League will be able to sign for a long time yet.
The interest from Roberto Carlos’ agent to come to Australia isn’t news.
Personally I find it disrespectful to be continuously presented with these stories. Of course a name like Roberto Carlos is alluring but it seems cruel when the truth is there’s little chance of him playing in the league. A player’s ‘interest’ isn’t a story. Genuine negotiations are.
I’d rather see our football journalists chasing real issues within the game than making easy phone calls to player agents and getting my hopes up.
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(17)
Freud of Football said | November 4th 2009 @ 8:15am | Report comment
“All a story like this does is unfairly raise the hopes of fans to an unrealistic level” – That’s an excellent point. It also gives the game media coverage and of course when Roberto Carlos doesn’t show up in the A-League, no-one will bother mentioning it but the publicity it generates surely isn’t a bad thing.
The A-League simply MUST remove the salary cap, while that is in place the league will go nowhere. There are other ways of regulating a clubs finances and while this might be the most secure, the league needs to take on some risk (and we are talking minor here) and allow clubs to shell out a bit more, it will have the flow on effect that with better players come better crowds, higher gate receipts, more sales in merchandise etc.
Mattay said | November 4th 2009 @ 8:52am | Report comment
Regarding Robbie Fowler: “Thanks to Fowler’s real estate investments, the former Liverpool player will never need to work again.”
I’ve heard a lot of rumours about Fowler’s supposed property empire, but really is it any more than you would expect of a professional footballer who earned more in a week than most people do in several years? Sure, there are examples of players spending all their money on booze, drugs, cars and women (and wasting the rest), but I would imagine the majority are fairly sensible and have their money invested in a variety of shares, property and businesses.
Why does Fowler get singled out for his property investments when one would assume he’s not the only professional footballer who would never need to work again post-retirement?
Davidde Corran said | November 4th 2009 @ 11:09am | Report comment
Mattay, Fowler invested very smartly and heavily. Particularly in Liverpool where he bought a lot of old terraced housing and blocks of flats for cheap and turned them into trendy spots. He has made a real mint and even now is one of the richest men in football. That’s particularly significant seeing as only the end of his career saw the ridiculous riches of today’s footballers.
KP said | November 4th 2009 @ 8:54am | Report comment
Freud mate,
salary cap will go once ALL the clubs are financially viable, and I’d assume that’d be post expansion as every new franchise needs a few years to get out of the red… still it’d turn the league into most other leagues with the bigger cities (melb, syd) having more money and winning more silverware. (I dont mind being a MV member!)
Agree that there’s nothing wrong with R. Carlos being bandied about tho… its better publicity than crowd capping, disenchanted supporters etc.. and certainly not disrespectful!
AndyRoo said | November 4th 2009 @ 9:09am | Report comment
What would removing the salary cap achieve though?
The standard of play is better this year than previous years it is not the EPL but it never will be. If you support Adelaide I could see why this doesn’t seem the case though as they are having a worse year than previously.
With only 2 clubs reported to be making a profit CCM and MV the rest probably wouldn’t be spending much more on players anyway. CCM don’t even use their marquee spot (neither do Adelaide) so it’s not like they have unused powder left.
As to MV I am not a Melbourne fan but their team is pretty good to watch. I don’t think any MV fans would be bemoaning the quality of their team. They might not be huge Merrick fans but coaches don’t come under the salary cap.
http://www.melbournevictory.com.au/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=29938
Participants received their own exclusive Melbourne Victory merchandise pack
As well as invest in off the field things like an academy and such to raise the standard in the long run. Much better I feel for football than paying an old Brazilian an extra 400k.
I have much more faith in the A leagues future than I do the Uzbekistan Leagues future.
I really see taking the salary cap of as likely that the clubs just end up paying the same players we have now more $$$ rather than doing anything dramatic to increase the quality of the league. And long term the league would become boring as regional teams couldn’t compete with the big market teams, which I guess they enjoy in Europe but I don’t think would go down so well in the Australian market.
If they do one day allow people to go over the cap it should be with a strict luxury tax style system.
Freud of Football said | November 4th 2009 @ 4:11pm | Report comment
“What would removing the salary cap achieve though?” – More Money= Better Players = More Interest = Higher Attendances = More Interest at Grassroots Level = More money in the game = Even better players = Even more interest and so on, and so on, and so on.
Mattay said | November 5th 2009 @ 7:53am | Report comment
More money = less frugle investment in scouting players = money wasted on “name” players for little benefit = less investment in local players = clubs going bankrupt = FFA bailouts = FFA going bankrupt.
Without the salary cap, you’ll find teams throwing money at Carlos Kickaballs and not Nathan Burns or Bruce Djite, because it’s just easier.
David V. said | November 5th 2009 @ 1:41pm | Report comment
Or, it would encourage clubs to strive for betterment, which the current Communist system- ironically never even adopted by any Communist regime- does not.
whiskeymac said | November 5th 2009 @ 3:07pm | Report comment
communist in that it has a utilitarian value to the game and not the betterment of one or two clubs? when the league is so young it seems prudent to ensure it grows to a stage where it can survive what always ends up being an arms race like expenditure aka capitalism. lets wait until we all pretend the HAL can surivive inflated wages, transfers etc to take root.
lets not forget the head of the FFA is himself is probably about as Marxist as McCarthy, as are many of the owners, being succesful developers, miners etc.
crawl, walk, run. it’s natural evolution. given time am sure the cap will be lifted and or less relevant (and as has been mentioned so many times on these pages, the bundesliga is a good model to follow in rewarding the best clubs but not letting them break away and making the comp stale)
whiskeymac said | November 5th 2009 @ 8:27am | Report comment
good post Andyroo. i agree that the future is through the NYL not through unsustainable wages for the players in a league which is still finding its feet.
banding names about is fine – if you took the gossip and conjecture out ofsport you’d only have half as much interest between matches,which in the hAL can be months!
whiskeymac said | November 5th 2009 @ 8:32am | Report comment
mattay = bang on.
even if the salary cap was removed players like Djite et al wd leave to play overseas, so the chance is clubs wld still be bringing in the same calibre of players but paying them more.
Freud of Football said | November 5th 2009 @ 4:17pm | Report comment
Hardly. Not all Clubs run by idiots. More money certainly doesn’t = same players on higher wages.
With more money you would be looking at a league something like the J-League or perhaps even one of the Scandavian leagues quality-wise.
Unless clubs have the option to spend more they will never bring in better players. Davidde made the point that Fowler came under exceptional circumstances. The man was near the top of the list of the highest earning english footballers recently, he’s playing for change in Aus, he came for the lifestyle, for his family and to be a part of something.
How many other brilliant footballers are in his shoes?
whiskeymac said | November 5th 2009 @ 7:58pm | Report comment
none probably in the jleague. the point being that if you get rid off the cap how much do you think clubs cld afford to spend to raise the quality of players? jleague clubs have much bigger budgets, as do Scandinavian ones (with the added bonus of being a feeder club for european clubs, or at least getting eurogames). which clubs cld afford to lug out wages with brondby, grampus8 or malmo? Adelaide, brissy? in the current climate only 2 clubs makea profit, they simply cldnt afford to pay more for marginally better players and or forever be suck in mediocrity because one or two clubs can afford too.
overtime am sure the bar will be raised.
Horza said | November 5th 2009 @ 3:26pm | Report comment
Clubs are having trouble staying financially viable with the cap in place, if it was removed they’d be exposed to greater risks trying to lure the likes of Roberto Carlos. It’s taken a while just to get clubs to stop chasing utter dross like Jardel and has-beens like Romario and get shrewd about recruiting. Until the league is stable and sustainable plans are in place the cap has to stay.
whiskeymac said | November 5th 2009 @ 3:52pm | Report comment
are guest players outside of the cap? the marketing and benefits for bringing in even a competent player can be compelling – Carbone was hardly headline material but was good for SFC as was Miura. it’s a mixed bag when signing players with old reputations. For Romario we have Fowler, for Jardel we have Dwight. but even in saying that (and i dont know how true it is) but havent many of the brazilian imports stated their knowledge of the HAL came about because of Romario’s stint here? there’s some vlaue in that sort of exposure – it may convince the players we can afford (Fred, Reinaldo, Cassio etc) that the competition (a) exists (b) is worthwhile.
Pippinu said | November 5th 2009 @ 4:06pm | Report comment
Definitely outside the cap.
Mxjosh said | December 7th 2009 @ 9:13am | Report comment
We could put a decent argument forward for both pro salary cap and anti salary cap as we have seen through the debate on this page, posters on both sides have put forward some good points, on one hand keeping the salary cap forces clubs to be more concious of their spending and invest more in youth and smart purchases on the other hand removing it would open the more wealthy clubs up to some star signings further strengthening the league and thus (hopefully anyways) increasing attendance and media coverage due to a higher quality league.
myself i believe that while the cap shouldnt be removed completely It should be increased, maybe give the clubs an extra million to spend on wages or alternatively add in a second marquee spot on each roster (similar to the MLS 2 designated player spots). Im just not entirely convinced that all clubs are financially viable enough for the FFA to completely remove the Salary cap, we dont want clubs spending beyond their means and go belly up like so many former NSL clubs did. Im not saying all the clubs if any will do that but there is always that risk and id hate to see an A-league club disapear itd be a tragedy