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A-League's culture of marquee signings

Roar Guru
23rd September, 2013
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A special fund for special players, can FFA make it happen? And should they? (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)
Roar Guru
23rd September, 2013
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1536 Reads

As the countdown to the ninth A-League season continues and the belated free-to-air exposure now merely three weeks away,

A-League teams are now effectively in the latter stages of preparing their squads for the upcoming season.

Naturally, much anticipation often surrounds the acquisition of the so-called marquee players and the publicity and impact they bring.

The two Sydney teams are retaining their current marquees, Alessandro Del Piero in the case of Sydney FC and Shinji Ono in the case of Western Sydney Wanderers.

The impact on raising awareness of the A-League and the ‘Sydney FC brand’ in the case of the former and the profile of Western Sydney in Japan in the case of the latter have been well documented.

As has former English Premier League star Emile Heskey’s continuing presence at the Newcastle Jets.

Where there has been movement over this off-season is in Melbourne.

Melbourne Victory have just announced the signing of Chilean Pablo Contreras while the Heart have signed Maltese Michael Mifsud.

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Over the years there has been a notion that has been raised in some quarters as to what the ‘marquee’ is supposed to be about – namely to ‘put bums on seats’ and to ‘raise publicity’ amongst other things.

Over the course of the A-League’s eight inaugural seasons, Melbourne Victory have more often than not opted for a different focus and utilised the so-called ‘marquee concept’ in quite a different way.

This would usually involve an acquisition which generally does not carry much in the way of mass appeal in terms of their name, but in terms of the A-League they bring a lot to the pitch.

This approach contrasted to the supposed notion of what the marquee was ‘meant to be’.

The one season Melbourne Victory did toy with the big-name marquee was the year they signed Harry Kewell when there was a changeover at senior administration levels.

The fact that that season is widely perceived as a disastrous and underwhelming campaign by the Victory faithful would merely serve to further institutionalise Melbourne’s cultural perspective on what they want in a marquee.

So despite chasing relatively well known names such as Giorgos Karagounis and Fabrizio Miccoli – who both would have undoubtedly lifted the profile of Victory amongst the respective migrant populations within Melbourne and Australia more broadly – it was no surprise that Melbourne coach Ange Postecoglou would have no qualms end up opting for a much less familiar name to be their international marquee.

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Postecoglu’s comments upon confirming the signing of Contreras were quite telling.

“…there’s great excitement around what he can bring to the club,” he said.

“Pablo is a high quality central defender who will be an important part of our journey towards an A-League Championship, and, hopefully, our upcoming Asian Champions League campaign.”

It is interesting to note firstly the focus on what the player ‘brings’ to the club (as opposed to how they can publicise it) and secondly the impact the player will have on their season ambitions (as opposed to how many bums on seats they will supposedly bring in).

Most importantly there is an attempt to avoid a dynamic where the player is perceived as bigger than the club.

The fact that some people were inclined to say ‘Pablo who?’ then leads to some complaining that Victory are somehow using the marquee spot as some kind of cynical accounting exercise to get wages out of the cap.

But Melbourne’s approach to marquees should be recognised as perfectly legitimate and the football fraternity should embrace a diversity of cultural perspectives on what a marquee is, rather than try to get all clubs adhere to a form of groupthink on the matter.

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Given the approach has by and large been executed well, it has served to enhance in quite different ways to what has traditionally been the case with some of the more ‘conventional’ hit-and-miss marquees.

No one would argue against the notion that Archie Thompson has been fantastic value for the game domestically.

Even though they technically weren’t marquee status, Fred in season 2 and then Carlos Hernandez in particular were erstwhile unknown foreign players who had a positive cultural impact on the standard of play on the fledgeling A-League pitch.

It needs to be recognised is one thing for a Del Piero, a Heskey or an Ono to ensure people around the world will hear of the A-League, but this is not quite the same as people around the world having respect for the A-League.

Having a club develop a culture of success and making good progress in international competitions (such as the AFC Champions League in this case) are just as important to developing the esteem in which the league is held in the long term.

After all in the football world the brand of a league often goes hand in hand with the brand of its readily identifiable powerful clubs.

For example people think of the EPL and think of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and now Manchester City.

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People can think of smaller leagues such as the Dutch Eredivise and PSV Eindhoven and Ajax come to mind.

Indeed the Dutch Eredivise, despite being a small league, is held in some esteem because of the capacity of their top clubs able to punch above their relative weight and make good progress in continental competition such as the UEFA Champions League and Europa League.

A marquee who can underpin competitive success and good quality of play on the pitch is just as important as a big-name marquee signing who can capture the public and media imagination (and Corporate sponsorship money for that matter).

More broadly, it would be fair to say that the optimum mix for the A-League overall lies in having a a mix of both marquee styles.

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