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A-League salary cap still a work in progress

21st July, 2014
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Former Central Coast Mariners coach Graham Arnold, always one to throw his two cents in on Australian football. AAP Image/Paul Miller
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21st July, 2014
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Admittedly one of the worst things about Graham Arnold moving to Vegalta Sendai was that it left us bereft of his majestic rants on Australian football.

There are few topics Arnold is scared to approach, particularly as far as the Socceroos are concerned. And his history makes his opinion well worth listening to.

But one of his latest suggestions doesn’t sit all too well. The Sydney FC coach claimed there needs to be an exemption within the salary cap to allow overseas-based Socceroos to return home for a loan stint if they are struggling to get sufficient game time.

It would be supposedly designed to boost the Socceroos’ fortunes. Certainly, Sherlock says, regular football is a decent way to get noticed by Ange Postecoglou. Bailey Wright and Mass Luongo were both rewarded for consistent seasons at club level with World Cup selection.

The sentiment would have carried much more weight pre-World Cup as players the globe over fought nervously to suck game time from any source possible.

Melbourne Victory successfully negotiated terms for Tom Rogic to get his Brazil preparations on track earlier this year, as did Adelaide with FC Utrecht’s Michael Zullo.

So there is no doubt Arnold was referring to Socceroos of the Tim Cahill calibre – most of whom aren’t among those struggling for regular minutes at their respective clubs.

Were Cahill, Tommy Oar, Mile Jedinak et al. in a position to require a temporary move to the A-League, Melbourne City might be the only club who could afford their wages.

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But that isn’t an issue for the A-League to be concerned with. While the success of the Socceroos is something all Australian football folk are invested in, it’s not the time for the A-League to make sacrifices just to bring that to fruition.

The salary cap needs work, but it can be argued it has been the key to an all-round improvement of the A-League. While there are plenty of opponents of the system, Brisbane’s grand final win against Western Sydney was testament to the good that it offers, with one of the league’s most well-rounded outfits getting the chocolates over the sides with more marketable stars.

Of course, the counter suggest that the salary cap harms success in that Besart Berisha reportedly requested a pay rise which exceeded the club’s pay packet. Real talk – that’s part of football.

If nothing else, the renovation of Melbourne City demonstrates the need for a salary cap. Were it not for restrictions, they could likely contest to have a David Villa or a Frank Lampard on a permanent basis.

As it stands, marquee players aside, clubs gain an advantage via smart recruitment and developing quality juniors. Sydney FC seemed unusually giddy at signing 17-year-old local Alex Gersbach on Monday, but it’s perhaps indicative of a greater lean towards youth and grassroots football – something Arnold did well at Central Coast.

Tampering with the salary cap to accommodate high profile Socceroos takes a spot away from someone like Gersbach. There still seems to be a preference for pedigree over promise in A-League sides, but player development should be protected where possible.

The simple fact is that every team has entered the A-League pre-season with realistic hopes of winning the Championship. Some may disguise their ambitions under the bigger picture of future plans but there is scarce reason why any club shouldn’t consider themselves a contender and that’s the joy of a level playing field.

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As Mike Cockerill put it following last season’s grand final, ‘socialism in football still exists here in Australia, and we should be eternally grateful for that’.

If the salary cap were to be adjusted, it should simply be to raise it even further. The cap for the 2014/15 season will be $2.55 million – a mere $50,000 more than it was last season.

It’s an incremental rise but with the Collective Bargaining Agreement expiring in June 2015, players and clubs will be looking to bump it up much further.

There is often too much haste when criticising the salary cap. It’s a workable system, just one that needs to be improved to give clubs greater bargaining power.

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