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The Asian Champions League, the premier football tournament for world’s biggest continent. It’s simple enough, to qualify out of the group stage ten points should do it.
Then win four matches over two legs and you’re the champion, simple.
However nothing is ever simple in the Champions League. The gruelling travel schedule to countries like China, Japan and South Korea coupled with another arduous travel schedule domestically leaves A-League teams at a disadvantage.
No other teams in Asia have to balance such a massive travel load coupled with games three times a week. No other teams in Asia have to manage a salary cap of $2.5 million per season and no other teams in teams in Asia have balance all this with a squad size of 23 players.
These disadvantages didn’t stop Western Sydney Wanderers from winning the tournament in 2014, this was won on the back of great organisation and discipline by head coach Tony Popovic.
The Wanderers shocked more fancied teams on their way to the title. The sight of Italian legend Marcello Lippi of Guangzhou Evergrande storming onto the pitch berating the referee as Western Sydney upset the odds was one to behold. The meltdown of the Al-Hilal players as Western Sydney held firm to win an two legged final on aggregate 1-0 will live long in the memory.
This was the first time in nine years of entering the tournament that an A-League team had won Asian club football’s biggest prize.
Yet if we look at the 2015 edition of the tournament, Central Coast lost in the qualifying rounds and Brisbane and Western Sydney sit on four points each after three games. Its hardly record-breaking form.The problem Australian teams have in Asia is that they play by a different set of rules to the rest of the continent.
The salary cap is one hurdle Australia teams have to overcome to be able to compete in Asia. In Australia salary caps are the norm for most sports that are played. The AFL has one, so does the NRL. They are often said to be the great equaliser in team sports, to stop the richest clubs stashing away all the best players in the code.
However in the world of football salary caps are a strange alien concept to most countries. They just simply does not exist. Football is the world’s free market game, the market will pay what it feels a player is worth.
Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande who play in the Asian Champions League, recently paid $22 million for Brazilian Serie A top scorer Riccardo Goulart. Goulart showed recently against Western Sydney why he cost so much.
Scoring a hat-trick in an impressive display, Goulart’s movement off the ball and his ability to finish, showed why he was recently called up to the Brazilian national team.
Australian clubs could only dream of having a foreign import like Riccardo Goulart, even if his wages could fit under the marquee player system, the transfer alone would bankrupt any A-League side.
How can A-League sides compete in Asia when their counterparts are spending so much on players? The simple answer could be to abolish the salary cap altogether and allow the free market to rule. As mentioned this would lead to the big A-League teams stockpiling the best talent, leaving the smaller teams to feed on the scraps.
This however would not be best for business or talent development. The A-League in its current guise does not allow its teams to transfer players between each other. Which is why the salary cap must stay. Australia’s main strength over other leagues in Asia is that it has a good swathe of homegrown talent.
Seven players in the Asian Cup-winning squad were based in Australia, while a further nine players in the squad were developed in the A-League before being sold elsewhere.
This shows what Australia’s great strength is over the other Asian teams and why buying mega stars from overseas is not that important for A-League clubs. The important thing is that in Australia players have time to develop with out the pressure of a Brazilian to usurp them.
Granted there are marquee players and they bring a great deal to the A-League, but it is Australia’s ability to produce talent which will set it above any free-spending sugar daddy.
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