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The A-League needs a salary cap, but the model needs some work

Roar Guru
28th April, 2015
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Adelaide United are out of the ACL. (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)
Roar Guru
28th April, 2015
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In the saturated world of sport in Australia – where there are a number of different games fighting to be the ‘number one’ sport in this country – there are limited resources for all to share.

Australian football simply cannot adopt a European system of transfers and uncapped player salaries when football is not the out and out favourite and most followed sport in all of Australia. Financial stability is not incumbent across the board in Australian sport, let alone football.

Scrapping the salary cap will be damaging for the A-League. The reason for this is threefold;
1) Teams with greater support, in more attractive locations and better funding from owners and sponsors will be able to buy their way to the top and remain there which is what we see in Europe.

Imagine a team like Melbourne City, with the backing of their Abu Dhabi-based owners, buying high quality players and paying them more than any other A-League club, because they have the funds to do so, without any restrictions placed on them. It would spell the end of competitiveness in the A-League.

2) Teams without the same financial capacity may try to bite off more than they can chew and see themselves plummet into debt as they try to achieve glory by spending beyond their means.

It would be disastrous to see teams fold for those reasons and would be a hard pill to swallow for the diehard supporters who go to every game when it rains, hails or shines.

3) Player development will be less of a focus for clubs as they will look at buying ready-made players who can help them challenge in the immediate future and not the distant future.

The salary cap, however, needs to be altered and increased.

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As it stands currently, the salary cap allows a total of $2,550,000.00 in salaries to players – including loan fees – with an exclusion for one Australian marquee player, one international marquee player and one junior marquee player (interestingly, not a single club currently has a junior marquee player this season) and a ‘guest’ player who is allowed to play up to 10 games for a club… unless you’re David Villa who left early to go sightseeing in New York.

In the last five years the salary cap has increased by approximately $50,000.00 a year.
A-League clubs are allowed to have 20-26 players in their squad.

The minimum salary a player on a full-time contract can receive is $50,000.00. The average salary of an A-League player is circa $120,000.

It’s not a pittance, but it will not allow the A-League to hold on to its best players or attract more players of great quality who can help grow the league, especially when the average weekly wage in European leagues is half of the average yearly salary of players in the A-League.

I propose a system to be implemented in 2017 to coincide with the new TV deal that the A-League expects to achieve which will be double the current deal.

The new TV deal is expected to generate $60 million per year to be spread among the teams. That will mean each team will receive $6 million in a 10-league competition, or $5 million in a 12-team competition which is what we expect the league to be in two seasons time.

• The salary cap should increase to approximately $3,500,000.00.

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• The salary cap should have an allowance for third-party deals for each club. This will allow clubs to attract more major players, thus generating attention and increasing the quality of the league as a whole.

• The salary cap should include exclusions for players who show loyalty to a club. If a player spends six seasons at a club and played a total of 50 games or more for the club then the player should be allowed to have 15 per cent of their salary excluded from the cap.

This will reward the player as it can increase their salary while giving the club the opportunity to use the extra space in the cap to increase the pay of other squad members.

• The salary cap should include exclusions for player development. If a player is promoted from a club’s youth side, spends three seasons at the club and has played 25 or more games then the club and the player should be rewarded with a 10 per cent exclusion from the cap.

Just like the loyalty exclusion, the development exclusion will benefit the player and/or club with the added space in the cap.

• If a player has come through the clubs youth team and has shown loyalty by staying at the club for six years or more and played 50 or more games then a total of 30 per cent of their salary should be excluded from the cap, freeing more space to reward the club and the player.

• The Marquee system should remain, however the guest system should be buried with a funeral and candlelight vigil to follow.

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If the A-League wants to be taken seriously then they need to stop acting like an exhibition league which allows notable players to come to Australia, play a few games, get paid handsomely for it, then leave as soon as the season gets to the competitive end.

It will also take away the opportunity for the David Villa fiasco to occur again. Further to this, the guest system takes away the spot of a player at the club who will be there from start to finish in a season instead of trying his luck in a few games.

Hopefully the FFA can sit down at the end of the season and re-assess the salary cap. Once the new TV deal is signed then the FFA can get a clearer understanding of what is and is not feasible under the system. But one thing is for sure, the system as it is currently needs a shake-up.

Melbourne City striker David Villa. Here’s a photo of David Villa, just to remind us what should never happen again. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)

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