We saw early last A-League season that Adelaide United had just 13 fit players at one stage, which lead them to sign Cam Watson and Joe Keenan just to fill a legitimate match day squad.
Newcastle were in a similar boat with barley a fit 15 to fill their squad later in the season.
What needs to happen is the scrapping of the National Youth League (NYL) competition. The door may be left ajar for the possibility of a youth cup, but the youth competition needs to go.
There is speculation that in the near future state league football will be played simultaneously with the A-League. The league needs to introduce a ‘reserves side’ to go with their current youth team.
Squads need to be increase to somewhere between the 42-46 mark. (The current average A-League squads including youth is not far from that figure.)
Along with this, A-League match day squads need to be extended from 15 to 17, as it is illogical and unfair to a manager to be forced to predict what he will need during the game – there are simply to many variables out there.
Unlike what you may think, this would not lead to sides needing to spend more money as there would be more income from gate takings, an increase in minor sponsorship, more merchandise sales at these games, while at the same time cutting spending on interstate travel and accommodation for the NYL sides.
This would also lead to the death of the highly criticised and frowned upon ‘injury replacement’ contract.
Club structure would look like this:
– Seniors play in the A-League.
– Reserves play in the appropriate State League competition.
– Youths play in the appropriate State League reserves/under 21s competition.
Squad build-up (42-46 players):
– One player on marquee contract (outside of salary cap).
– One player on ‘Australian-only’ marquee contract (outside of salary cap).
– 16-20 players on ‘professional’ contracts.
– 12-16 players on ‘youth’ contracts.
– Nine-12 players on ‘semi-professorial’ contracts.
For example, the Melbourne Heart’s reserves would initially have a side fielded in the top tier of state football, which is the Victorian Premier League (VPL). The youth side would be fielded in the VPL under-21 competition.
The reserves and youth sides from each club would play in their appropriate state league competitions, but would be vulnerable to relegation and naturally promotion (if applicable).
Having this new club structure will allow for players on the cusp of the best 11 to still manage some match fitness, if not selected in the senior squad.
It will also allow for players returning from injury to play in a stronger comp than the NYL.
For example, a 100 per cent fit Michael Beauchamp should never have missed 25 per cent of Melbourne Heart’s games last season, but in this scenario he would have at least been able to keep match fitness – and along with players like Dean Heffernan and Jason Hoffman, they could have been given a chance to proved themselves.
Contract structure:
The ‘marquee’ and ‘professional’ contracted players would be on standard A-League wages as per the Professional Footballers Australia’s (PFA) industry agreements. These players would be play in either the seniors or reserves.
The players signed on youth contracts would be on standard A-League youth wages. These players can be played in any three of the sides.
The ‘semi-professionals’ would be on a standard State League wage and could play in either the reserves or youth sides.
These players would form the nucleus of the reserves side, playing week in week out, but would also help mentor the youth players.
The semi-professionals could also be called up to the senior squad whenever their club desires and would have some sort of an ‘A-League game’ bonus worked out in their respective contracts.
Players with these contracts could be players who have been given a chance to prove their worth, fringe trialists, as well as ‘semi-retired’, ‘mentor-type’ players, such as John Aloisi did in his role at Melbourne Heart.
The reserves and youth sides would play after one another as per the state federations rules.
This gives fans a better incentive to get down to these games, clubs also have the option of including these games in their memberships to drive sales.
The positives of this structure would be:
– It brings in more competition between players for spots, thus raising the profile football as a whole.
– It sets up cover for injuries on the senior playing list.
– It better helps develop youth, in a stronger competition, whilst giving them a more direct path to the senior squad.
– It better engages fans from state leagues and grass roots, spreads the clubs brand of the league, clubs and the game itself.
– It will help bring people back to the state league competitions.
– It will benefit the clubs financially.
– It will create more meaning to the state cup and FFA Cup.
By having this format, with the required tweaks, our game as a whole would be the big winner.
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