- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
How desperately do we need some football on home soil right now? Harry Kewell’s potential return to the A-League kicked off a vibrant debate that has, uninterrupted by such a long A-League off-season, now begun to turn sour.
Not even the exciting football the Matildas have been dishing up at the 2011 World Cup is providing the labyrinth of columnists and journalists puttering around at home with enough of a distraction from the monolith that is the Kewell saga.
We all love the Maildas, but they don’t yet hold the interest of editors and bean counters at media outlets across the country to invest in sending their reporters to a far off continent. Instead they have to settle for scrap bits and teleconferences.
All the while the Kewell debate rages on, whipped up into a frenzy by the unlicensed but thoroughly effective player agent that is Bernie Mandic.
It’s a story I at first followed with an interest that has now turned into resentment.
The turning point for me was when the day after journalists took part in mocking the proposed Kewell profit share deal on Twitter last Monday, a colleague of mine publically called Kewell’s wife and family “tacky”.
How did what could be, and I am still very confident will be, the biggest signing in the A-League’s history become permeated by such aggression?
Right now anger, often founded on misinformation or at least misunderstanding, is spilling forth via column inches, twitter diatribes and on fan forums. Everyone has an opinion.
It reminds me of the atmosphere of contempt that followed the awarding of the 2022 World Cup hosting rights to Qatar.
The thing is unlike in December last year we’re dealing with potentially good news and not the possibility that both the Australian and global football public had been conned.
So here is my plea to the football community – take a step back, consider all the facts and make a reasoned judgement. There is an important debate to be had here but not one that requires the vicious hyperbole that’s been on show this week.
The Kewell deal:
– Melbourne Victory have reportedly offered Kewell a profit share deal in which the Socceroo would receive 80% of the first million dollars in additional profit above an agreed upon average of membership, gate takings and Kewell related merchandise. He would then receive 90% of any other profits beyond that.
It’s also understood Kewell has agreed terms with Sydney FC though the specifics of that deal remain unknown.
– FFA, keen to utilise the phenomenally large profile that only Kewell wields, have offered to help fund any possible deal by using Kewell as a part of their marketing and promotions.
The peak body originally offered the 32-year-old an up front fee of $250,000 which the player’s agent rejected, offering a 70/30 split of all additional profits above an agreed average of away gate takings. This deal would potentially also have an image rights component.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.