The A-League players’ union has rejected calls for pay cuts contained within a federal government report into soccer.
The Smith Report into football released on Thursday says the A-League salary cap should be reduced and the competition “must live and grow within its means”.
It also gives a tick to Australia’s failed 2022 World Cup bid process, and recommends Football Federation Australia maintain overall control of the A-League.
But among the report’s 11 recommendations is reducing the $32 million a year spent on players’ salaries and ensuring cheaper stadium deals for clubs, or risk the A-League’s future viability.
The report says players are currently paid more 40 per cent of income generated by the A-League, compared to approximately 20 per cent paid in the AFL, NRL and Super Rugby.
“Salaries have increased at an unsustainable rate, out of step with the income the product generates and at a time when the Australian dollar is extremely competitive in the international player recruitment market,” the report by Australian Sports Commission chairman Warwick Smith says.
“At a minimum the salary cap must be frozen, but it would be appropriate to explore options to reduce the cap.”
But Professional Footballers Australia boss Brendan Schwab disputes the 40 per cent plus figure, saying Smith has made a “fundamental error” in his sums.
The players’ union chief said the true figure of overall Socceroos and A-League player payments was between 21 and 29 per cent of revenue generated – comparable with other sports.
And he offered little hope for FFA boss Ben Buckley to renegotiate a wage agreement which does not end until the end of the 2012-13 season.
“The focus on player payments is unfortunate, because there’s many positive things that come from the review,” Schwab said.
“We’ve signed off on a contract, and what the FFA needs to do is ensure the existing contracts which are in place are honoured.”
Buckley said the FFA would attempt to implement all the recommendations in the report, and would seek “sensible conversations” with the PFA to talk about player wages.
“If we’re going to get more stability, and therefore greater security for players, we need to adjust those (salary) costs,” Buckley said.
“Whether it comes from containment, freezing, reductions, all of those issues should be thoroughly considered and explored.”
Australia’s $45 million World Cup bid was given the thumbs-up in the report.
It said FIFA’s flawed bid process rather than any quality concern with Australia’s submission undermined its chances of success.
In other key findings, the report recommended:
* The time was not right for A-League control to be fully separated from the FFA;
* No expansion of the A-League beyond 10 teams until the competition is financially strong, or a tangible financial benefit can be achieved by expansion;
* FFA head office must look at reducing its own costs and those around its national teams;
* A-League clubs and owners need more input into the decision-making process; and
* The planned FFA Cup knockout competition should be put on hold.
Future federal government funding is not mentioned in the report.
It would appear a carrot and stick approach, with the government only likely to add to the $150 million it has spent on soccer since 2004 if the FFA implements all the report’s recommendations.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
AFL gets hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the government? Are you serious? I'm not saying you're wrong, but.....well I can't think of another word for it.
Hornberger
Guest
Would you like to provide any evidence that the AFL recieves "hundreds of millions" per year?
ItsCalledFootball
Roar Guru
Using the percentage of income figure is totally unfair to the A-League when you consider the revenues of the other codes. The average AFL players gets a lot more than the average A-League player and there are no issues with giving the AFL hundreds of millions of dollars every year of taxpayers and ratepayers money. All this scrutiny and poliitics and enquiries for a miserly $8M a year funding to FFA and football - which has the most number of participants than all the other major codes combined. If they used the funding dollar per registered player statistic, football would be the best value investment the federal government ever made in sport - by far. The AFL are the ones who get the most disproportionate benefit of government funding than any other sporting organisation and they certainly don't need any financial assistance. There should be a royal commission into the financial assistance paid to the AFL and where all the taxpayers and ratepayers' money goes.
Brendo
Guest
I would love to know exactly how they calculated revenue to the league. The fact that they say A-league salaries contribute 40% fo the costs, then it seems there was two possible methods 1. The took a portion of all FFA revenues and total club revenues and compared that to the total players salaries across all clubs If they did use this method then I am 100% with Schwab that it should be based on all players payments and the socceroo payments should be taken into account. I would query the methods used to slice up sponorship money across Socceroos, Grassroots and A-League 2. The second possibility is that they only took into account all club revenues (plus any direct payments to the clubs from FFA). I think this is the most likely way they calculated it and if they did, of course it is high. It won't take into acccount revenues outside of the club. People are just assuming the calculation is a apples to apples calc across the codes but I seriously have my doubts. Also clubs are funded by private ownership, therefore a portion of the costs are being covered off by them. I would suggest that instead of focusing on A-league salaries (which are signficantly funded by private owners), it would be better to understand where all of the revenue from FFA goes. I suspect there would be signficantly more wastage and overspend in that organisation.
MelbCro
Guest
thanks
Griffo
Roar Guru
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/sport/resources/reports/docs/FFA_sustainability_report.pdf
Stevo
Guest
The Federal govt puts funds into many sports including the AFL, ARL, etc, etc http://www.ausport.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/464828/Recognised_NSO_and_NSODs_as_at_25_Nov_2011.pdf
MelbCro
Guest
Is there a copy of the smith report available online? Has anyone here actually read it? Was there any mention at all of the state federations. As far as i was aware the governance of the state federations was going to be one of the main points of this review. Yet no article has mentioned anything in relation to this, is it safe to assume that the report doesn't even touch on this? If so then it is a massive joke and a waste of time. The state federations are one of the biggest if not the biggest problem with football and its future in this country.
B.A Sports
Obviously no union is going to agree to wages cuts to its members but they have to look at capping the salaries off until the league can generate more revenue. I don't know if an improvement in the quality of the games will ever translate into more people coming through the door because how many people really know what "good soccer" looks like and whether infact "good quality soccer" is actually more entertaining. So I don't know how they create more revenue to ever increase player payments.
Chris
Guest
Agree with you 100% Rabbitz. Which makes the report somewhat self-contradictory. On one hand it says the A League must live and grow within its own means (which I heartily support), and yet on the other there is still talk of more government funding. I think the A League still has some way to go before it's on stable ground financially. Funny how the players' unions is squealing about how unfortunate it is that the focus is on players' wages - the only people focusing on that aspect of the report is the players' union! To paraphrase Schwab - " we support all the recoomendations about the need to reign in costs - except for our own wages". Oh well, I suppose that is his job...:)
Lucan
Guest
Gov't also threatened to pull funding if the Crawford Report wasn't followed. Lowy and O'Neil were allowed to pick and choose the recommendations they wanted to implement and the recommendations they wanted to bin. The Smith Report will get the same treatment.
Rabbitz
Roar Guru
First up, regarding the headline - Is anyone surprised? The last paragraph intrigues me. Why on earth would the Federal Government have a need to fund the FFA? If any elite sporting organisation can not fund itself then it should be allowed to fold. This is just a welfare state gone mad.