"Work Choices" comes to the A-League

Just when you thought it was safe. Just when you thought the A-League, Australia’s elite football competition, was finally making progress on and off the field. And just when the broad sections of the football community thought that, maybe, the decision makers at the FFA were starting to get it.

Well, it couldn’t last. Could it?

This week we were sold a pipe-dream by Ben Buckley with the FFA’s Strategic Five Year Plan and then sold a turkey by Warwick Smith Review and his report into the Sustainability of Football.

It was pretty astonishing stuff.

As a primer, Ben Buckley had the Socceroos contesting a for a Top 10 spot on the FIFA Rankings by 2015.

Hang on there, Ben.

We are in the middle of a transition phase. The golden generation are heading to the retirement village. We lost a few years developing players when we were restructuring and we are no guarantee to get to the 2014 World Cup, let alone get to the round of 16. Have you checked the Olyroos results lately?

Warwick Smith then delivered the recommendations we were all waiting for.

There was some lovely buck passing: the FFA Cup was scrunched up and thrown in the too hard basket.

There was some music to the FFA’s ears: The Socceroos World Cup Qualifiers be taken off the anti-syphoning list in order to make the next broadcast deal an easier sell to Fox Sports.

And a bombshell in regards to player payments. He wrote –

“At a minimum the salary cap must be frozen, but it would be appropriate to explore options to reduce the cap. Options to adjust or remove the minimum player payment which artificially inflates incomes must also be considered. Unless this happens, given the proportion that player costs represent in clubs’ total cost base, A-League clubs will, in the absence of a considerable increase in their revenue streams, struggle to move to a position of sustainability or profitability for the foreseeable future.”

What utter nonsense. The next TV rights deal is about to be negotiated and in this deal we will finally get a handle on what the A-League is really worth. When Fox Sports bought the rights they saw most of its value being generated from Socceroos broadcasts. This is clearly not the case now as this season’s Pay TV ratings have so shown. A dividend of $2.5 million dollars to each A-League club is achievable with the next broad agreement. This will cover minimum salary cap demands.

He continues: “It is noteworthy that the 2011 champions, Brisbane Roar, did not have a foreign marquee player, did not have an Australian marquee player and had one of the lowest total player wage bills of any club in the A-League.”

Yes, but with the current cap and the current strong Australian dollar, the Roar are able to pay quality imports good wages.

One of the main reasons fans are coming back to the A-League stadiums and switching on the TV (main revenue drivers) is due to these conditions and, thankfully, improved coaching standards.

You would think Smith and all his consultants would be able to connect the dots. But, here we have him telling the A-League to cut off its Thomas Broich-like nose to spite its face.

Brendan Schwab, Chief Executive of the player’s representative body, Professional Football Australia (PFA), concluded with a delicious sense of irony, “A reduction in player payments is exactly the wrong direction for the professional game in Australia. Stepping down this path would prevent the achievement by FFA of its strategy to make Australia a top ten football nation by 2015.”

Braham Dabscheck, the author of the report erroneously cited by Warwick Smith to recommend the cut to player payments had this to say on this issue.

“An A-League footballer is a full-time employee, and the Collective Bargaining Agreement enshrines a minimum salary of $47,094 for players 21 or older, and $38,020 for younger players. A professional footballer is entitled to the protection of the employment law in this country. Mr Smith’s recommendation that the minimum payment be removed would be unlawful in every workplace in Australia.”

Two months ago The Hon. Warwick Smith AM was appointed the new Chair of the Australia-China Council. One can only conclude that he confused a Chinese workplace with the A-League.