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The question needs to be asked – will Manchester City’s acquisition of Melbourne Heart be a good thing for the A-League?
Chief Executive of FFA David Gallop hailed Thursday’s announcement as a “huge vote of confidence in the A-League”.
While this is undoubtedly true, it is also important to protect the integrity of the league as a fair and level competition.
The A-League in its current format is an entertaining and well balanced competition, and the standard of football is improving at an impressive rate.
The enforcement of a salary cap ensures that any team can conceivably win the championship in any given season, and a team at the bottom one year can go to the top the next.
Brisbane Roar are a good example of this, they stormed to the title in 2010/11 having missed the finals the previous season.
New teams can also come in and be competitive straight away, like Western Sydney Wanderers last season and, to a certain extent, Gold Coast United before them.
Over the last decade the English Premier League has become increasingly distorted by the influence of money.
Only a handful of clubs can realistically win the title. Ironically the title race is quite open this year, but that appears to be mainly due to managerial instability at the top clubs.
Once this settles down the big clubs will be back on top – and well clear of the rest.
The arrival into the game of billionaire owners has changed the EPL forever.
Strict terms about finances needed to have been introduced far earlier than they have.
UEFA has brought in Financial Fair Play (FFP) to restrict European clubs spending to a figure relative to their turnover, but on the evidence of the past twelve months it appears to be flawed.
How are a club like Monaco going to balance their books for example, having invested obscene amounts on the likes of Radamel Falcao while attracting only 15,000 fans to games? How does the record breaking transfer fee paid by Real Madrid for Gareth Bale fit into the stated aim of FFP to rein in spending?
While Melbourne Heart will have to abide by the salary cap restrictions, they will have access to funds unheard of previously in the A-League when it comes to an Australian and an international marquee.
They will also be able to significantly outspend their rivals on coaches, staff and facilities.
Manchester City have already demonstrated how rules aimed at restricting spending can be manipulated. With their huge investment on transfers and wages – estimated to be around $2bn – they would never have passed FFP.
That was until they sold the naming rights for their stadium to Etihad Airways for way above the market rate. Etihad is operated by City’s owners.
While the injection of funds can only improve Melbourne Heart as a business and as a football team, there needs to be careful consideration as to how much can be changed.
There is already talk of a change in club colours to sky blue, and a change in name to Melbourne City.
David Gallop has already stated that he is open to “rebranding”, and while the Heart may be a young enough club for history and sentiment to not be too difficult a hurdle to overcome, it is not a precedent that should become the norm if football in this country is to retain its tribal culture.
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