Admittedly one of the worst things about Graham Arnold moving to Vegalta Sendai was that it left us bereft of his majestic rants on Australian football.
There are few topics Arnold is scared to approach, particularly as far as the Socceroos are concerned. And his history makes his opinion well worth listening to.
But one of his latest suggestions doesn’t sit all too well. The Sydney FC coach claimed there needs to be an exemption within the salary cap to allow overseas-based Socceroos to return home for a loan stint if they are struggling to get sufficient game time.
It would be supposedly designed to boost the Socceroos’ fortunes. Certainly, Sherlock says, regular football is a decent way to get noticed by Ange Postecoglou. Bailey Wright and Mass Luongo were both rewarded for consistent seasons at club level with World Cup selection.
The sentiment would have carried much more weight pre-World Cup as players the globe over fought nervously to suck game time from any source possible.
Melbourne Victory successfully negotiated terms for Tom Rogic to get his Brazil preparations on track earlier this year, as did Adelaide with FC Utrecht’s Michael Zullo.
So there is no doubt Arnold was referring to Socceroos of the Tim Cahill calibre – most of whom aren’t among those struggling for regular minutes at their respective clubs.
Were Cahill, Tommy Oar, Mile Jedinak et al. in a position to require a temporary move to the A-League, Melbourne City might be the only club who could afford their wages.
But that isn’t an issue for the A-League to be concerned with. While the success of the Socceroos is something all Australian football folk are invested in, it’s not the time for the A-League to make sacrifices just to bring that to fruition.
The salary cap needs work, but it can be argued it has been the key to an all-round improvement of the A-League. While there are plenty of opponents of the system, Brisbane’s grand final win against Western Sydney was testament to the good that it offers, with one of the league’s most well-rounded outfits getting the chocolates over the sides with more marketable stars.
Of course, the counter suggest that the salary cap harms success in that Besart Berisha reportedly requested a pay rise which exceeded the club’s pay packet. Real talk – that’s part of football.
If nothing else, the renovation of Melbourne City demonstrates the need for a salary cap. Were it not for restrictions, they could likely contest to have a David Villa or a Frank Lampard on a permanent basis.
As it stands, marquee players aside, clubs gain an advantage via smart recruitment and developing quality juniors. Sydney FC seemed unusually giddy at signing 17-year-old local Alex Gersbach on Monday, but it’s perhaps indicative of a greater lean towards youth and grassroots football – something Arnold did well at Central Coast.
Tampering with the salary cap to accommodate high profile Socceroos takes a spot away from someone like Gersbach. There still seems to be a preference for pedigree over promise in A-League sides, but player development should be protected where possible.
The simple fact is that every team has entered the A-League pre-season with realistic hopes of winning the Championship. Some may disguise their ambitions under the bigger picture of future plans but there is scarce reason why any club shouldn’t consider themselves a contender and that’s the joy of a level playing field.
As Mike Cockerill put it following last season’s grand final, ‘socialism in football still exists here in Australia, and we should be eternally grateful for that’.
If the salary cap were to be adjusted, it should simply be to raise it even further. The cap for the 2014/15 season will be $2.55 million – a mere $50,000 more than it was last season.
It’s an incremental rise but with the Collective Bargaining Agreement expiring in June 2015, players and clubs will be looking to bump it up much further.
There is often too much haste when criticising the salary cap. It’s a workable system, just one that needs to be improved to give clubs greater bargaining power.
nordster
Guest
Meh not even worth the effort...even quoting cockerill being grateful for socialism can't tempt me into some unappreciated insights that could very well drag football from its mire of egalitarianism...some folks just dont understand the difference between regulated equality and allowing for a free flow of the natural juices of uber competitive ambition. Enjoy mediocrity kittens!
Arto
Guest
@ Mitchell Grima: On the whole I agree with you Mitchell in that the Salary Cap is a good thing and the HAL needs it. However, your article reads (to me anyway!) a little disjointed. At first your write; "The Sydney FC coach claimed there needs to be an exemption within the salary cap to allow overseas-based Socceroos to return home for a loan stint if they are struggling to get sufficient game time." But then you follow that up 4 paragraphs later with; "So there is no doubt Arnold was referring to Socceroos of the Tim Cahill calibre – most of whom aren’t among those struggling for regular minutes at their respective clubs." - where's the connection? To me that reads as a contradiction! Then you write; "Brisbane’s grand final win against Western Sydney was testament to the good that it offers, with one of the league’s most well-rounded outfits getting the chocolates over the sides with more marketable stars." Are you arguing that Berisha, Broich, Franjic, etc. are less "marketable" than Bridge, Hersi, Ono?? Or are you suddenly including indirectly ADP in the discussion? Or are you back to Cahill, edinak& Oar again? Your point here is unclear... And then to round off you write amongst other things thi; "The simple fact is that every team has entered the A-League pre-season with realistic hopes of winning the Championship. Some may disguise their ambitions under the bigger picture of future plans but there is scarce reason why any club shouldn’t consider themselves a contender and that’s the joy of a level playing field." Even despite the Salary Cap being in place, do you seriously believe that EVERY team has almost the same chance of winning the GF??!! Whilst improvements can be made, how realistic is it to think that for example, Perth Glory will be as good as Brisbane Roar this year?? There was a gap of 24 points between the 2 teams last season (PG only got 28 all season), winning 7 matches so why do you think they could even come close to bridging that gap in 1 season??!!
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
No, by lot's I mean lots. They can't because there is a salary cap, and there are only a couple of marquee spots and small ability to have guest spots outside that. So yet, they could sign Villa on the guest contract, Lampard on the foreign marquee and Cahill on the Australian marquee if they wanted and could get them. Hey, they could pay $200 million and bring Ronaldo or Messi here if they were able to lure them with massive amounts of money, but the point is they can only have one international marquee player, and there are limits on the guest stints also. So they can't fill the team with these higher calibre, more expensive players, just garnish it with one or two of them. And that's totally reasonable. Teams who can spend the money and attract those sorts of players doing it is good. History has shown that the quality of the rest of the team that is within the salary cap is generally more important to doing well in the A-League than the quality of the marquee(s) you have signed. But hopefully they can help attract people to the league, increasing ticket sales and ratings. But a couple of players like that for the teams who can afford it is plenty. Don't need to open the salary cap right up so that they can just fill the whole squad with more expensive players.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Add to that the fact that Hobart is less than half the size of the Central Coast. I've heard Hobart or Tasmania mentioned in the past when people have been listing possible expansion places, which is really a joke, they have no hope. To support a team they'd need something like 10-15% of the total population to turn out to games bare minimum to be remotely viable, and as you say, the isolation means few travelling fans.
Bondy
Guest
Telstra announced as shirtfront sponsors for the All Stars Clash ; http://www.a-leagueallstars.com.au/article/telstra-announced-as-shirt-sponsor-of-foxtel-a-league-all-stars/qqxyr33aqusvzschwc3u37uh ....
Leonardo
Roar Guru
4-0; how embarassment to SFC! Has Arnold peaked and is now on the slippery slope down?
pete4
Guest
Some highlights of the goals here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11297525
Australia Football King
Guest
It’s nonsense. You have 52 million Americans, which are Latinos. Not to mention in a recent poll, 28% of Americans like Football, that is 88 million people. They have more people that know about the game then we do. While Australia population is 22.68 million. You have teams, like Sacramento Republic that play in the third division, that can get 20,000 to come to a game. It's not just about Americans supporting their national teams vehemently, its about the growth of Football in that nation. As for a match between Australia and the US,I'll put my money on the US. At the moment I think they have better players than we do.
Australia Football King
Guest
It’s nonsense.
Football United
Guest
Without it, they could play at a level they felt comfortable without being forced to pay players more than they can afford like now.
Matthew Skellett
Guest
Half-time Syd Fc 0-Newcastle U 3
Griffo
Roar Guru
2-0 to Newcastle United after 30mins...
Matthew Skellett
Guest
Newcastle U now 3-0 up 33 mins in GA not happy
Matthew Skellett
Guest
Newcastle U up 2-0 30 mins in
Griffo
Roar Guru
Agree
AZ_RBB
Guest
Eurosport has a live blog going.
SVB
Guest
I think we are roughly at the same level.
Terry
Guest
The salary cap is needed and should be maintained as without it the tiny clubs with small fan bases and little money would go such as the mariners. Whilst the mariners going belly up would not be a direct concern of mine both their fans would be upset.
Matthew Skellett
Guest
I can't believe it's not butter and that no one is doing the blog for the Syd Fc vs Newcastle U match :-(
Bondy
Guest
Sydney FC are playing Newcastle United (Prem) at 5.00 pm its on the Main event channel they're charging people to view it the dogs, it should be on Fox sports 1 2 or 3 for football supporters . Burglars ....