The A-League needs a salary cap, but the model needs some work

Killing it futbanous! Very impressive thread.

Well said RBBA! To further the discussion..and to give it a slightly different slant on a couple of points.. @ Kaks Your point hasn't been missed, I'm saying I don't really buy into it. I think its a cop out and that it's propaganda. Has football always been the number one (spectator) sport in china? No. Football doesn't need to compete with other sports here, it only needs to compete with itself so to speak.. As RBBA and myself are pointing out to you, you may not be aware of the massive football fanbase that is already in this country (and Asia) that is not engaging the HAL yet..it's also the sport with the most participation in the country (not to mention the next generation who are now finally being offered the option/incentive of a professionally administered football league to follow and are beginning to vote with their participation numbers....in afl's spiritual homeland mind you). We don't need to convert afl and rugby fans, we only need to convert the football fans that haven't bought into the HAL yet is the point.,..and yeah we won't knock back as many bandwagoners that are willing to jump aboard. Owners should be allowed to fully invest. Sponsorship money will flow. Icons will be born. Kingdoms will fall. Media will have no choice but to join the party. Build it and they will come, repress it and cap it and keep it in a loop of mediocrity and they won't.

"massive investment" Hardly, along with these facts read the story. below from the BBC Bournemouth v Man United Bournemouth Ground capacity Goldsands Stadium: 11,700 Old Trafford: 76,000 Record signing £3m (reported) - Callum Wilson £59.7m - Angel Di Maria Annual turnover £5.1m (2012-13) £194.4m (last six months of 2014) Twitter followers 51,569 (and rising) 4.9m http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/32491830

fair call. I guess my point is that imo, MV, SFC etc will dominate the HAL regardless of a salary cap or not. It is already happening as they attract better players and will only become more apparent as the league matures. i think the priority of the HAL should be to grow the game financially and increase the quality as soon as possible - and a cap restricts this growth.

@kaks I think what Horto and myself are saying is that the only way to compete with the AFL is to increase the quality of the A-league. You have to remember that football is the most popular game in the world for a reason. Its just a superior game. Now of course someone from the AFL and NRL is going to refute that and good for them. If their games were popular outside of Australia they would have at least gotten a firm hold in other countries around the world, they haven't for various reasons that I wont get into. The point being is we have so many people who love football and who are willing to go to football matches when there is a decent product to watch or at least a high quality product. This has been proven time and time again with big European clubs visiting. I am not saying we will ever become the EPL but we should allow our clubs to invest in their clubs and improve their quality of their squads as they deem fit. I have no idea why we should restrict ourselves to a salary cap that only limits our growth and potential. Furthermore there is no need for it because there is an endless supply of players both here and overseas that you can recruit at various price points. We have more footballers playing the sport than any other sport in the country and more football fans than any other sport in the country. We should be a giant of sports here in Australia. We have football fans but not many football fans who love the A-league. We should be a huge sport in this country considering all the advantages we have to grow and reach our true potential.

I dont get your statement "believing that an open market system where there are minimal resources is different to an open market system where there are plentiful resources." I don't get it in regards to a salary cap because a salary cap is a closed system, and whether or not you are in a capped league or not there are still a limited amount of resources. It all depends how much an owner is prepared to put into his club and I am sure its not an unlimited amount. "One of the basic tenets underpinning any salary cap system is that clubs need to be saved from themselves" I don't think this particularly statement is exclusive to a salary capped league or a non salary capped league. Regardless of which system you are working in you are going to get poor owners who lose money. So having a salary cap isn't necessarily going to save a club from themselves. It isn't now and the quality of the league is not where I would like it to be. I think you are making far too many assumptions in your statement. My biggest issue with the salary cap is that it restricts all clubs from growth, especially for clubs who are being run efficiently and sustainably. There is another group of clubs who are not being run efficiently and that wont change whether they are in a salary capped league or non salary capped league, they are happy to be spending their money regardless and don't want to be saved from themselves. Then there is a third group like the Mariners whose owner Mike Charlesworth recognises that they are losing money in a salary capped league and that their only hope for survival is in a non salary capped league. He understands that growing the league benefits his club because when big clubs come to visit the Mariners they will be able to pack out the Mariners home ground to see good quality footballers play at his ground. He is a responsible owner who knows he cant compete with the big clubs of the league but at least he has a fighting chance to make a profit in a non salary capped league, while he knows he is sure to lose money if his club continues in a salary capped league.

I agree that comparisons with the NSL era are always fraught with danger. However, we should not kid ourselves into believing that an open market system where there are minimal resources is different to an open market system where there are plentiful resources. One of the basic tenets underpinning any salary cap system is that clubs need to be saved from themselves. History tells us that clubs will risk going broke to chase silverware, and while being wealthy to start with provides some insurance, even resource rich clubs will risk everything in the pursuit of silverware. Now some might believe that clubs going broke and dropping out of the comp is no big deal, but I would argue that a revolving door of clubs is never healthy, especially in a small market such as Australia.

I encourage you to continue maintaining high standards, and you will earn the respect of the Roar community.

AR " As far as i can tell, he does not mention the AFL once in his article." Now let's get this clear, AFL has no place in this conversation..and does not need to be pandered to or taken into consideration when shaping footballs future here, and aside from Kaks mentioning AFL in his response to RBBA, BEFORE I posted my comment, he states in the opening paragraph of this article: "In the saturated world of sport in Australia – where there are a number of different games fighting to be the ‘number one’ sport in this country – there are limited resources for all to share." So which "different" games is he referring to? Ping pong? Are u serious? You then go on to reiterate that AFL point anyway by saying "Third, there’s an obvious difference between what happens in the world game the world over, and what the realities are of the sport in the Australian market. That, I believe, was the quite legitimate point Kaks was trying to make about the salary cap," which I believe is a load of paranoid sensationalism BS propagated by people who are sympathetic to the plight of afl/want it to remain relevant and not be left behind by the juggernaut that is football anyway. I'll say it again to you AR, don't underestimate the enormity of the sleeping fanbase in this country (and Asia for that matter) who are not yet courted and converted by the HAL. They are smarter than you think and won't engage until the quality is there. I'll quote Kaks one more time for you “competitiveness increases popularity.” That is the real discussion here. Kaks suggestions are meager offerings to an already ridiculously stifling cap.. my points are aimed at achieving atleast two of the main objectives for football here which is the raising of the quality and building the fanbase/memberships/attendances as quick as possible. Waiting 20 years isn't good enough.

It's a major fault of mine but I have very high standards about the quality of person with whom I'm can have a meaningful collegiate working relationship. Sadly, your attention to detail falls below this standard. But, I will keep an eye out for your work. If I see improvement, I'll definitely give this offer further thought. Keep working hard. Be critical in your analysis. Don't just parrot what what other Egg Ball fans have told you. Have a mind of your own. And remember.... ATTENTION TO DETAIL.

Comparing anything ,including P/R in the NSL days(a 5 second wonder) with football today in Australia is way off the mark. The NSL was ill thought out,under financed as RBB indicates, a dogs breakfast administration wise from beginning to end. It also never made a dent into the mainstream of Australian sporting culture ever(we all know why) and as far as P/R went the clubs going up and down were hardly giants, the Mariners made them look like minnows by comparison. So no we don't know how a proper open market works in Australia, under a well financed, well administered scenario with football having entered the mainstream,but we do know it can work and the only thing stopping it in football in 2015 in Australia is irrational fear.

@Mister Football. You have to remember also that when the NSL had promotion and relegation that there was no money in football. There was no tv deal to prop up the NSL. These clubs were being run on less than the smell of an oily rag. Yet they still all managed to have youth academies, a good part also owned their grounds and had social clubs. They actually owned something. They were clubs built by communities. Even now you have a club like MV worth an estimated 30m yet I have no idea what they own. I think they own a property to build an academy. They dont own their own ground, their training facilities, no academy. They aren't the only ones so I am not picking on MV just for the sake of it. This is a time when the FFA is running the game at a decent standard rather than the old NSL yet we still have clubs not owning anything concrete and there is more money in the game than ever before.

Terrific post.

People often forget that there was a time in Australia where all sport operated on a free market basis with transfer fees and no limits on salaries. Furthermore, the old NSL actually did have promotion and relegation. We actually know how an open market and promotion/relegation works in Australia, we've had it, we've seen it up close, and the end result was not pretty. There appears to be a bit of a consensus that you need some form of salary cap (noting that no competition on Earth has an open slather approach, various rules always exist). The trick now is to get a better balance whereby clubs like the Victory can continue growing.

There is in Australia and the USA an irrational fear in sports of an open slather system,whereby you can only survive/thrive by being propped up by a forced artificial system of no P/R, a salary cap and in some sports drafts. Somebody mentioned above the mega-rich. The mega-rich only invest in a select few clubs worldwide, the rest sink or swim according to their own endeavours as it is in life,just check Bournemouth as I indicated before as a prime example. You could put up a counter argument to the mega-rich debate also regarding sports in the USA and Australia, with drafts, no P/R and a salary cap and compared to football worldwide a limited pool of players,thats the reason they have such measures. They also work because TV stations prop them up with a crap load of money. Just like you can be irrationally fearful of the mega-rich pulling out in football,what if the already limited playing pool starts to shrink in these sports and the standard drops. and with it the TV stations drop the crap load of dough,being thrown their way. The main question Australian Football has to ask itself regarding P/R and dropping the salary cap, can easily be found in England regarding such clubs as Bournemouth,Southampton and many others. What is the main reason that a club like Bournemouth can find itself in the EPL after never having been anywhere near the top tier during it's 127 year history, yet in recent times nearly ended up in the knackers yard. Simple,there's a will to do so in football throughout England, a will enough to drag the club back from the chop. We see Wigan dropping down to the third tier . Wigan has been throughout English sporting history predominantly a RL town. Yet the Club found itself by an owner who tapped into the tremendous belief in football throughout England ,up with the big boys next door like Liverpool and ManU. Its challenge now is to "rise again" by the same will,just as it is for forgotten giants like Wolves,Nottingham Forest,Sheffield Wednesday or a club with massive support ,but little results to show for it like Newcastle. So the main question is not will P/R and no salary cap work in Australia(its proven beyond doubt it does work) but is there a big enough will in Australia regarding football to make it work. So if a club drops down to the second tier,will it just curl up in a ball and go into the foetal position,or will their be enough football will,therefore someone with enough balls to strive to "rise again". Lets be optimistic regarding Tinkler at Newcastle Jets. Now in a P/R system,the Jets would go down. Yet Tinks has shown faith in the manager and is rebuilding for next season. He has shown "Football Will". Whats the difference between rebuilding after the wooden spoon and rebuilding to gain promotion. Answer nothing its all in the head in Australia,the club still has to rebuild and how it rebuilds is due to its Football nous on and off the park. Same as the other bottom club,the Wanderers,does anybody believe if they were relegated that they don't have a collective "Football will" to rise again. Let me explain where part of that "will" comes from and why no salary cap works by allowing big clubs to become bigger and why in England despite the disparity between ManU and Bournemouth in all areas of their operations,including success, fans still flock to see their club whatever the division their in. It comes from the desire to be "getting amongst it" with the big boys. So if your the Mariners in the second division,you want to get up there with Sydney FC or Melbourne Victory and have a go. Sure you might be back down next season,but theres somewhere to go from there and formidable opponents to challenge.

personal endeavour?? massive investment.

Its a silly argument regardless. Its a totally different matter if you also measure who won the premiers plate.

Er...hang on Aladdin. Coll, Carl, Ess won most of their premierships a hundred years ago, before the salary cap. Between 1897 and 1930, those 3 cubs won 20 premierships between them - basically 2 out of every 3 years. Since the salary cap was introduced in 1987, those 3 clubs have won 6. And of course, more clubs helps the competitiveness.