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Farcical transfer system holds back A-League clubs

Daniel De Silva during his time with the Mariners. (AAP Image/Daniel Munoz)
Roar Guru
4th July, 2018
44

If you were to walk into a supermarket and buy some fresh milk, you would find it weird if you could mutually agree with the cashier that the milk is going off today and you can have it for free.

It seems far-fetched, but this is the transfer policy for players in the A-League and by all accounts, it’s a shambles.


Earlier this week, Central Coast Mariners midfielder Daniel de Silva, 21, was a no-show at training in an ongoing row with the club in order to break his contract in search of a new home.

The Mariners are refusing to release the player under a mutual termination agreement to join another A-League side as he still has three years left on his contract in Gosford.

It’s a terribly flawed system that has been exploited for way too long. Over the last three seasons, eighteen players have suddenly cut their multi-year deals short to pick up a contract elsewhere in the middle of the season.

There were seven incidents in the season that had just passed with Dario Vidosic, Jacob Melling, Marcelo Carrusca, Peter Skapetis, Neil Kilkenny, Ben Warland and Jacob Poscoliero all crossing the floor.

Dario Vidosic

(AAP Image/Hamish Blair)

The system gives all the bargaining power to the players and puts the clubs up against the wall when the clubs must be in control as the employers.

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If a player wants to leave, the owning club makes absolutely nothing as they ‘mutually agree’ to terminate the contract.

They lose an important player while a rival doesn’t break a sweat to add another name to the books.

Is it fair that a club can lose one of their most important players mid-contract and not gain anything in return?

The Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) may get involved in support of De Silva and they are only doing their job inside the guidelines, but it’s about time we tightened them.

For a professional league, our policy on transfers is far from perfect. How can any club build for the future when the ‘mutual termination’ guillotine hangs menacingly ready to swipe down at any moment?

They were strict measures introduced by the FFA when the league was introduced in 2005 to prevent the clubs from putting their financial stability in turmoil. We’ve moved on since then to the point where some A-League clubs are turning a profit or breaking even.

In 2014 Melbourne Victory posted a $600,000 profit while that figure was more than doubled in the 2015 financial year at $1.5 million.

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The other A-League clubs have shown they aren’t all fledgling financially with the Western Sydney Wanderers contributing to their refurbished Pirtek Stadium while the Central Coast Mariners are pursuing the possibility of becoming sole tenants of Central Coast Stadium.

The FFA were in talks with the PFA earlier this year to rubber stamp an intrA-League loan system which would allow A-League clubs to loan players to rivals across the country which is a step in the right direction.

But we want our A-League clubs to run and conduct business like real football clubs. It would give clubs more bargaining power, more avenues for recruitment instead of waiting to jump onto the freight train and most importantly, give clubs the chance to stay competitive.

However, a free market transfer system isn’t the way to go. While there are clubs that are advancing in terms of financial stability some still have some way to go. While paying a transfer fee is half the deal, paying wages is the other.

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But we have to start somewhere.

In my opinion, while we have are scouting an intrA-League loan system, experimenting with an intrA-League and domestic transfer system is definitely an arrangement that can be introduced.

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Introducing an all-tier, all-encompassing A-League and NPL transfer policy amidst the capacity of the salary cap and respective revenues of the A-League clubs is a must.

Loan with option to buy deals and 50% ownership agreements like in Italy’s Serie A are ways in which you can introduce a modest system that doesn’t create a monopoly of talent at the top.

If we are to take the league seriously clubs have to be able to conduct serious business and that means they get to cut the ribbon when crucial decisions have to be made.

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