With news this week that the K-League's Busan I'Park are about to table a transfer offer for Nick Carle, questions concerning the A-League's restrictive $1.5 million salary cap have again been raised. Carle has been quoted saying that money does indeed matter, hinting that he's likely to accept an offer rumoured to be around a quarter of a million dollars, which is about twice what he currently draws at Newcastle.
In a barely veiled rebuke, Remo Nogarotto, football director of the Jets, slammed the potential offer from Busan and the K-League. In Nogarotto's books, the K-League may have the money but as a 'second-tier' league it doesn't have the pedigree nor the football quality to provide a decent home for our best players. His proposed solution to the dilemma is quite interesting: The FFA, he believes, should independently rank the top 20 players in the league and allow the wages of these individuals to be topped-up beyond the limitations of the salary cap.
Several problems with this scheme immediately surface. Are only Australian players involved in the rankings? If so, is it an unfair instrument to wield against clubs seeking expensive foreign players to sign under the cap? How will the objectivity of the rankings be guaranteed? Who will do the picking and what factors will they bring into consideration? For instance, will there be ways to subvert the mechanism to protect players with transfer potential (e.g. relatively young players like Carle) rather than use it to offer talented but generally unsaleable players (Damian Mori, Carl Veart) a higher salary? Will players in the latter category feel unjustly served if they cannot have their wages increased, while some young whipper-snapper like Carle or David Carney strikes it lucky? Also, will there be a way to surmount the static nature of a ranking system? Given that salary contract renewals occur just once a year at best, surely that time-frame is too large for the dynamic incorporation of any half-way accurate rankings. Before the season, for example, who would have thought that Alan Picken would emerge as one of the best defenders in the country? Furthermore, isn't it somewhat arbitrary to include 20 players? If such an idea was ever to go ahead, the FFA would probably want to ensure that there is an even dispersal of ranked players among the eight clubs, regardless of absolute accuracy. Sixteen or 24 players seems a far more serviceable figure to me.
Nogarotto's concept is a good one that should be examined in more depth, but it does avoid a couple of issues that are worth noting. Firstly, we must presume that Carle wants to manufacture a move overseas. He's a great player that deserves a spot on the world stage. If the A-League is not quite at the point where it remains attractive to elite players, then the onus is on the FFA to develop it further. The players themselves should not feel obliged to stay. Rather, that would be a natural step once the league has accomplished some international stature. Secondly, in order to offset the loss of Carle, the Jets simply have to ask a large transfer fee for him and stick to their guns. There is no need to whinge about our economic disparity with other leagues when the ball is in our court. Busan might offer $400,000 for Carle. Is that enough? Given Nogarotto's outburst, it doesn't seem so. Then why not just say no? If the Jets buckle to a small offer or fail to negotiate better terms, I don't see how they can blame anyone but themselves.
We have to realise that our domestic clubs already exist in a competitive global environment with their international rivals. The FFA may step in here or there to amend things and help out in small ways, but it's really each club's responsibility to raise money, manage contracts and promote their entertaining product to a regional, national and growing international audience as they see fit. Any failures along the way have to be taken on the chin and should not always be attributed to the governing apparatus. Here's a couple of questions that warrant some thought: if the salary cap were abandoned today, could Newcastle even afford Carle's higher wage request? Would other players (Jade North, Richard Johnson, Matt Thompson?) demand substantial increases commensurate with Carle's? Does the club have sufficient sponsors and advertising to cover these extra costs? Are the proceeds of the league's TV rights with Foxtel expected to grow over the next few years? Or will ticket prices be raised, with fans paying the ultimate price for the pleasure of experiencing a decent football league in this country?
2 comments:
Salary caps don't work for team sports with a large roster (e.g., football, league). Whilst the cap amount seems large, by the time you divide it over 15+ players then it becomes (relative) small change. The only instance where I've seen a salary cap work well is in the NBA where you can only register 12 players for the cap.
You'd have to expect that pretty much everything will go under review at the end of the season. Expansion, the salary cap, the Knights, the promotion camapign, attendances, player and staff recruitment, the quality of stadiums and playing surfaces, etc. At least, I hope so!
Another aspect of the game worth addressing (and stemming from the salary cap) is the injury replacement system, given that it's a short-term solution for a much larger problem and that in effect it can reward clubs for experiencing a mishap. It's definitely a pet hate of mine, but I am a fan of keeping the cap. It's good to see Nogarotto and others offering alternative solutions to different problems facing the FFA and the clubs, and so long as everything is kept as objective as possible it's healthy for the game.
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