Calls for the A-League to abandon its salary cap in pursuit of a higher quality competition have been growing louder and louder in recent years.
But is it really as simple as that?
Let me start by saying that yes, the A-League’s salary cap system is flawed. It inhibits the ability of clubs to attract high-profile players, restricts the quality of the league and subsequently makes it difficult for Australian teams to be competitive in the AFC Champions League. It goes without saying that this system needs to be reviewed.
But if you were to scrap the salary cap altogether, it would be a classic tale of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
Let’s just remember, this league has a club owned by the City Football Group. Can you imagine the havoc Melbourne City could wreak in the player market if they were not bound by a salary cap?
To some, this might sound like a good thing.
No salary cap equals more big-name signings, increased interest in the league and better-quality football, right? Well not necessarily.
While the likes of Melbourne City, Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC would now have the means to make more high-profile acquisitions, where would this leave the league’s smaller clubs? How would the likes of Central Coast Mariners and Newcastle Jets be able to compete?
To put it simply, they wouldn’t.
They don’t have the financial means to build squads of the same calibre as the league’s richer clubs, opening up a huge gulf in class between the top and bottom sides.
We would have a situation similar to that in Spanish La Liga, where a small handful of clubs consistently dominate while the rest practically serve only to make up the numbers.
That isn’t what we want for the A-League.
One of this league’s biggest strengths is its competitiveness and unpredictability. The fact that nine out of ten clubs who have been in the league longer than two seasons have either a Championship, Premiership or Grand Final appearance to their name is testament to that.
By eliminating the salary cap, you are likely also eliminating that competitiveness.
I’m sure plenty of fans will point to the poor management of smaller clubs and argue that they have only themselves to blame if they fall behind the pack. But there’s more to it than that.
A club like Sydney FC will always have an advantage over one like Central Coast Mariners, purely because of their location and access to ritzy sponsors.
It’s not as if teams in more regional areas have nothing to offer. The Mariners, for example, are a Championship-winning club where the careers of Socceroos stars Mile Jedinak, Mat Ryan, Tom Rogic and Trent Sainsbury kicked off.
They might not be a glamour club as such, but the Mariners are still vital to the A-League and Australian football as a whole.
The same applies to Newcastle Jets, Perth Glory, Wellington Phoenix, and so on.
If we were to completely scrap the salary cap and let the rich clubs run riot, we would essentially be kicking clubs like the Mariners to the curb.
And ultimately, there is still no guarantee that abandoning the salary cap will result in better players coming to the A-League.
At the end of the day, Australia isn’t the most desirable destination for marquee players. Unfortunately we are just so geographically isolated from the rest of the world, and our league runs through a scorching summer that foreign players are not accustomed to.
After all, how many marquee players have we seen come from Europe and struggle to adapt to life in Australia?
Let me repeat, the salary cap is admittedly far from perfect. It restricts clubs from making the big-name signings that would give the A-League a much-needed boost, and it doesn’t guarantee the level playing field it is intended to.
But what it does do is give every team a fighting chance, which is one of the greatest things about the A-League.
Feature Image Credit: Perth Glory
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