DRAGONZ said:
Well that's the thing. Bringing Yorke in on 500k a season means that you can't have an extra four or five young local players.
In a sense, I guess that detracts from the game in Australia, as local players aren't getting opportunities.
However, because this is the start of the A-League and positive publicity is desperately needed, signing Batistuta should be a positive. While it will hurt in the short run, in the long run it should be of benefit to the concept of the A-League.
Which leads me to conclude that in the end, they may eventually phase out the "One marquee player per team" idea. Because in the end, we are aiming to give Australian players recognition in a high quality league. Yorke and Batistuta, and the foreign coaches, will bring an air of professionalism and 'quality' to the A-League for the time being.
clubs can have a maximum of 20 players, 3 of which must be under 20yrs old and one of which may be payed outside the 2 million dollar salary cap if the player statisfy the criteria of a marquee player.
dwight yorke, zelic, qu and batistuta if he came are all marquee players. hence whatever they are payed does not impact on the wages of other players and signing them only takes 1 place away from anyone else as there wages could only be used to pay one more player due to the 20 player max rule. Finally i would say that there experience is one of the reasons they are signed (so they can help the younger guys) and as such if they did not sign it would still be an older player that wins the final contract not a youth player.
and plenty of locals have opportunities, we want a high quality leage, there are hundreds of australians over seas, and then 7 lots of 20 players in the a-league much more and the league would lack quality.
marque players have short term benefit (the publicity) and long term benefit (improving our youth and the level of the league forcing australians to raise there game to there levels)
marque players may be phased out (and if not phased out then significantly increased salary caps) when the league has established a large supporter base and it is demonstrated by the clubs that they can run at a profit.
you cant give australian players much recognition in a high quality league if its only australians cause it wont be such a high quality league. we should be aiming to attract some top players from asia, south america and africa to play in the a-league, because if hgihly talanted players like this want to play in our league it will make australians raise there games, and help the developement of youth in this country as the clubs seek to use the players they have signed to help develope the next generation.
oh and about players coming to australia to pick up a final large pay check, in the terms of what they earn in europe and what they could earn in the UAE which is even more australia is offering no money. 500k is what dwight yorke would have earnt in a month or 2 at man utd. anyone that comes to australia and not the uae (argueably a league or similar quality but paying higher then the best european teams) is here to play.