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Our next marquee....again (btw 1000th topic)


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1 hour ago, malloy said:

In regards to the players on loan statement I think you have to disregard it as it was stated before the Frank Lampard rule. Some of the city youth would be on reasonable wages and potentially make it unfeasible to pay the players inside the cap

I think you're probably correct. The concept of us having one or more loan players from Manchester was floated before FFA panicked and introduced the "Lampard Rule."

But if that was indeed the case, my view (as in the "New Owners" thread) is that CFG should have been quite open about it and let Melbourne City members know something that was widely anticipated could not now take place. That's what I call real communication. As  it was, we were left speculating (and in fact still are 20 months later). Opportunity lost to make CFG look like good guys in the eyes of the old Heart faithful.

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I'd say with Simon Pearce finally getting CFG a legitimate seat at the table in terms of representation and influence on the A-league following last night's meeting with FFA, CFG will either this season, as a guest player, or next season, with a new marquee, bring players into the comp that are genuine global superstars. 

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9 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

The criteria for a guest player are more onerous than those for a marquee. Got to be a genuine name otherwise FFA will not approve.

 

The FFA's very weird about guest players. It's near impossible to know who will qualify. Before David Villa, the last guest player was Lucas Neill, after he'd spent 2 fruitless years in the Middle East at multiple UAE clubs. Hardly a guest player to put bums on seats. So it only seems that this season the FFA increased the requirements for who qualifies as a guest player.

 

It wouldn't surprise me though if the FFA relented to Perth Glory after their multiple applications to make Andy Keogh a guest player, and we saw him feature as a guest player in the A-League this season (which would explain why Perth announced Keogh as signed up for next season [2016-17] and the season after [2017-18] yesterday, probably because Perth and the FFA reached an agreement to make Keogh a guest player at the FFA meeting with A-League club CEOs earlier this week). Because at present the guest player rule, even though they improved it this season to make it a 14 game guest stint, is completely useless. No clubs are using it and it's adding nothing to the league.

 

Anyway Melbourne City's position is that a guest player is mainly a football decision, and if they sign a guest player they'll get one mid- to late January, so that the guest player can play in all potential finals matches. I'm hoping that with Gameiro out for the season Melbourne City now realise that a guest player could really add to the team and would be a very useful football decision.

So I'm hoping that there's a decent player out there (because it's rather slim pickings with players available in January) who can also meet the FFA's weird expectations that Melbourne City can sign up as a guest player in January.

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1 hour ago, Shahanga said:

Yet the only people who would be interested are off contact and struggling to get another (decent) one.

Mutually exclusive criteria.

And will remain so until we have something like the designated player set-up as in the MLS.

Let's face it, you want the best, you have to pay for it. It's the same in any field of human endeavour - everything from engineering to ballet. Very few people at the top of their craft will do it just to put bread and water on the table.

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43 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

And will remain so until we have something like the designated player set-up as in the MLS.

Let's face it, you want the best, you have to pay for it. It's the same in any field of human endeavour - everything from engineering to ballet. Very few people at the top of their craft will do it just to put bread and water on the table.

I think I am probably by myself on this one, but I have a real problem with 5 imports allowed in the A League.  The 5 imports are good for the quality of the games we watch, but are detrimental for Australian player development.  But, you say, its only 5 of 23?  No, a well run club has it as 5 of their 10 starting outfield players- half the starting team.  I would prefer to see less imports with less salary restrictions around them (with the goal of having less but better players).   

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52 minutes ago, Shahanga said:

I think I am probably by myself on this one, but I have a real problem with 5 imports allowed in the A League.  The 5 imports are good for the quality of the games we watch, but are detrimental for Australian player development.  But, you say, its only 5 of 23?  No, a well run club has it as 5 of their 10 starting outfield players- half the starting team.  I would prefer to see less imports with less salary restrictions around them (with the goal of having less but better players).   

Yes I completely disagree on a number of levels. 

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1 hour ago, n i k o said:

Yes I completely disagree on a number of levels. 

Yes, and so do I, although usually I tend to agree with Shahanga. In much the same way as I see socialism as being a "lowest common denominator" approach to a society, I don't see that you will raise the standard to which Australian players will develop by restricting the exposure they have to better players from overseas.  Yes, by allowing more imports into the A-League we might restrict the opportunities for local players to play in that league, but those that do play are going to raise their level to meet the level around them. Shahanga's argument can be logically extended to have no foreign players in the A-League at all - and in my view that would simply see the league degenerating to NPL level. Further, I suggest that as the level of the football declines so will the investment in the league and the sponsorship, producing a downwards spiral. I think that I will point to City this year where I would submit that players such as Mooy and Mauk have lifted their games because they have Fornaroli and Novillo to play alongside them, and I'll point to the A-League itself this year and suggest that crowds and interest are down because overall there are fewer exciting players (such as Janko and Keogh) to keep the excitement level high. Del Piero and Villa have shown that the crowds will come if the names are there.
So I'm in favour of deregulating the league as far as we can using a sensible step-by-step approach. The argument against this is that clubs will tend to spend wildly to achieve success, and then go out of business. I don't see this as a valid argument against deregulation, but rather as an indictment of management skills and responsibilities. So I think we can deregulate and be sustainable at the same time.

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Jw did Murf hack your account?

Anywsy I agree with a lot of what you said. There is no doubt "you get better if you play with better players". So imports do help our players but at some point the pendelum swings. I'm pro imports, it's just that I think 5 is too many. I'm also not keen on imports like Maycon or Gray who are just blokes who are prepared to work for less. 

I'd rather have 3 or 4 higher quality imports of the quality of Carrusca, Broich, Fornatoli, Novillo, ADP, Fowler, Villa etc at each club rather than the current situation. Now I haven't quite figured out how it might work but I guess I'd like most imports to be marquees.

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1 hour ago, Shahanga said:

Jw did Murf hack your account?

Anywsy I agree with a lot of what you said. There is no doubt "you get better if you play with better players". So imports do help our players but at some point the pendelum swings. I'm pro imports, it's just that I think 5 is too many. I'm also not keen on imports like Maycon or Gray who are just blokes who are prepared to work for less. 

I'd rather have 3 or 4 higher quality imports of the quality of Carrusca, Broich, Fornatoli, Novillo, ADP, Fowler, Villa etc at each club rather than the current situation. Now I haven't quite figured out how it might work but I guess I'd like most imports to be marquees.

IMO Maycon, Gray, Meeuwis, Miller etc. are examples of poor management rather than the system. I'm comfortable with the maximum of 5 imports, but you don't have to fill all five spots (and neither should you) if the quality is not there. Neither should a club have to fill 21 of the 23 places on the roster if it doesn't want to and is happy to take reserves/replacements from its NYL squad.

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1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

Yes, and so do I, although usually I tend to agree with Shahanga. In much the same way as I see socialism as being a "lowest common denominator" approach to a society, I don't see that you will raise the standard to which Australian players will develop by restricting the exposure they have to better players from overseas.  Yes, by allowing more imports into the A-League we might restrict the opportunities for local players to play in that league, but those that do play are going to raise their level to meet the level around them. Shahanga's argument can be logically extended to have no foreign players in the A-League at all - and in my view that would simply see the league degenerating to NPL level. Further, I suggest that as the level of the football declines so will the investment in the league and the sponsorship, producing a downwards spiral. I think that I will point to City this year where I would submit that players such as Mooy and Mauk have lifted their games because they have Fornaroli and Novillo to play alongside them, and I'll point to the A-League itself this year and suggest that crowds and interest are down because overall there are fewer exciting players (such as Janko and Keogh) to keep the excitement level high. Del Piero and Villa have shown that the crowds will come if the names are there.
So I'm in favour of deregulating the league as far as we can using a sensible step-by-step approach. The argument against this is that clubs will tend to spend wildly to achieve success, and then go out of business. I don't see this as a valid argument against deregulation, but rather as an indictment of management skills and responsibilities. So I think we can deregulate and be sustainable at the same time.

Tricky. The empirical answer is "It depends". The evidence is mixed. If you look at the EPL, where teams are allowed 17 foreign players to provide the most expensive league in the world. However the English NT has been poor - so that could show that having so many foreign players will improve the local players does not hold. It is even debatable that the EPL has the best football in the world with the Bundesliga and La Liga making a serious challenge to that claim.

Going in the opposite direction where no foreign players would be allowed will lead to an atrophied competition. In Australia's case that is highly likely for the A-League as a whole but an individual club that is competitive without any imports can also flourish - heck MH/MC at stages may not have had any foreign players given the quality of those players. However, other factors come into play such as the money available to develop the players (including facilities). In my view, since coming across from the AFL, I am increasingly of the view that the manager is far more critical than the imports - case in point is AU since they have basically the same squad as last season but a different coach and they have gone backwards big time. I don't deny that if AU had a good quality striker instead of Djite they would have done better and since strikers are very rare they would have had to import one.

I think that the A-League should align itself with the AFC and have 3+1 foreign players but the clubs should have a bigger bucket of money to bring imports. I will also note that even quality players may fail at a successful club, for example. Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Barcelone under Pep Guardiola.

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3 hours ago, jw1739 said:

Yes, and so do I, although usually I tend to agree with Shahanga

I do think that being in the AFC and EXPECTING to qualify for the ACL after this campaign that we should have a player from the region that will allow us to have 4 foreign players. I do think that quality players lift players around them and think it's imperative that for Australian football we keep getting good quality foreigners, if the Asian Cup is anything to go by its that the A League is growing players in the league for the good of National Team.

I do think that there has to be a slush fund for all clubs to share equally so they can bring in a marquee as well, obviously clubs would benefit, attendances would be greater and therefore the league would grow. 

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3 hours ago, HeartOfCity said:

I do think that being in the AFC and EXPECTING to qualify for the ACL after this campaign that we should have a player from the region that will allow us to have 4 foreign players. I do think that quality players lift players around them and think it's imperative that for Australian football we keep getting good quality foreigners, if the Asian Cup is anything to go by its that the A League is growing players in the league for the good of National Team.

I do think that there has to be a slush fund for all clubs to share equally so they can bring in a marquee as well, obviously clubs would benefit, attendances would be greater and therefore the league would grow. 

ALA MLS designated player system. Although I don't think we should cut and paste that system exactly

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9 hours ago, DFG_82 said:

I think the League should adopt the 3+1 used by the AFC. So Three Foreigners per team + One Player from an AFC Country and make them all exempt from Salary Cap. 

I would agree with this. I think the A-League system suffers from only allowing one foreign player to be outside of the cap - as various people have said, it just encourages work-horse-ism. Make all of the foreigners, or at least a set number at least 3, be outside of the cap.

4 hours ago, Jun said:

ALA MLS designated player system. Although I don't think we should cut and paste that system exactly

That's not exactly how the MLS DP system works. The DP system works exactly the same way that the A-League marquee system does - they are paid outside the cap and clubs can pay them literally whatever they want because it's not regulated. However, MLS also operates another system called "allocation money", where all clubs get a set amount of money given to them (only about $500k in a $3.5m cap, but it helps) which clubs are allowed to use to basically "buy down" players' salaries - that is, they can use the allocation money to take a player's salary above the cap but officially record the salary as being exactly in line with the cap, meaning the player is not officially a DP.

I don't like many of MLS' rules, especially all of the idiotic drafts and the (I apologise for those of you who like the Australian version) play-off system to crown a winner from a league which has already crowned a different winner, but the allocation money system is a pretty intelligent way of working with a salary cap.

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1 hour ago, Falastur said:

I would agree with this. I think the A-League system suffers from only allowing one foreign player to be outside of the cap - as various people have said, it just encourages work-horse-ism. Make all of the foreigners, or at least a set number at least 3, be outside of the cap. 

This rule changed before the current season started. A-League clubs are now allowed two players to be paid outside of the cap, regardless of their nationality. This is as opposed to the old rule where one of the two must be Australian.

7 minutes ago, GreenSeater said:

I think you'll find quite a lot of us also dislike the playoffs system. Hopefully the FFA Cup grows to a point where the final is a big enough showcase match to rid us of the need for playoffs

This will never change. I used to get pissed off about it as a kid but as I've matured I've accepted that it's just the way it'll always be in Australia, and as such our Champions, and thus the teams everyone will remember, are those who win the finals series. 

Even the Victorian State Leagues, which could be considered much more "purist" than the A-League, trialed a first past the post system a few seasons ago and they immediately changed back after the clubs kicked up a fuss.

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2 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

This rule changed before the current season started. A-League clubs are now allowed two players to be paid outside of the cap, regardless of their nationality. This is as opposed to the old rule where one of the two must be Australian.

This will never change. I used to get pissed off about it as a kid but as I've matured I've accepted that it's just the way it'll always be in Australia, and as such our Champions, and thus the teams everyone will remember, are those who win the finals series. 

Even the Victorian State Leagues, which could be considered much more "purist" than the A-League, trialed a first past the post system a few seasons ago and they immediately changed back after the clubs kicked up a fuss.

I'm guessing that the reason the clubs kicked up a fuss was that the lack of finals games meant depriving themselves of the income from a blockbuster crowd for one last game? It's disappointing that they do it, but I understand why the clubs would put financial benefits over pure sporting rationale.

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3 minutes ago, Falastur said:

I'm guessing that the reason the clubs kicked up a fuss was that the lack of finals games meant depriving themselves of the income from a blockbuster crowd for one last game? It's disappointing that they do it, but I understand why the clubs would put financial benefits over pure sporting rationale.

It can be both, a finals series isn't an irrational way of determining a champion in sport. Many sports and competitions all around the world do it and it's not unprecedented in football either.

It's also pretty much the only way people do it here.

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Aren't there other "finals" systems in place in certain countries (Belgium and Switzerland ??) where there is some sort of grouping of clubs at the end of the "regular" season? I've never quite understood how those systems work.

Possibly the most annoying thing for me about our "finals" system is that it includes the top six teams in only a 10-team competition. That is the equivalent of the top-12 teams in the EPL taking part in a "finals" series, and IMO that's too many. IIRC the AFL/VFL used to be just the top 4 but that has been extended to 8.

But, as people have said, the finals system is here to stay in Australia. It's just the way we are.

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5 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Aren't there other "finals" systems in place in certain countries (Belgium and Switzerland ??) where there is some sort of grouping of clubs at the end of the "regular" season? I've never quite understood how those systems work.

Possibly the most annoying thing for me about our "finals" system is that it includes the top six teams in only a 10-team competition. That is the equivalent of the top-12 teams in the EPL taking part in a "finals" series, and IMO that's too many. IIRC the AFL/VFL used to be just the top 4 but that has been extended to 8.

But, as people have said, the finals system is here to stay in Australia. It's just the way we are.

AFAIK most of the playoff series in Europe are to determine qualification to things, like the Champions League or promotion to a higher tier. Also, most of them (or at least, the ones in the top levels of European football) are not played as play-off series' but are instead a second group stage with only those teams who qualify taking part. Also, many of them have a weighting/seeding structure, where teams can carry some or all of their points advantage from the regular league stage into the qualification stage, making it statistically far more likely that they will go on to win the ultimate prize.

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36 minutes ago, Falastur said:

AFAIK most of the playoff series in Europe are to determine qualification to things, like the Champions League or promotion to a higher tier. Also, most of them (or at least, the ones in the top levels of European football) are not played as play-off series' but are instead a second group stage with only those teams who qualify taking part. Also, many of them have a weighting/seeding structure, where teams can carry some or all of their points advantage from the regular league stage into the qualification stage, making it statistically far more likely that they will go on to win the ultimate prize.

Well all these things are also a part of the A-League finals series. 

1. Determine Qualification to things. Our finals series is used to determine Champions League qualification and FFA Cup seedings. 

2. Only those teams who qualify take part. Only the top 6 teams at the end of regular season take part. 

3. Teams carry their league points, making it statistically more likely that they'll win. The structure of our finals series comes from how the table looks at the end of the season. The teams who did better get given certain advantages, such as playing at home, playing lower ranked sides and having to win less games.

All up I find the finals series to be perfectly sufficient. The only issue being that too many teams make it into the competition, but I think that's necessary at this point in the league's development. When more teams are added a Top 6 will be perfect. 

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20 hours ago, haz said:

That's only for a preseason tour that finishes on January 20th. For the guest rule they can only play 14 games, so if we wanted him for the final he could only come in round 17 or later and Rd 17 is Jan 29th. 

Could be his preseason tour for us. Not ruled out yet

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On 13 December 2015 6:51:16 am, Falastur said:

 MLS also operates another system called "allocation money", where all clubs get a set amount of money given to them (only about $500k in a $3.5m cap, but it helps) which clubs are allowed to use to basically "buy down" players' salaries - that is, they can use the allocation money to take a player's salary above the cap but officially record the salary as being exactly in line with the cap, meaning the player is not officially a DP

Why not just increase the cap?

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