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I was thinking about this possibility earlier, because I really can't believe CFG wouldn't have ensured with FFA that they could change the colours before buying the club.Doesn't add up.Especially since all evidence points to the club being highly confident of being able to change colours. I'm assuming they've made the mistake of either falling for taking someone's word for being able to change the colours or underestimating the importance and historical connection of colours in Australia Nothing doing with historical connections. The FFA's claim (as reported in Fairfax) was that each club had a unique colour for branding purposes, that is marketing, and having two clubs with similar colours in a 10 team league that itself operates in a highly competitive environment would reduce the ability for team differentiation. In other words if no team was using sky blue then there would have been no problems in changing colours.

Hmmm. Glad for now - but CFG has not made any formal announcement and Fairfax are reporting that CFG are annoyed that their generosity has not been given due precedence. My biggest fear would be if CFG decide to walk away...now.

Well I just spent a bit time searching through the Journal of Sports Economics, the Economic and Labour Relations Review, Econpapers and a few others. There is a large theoretical framework behind the concept of caps (salary, squad size) and penalty taxes. Different sports take different approaches within their own boundaries. The general gist is that a "salary cap will increase competitive balance and decrease overall salary payments within the league". This in turn attracts more people through the turnstiles and/or TV audience. From a labour relations point of view successful players tend to remain at successful clubs or prefer being traded to successful clubs (Buddy Franklin to the Swans is an example), so the other factor is that successful clubs don't raid other successful clubs and create a wages inflation. The other interesting factor for a league is that once salary caps were introduced the overall costs of running the league decrease. In the AFL case ( Player Salaries and Revenues in the Australian Football League 2001–2009: Theory and Evidence, Ross Booth, Robert Brooks, Neil Diamond) the conclusion was to wonder as to what that the AFL and clubs were doing with the additional revenues that were not being passed on to the players. There are also people working on alternative methods for providing a competitive league without having caps but these appear to be at an early stage. The other thing to note that the FFA sells the license to the franchisee and distributes some of the revenues earned through broadcasting rights. But, the franchisees still have to raise their own revenues to operate - your assumption is that all club revenue goes to the FFA and I don't know that that is the case. Case in point was the NQF who just could not raise a reasonable amount of revenues on their own right to be viable. Like any franchise, the clubs have a certain amount of autonomy to decide on how the club operates. Thus Heart could have selected AM instead of JA or go outside and bring in Mulvey. Those sorts of decisions are what make or break a club but as far as any league is concerned is to ensure that there is a competitive game every week. Case in point is Mark Neeld at the Demons and how the AFL had to take over the club.

Whilst working overseas I had to work with a Brazilian from the very well heeled set (all their cars had to be armoured). And really they had the strangest values... bought a bicycle that had to be the colour of a jeep - very average bicycle but it was jeep green. And I could go on...

Well one of the effects of having caps is that it does equalise the competition and simultaneously it does provide for clubs to remain solvent. The problem is with smaller clubs such as the jets, CCM, PG and prior to the takeover, Heart, that they can never provide competitive teams if there was no salary cap. Even the AFL was moved to introduce caps in order to provide better all round entertainment. As I keep reminding people, in 2012 the Melbourne Demons vs Port Power attracted less than 6,000 people to the MCG. Eddie McGuire relayed the sentiments of the Magpies squad that playing the Demons was demoralising for the club. So I doubt that the A-League can grow big enough that it would not face the problems that the AFL has faced. And finally with regards to super wealthy owners - well sports clubs are a side interest or community service. If their main line of business gets into trouble or they lose interest the sports venture comes to a swift end. Examples are Clive Palmer of GCU, Nathan Tinkler and the HSG (having just relinquished the rugby team and sold the horse farm) and Sir Elton John with Watford in the UK. So if somebody discovers an alternative to crude oil the football salaries will drop very quickly.

You are making the assumption that the young players move to Europe primarily because of the increase in pay. I suspect that many move there because the standards are meant to be better and therefore improve themselves which leads to higher salaries. Many will return not having improved much and wiser for their experience. The cap is low so that clubs don't go broke. The one thing that we are not aware of is what is the formula for calculating a salary cap but I suspect that if we were privy to all the info, the cap will be roughly about the same. As for expanding at rapid rates and no salary caps you need look no further than basketball when in the early 90s became all the rage. The league went broke and now they are a semi-professional league.

Not sure why anyone would be concerned about us being a Man City feeder team. If anything it's a good thing. How many EPL quality players are people expecting Man City to bother poaching from us? There are about 4 Aussies who are EPL quality in the world right now, even the promising young kids who are EPL youth squad potential would probably be allowed to develop in and around our first team considering they are planning on sending the ones they have now to us. The goals are different (pardon the pun): being a feeder club means that winning trophies become secondary. And since there is no relegation the team will always play first division football. Of course not all players will end up in the Man City first division but they can be sold to other clubs. If you look at the Roar they have had a fairly settled group of players for quite a few seasons now and so they have been quite successful in instilling a culture and on the playing field they are quite familiar with one another. Being a feeder/factory club means that there is always a high turnover of players - admittedly this is already true of the club but look where that got us. Agee, being a feeder club to an EPL team is the least of my worries, - In fact its a huge positive. Keeping our identity with the colours of Red n White is far more important I did say only one brain cell was concerned. The rest are excited.

Not sure why anyone would be concerned about us being a Man City feeder team. If anything it's a good thing. How many EPL quality players are people expecting Man City to bother poaching from us? There are about 4 Aussies who are EPL quality in the world right now, even the promising young kids who are EPL youth squad potential would probably be allowed to develop in and around our first team considering they are planning on sending the ones they have now to us. The goals are different (pardon the pun): being a feeder club means that winning trophies become secondary. And since there is no relegation the team will always play first division football. Of course not all players will end up in the Man City first division but they can be sold to other clubs. If you look at the Roar they have had a fairly settled group of players for quite a few seasons now and so they have been quite successful in instilling a culture and on the playing field they are quite familiar with one another. Being a feeder/factory club means that there is always a high turnover of players - admittedly this is already true of the club but look where that got us.

I'm of the belief that CFG have made the judgement call that they will stick with the current admin for now because of the financial straight jacket they were operating under and the ability to find replacements that know the Australian market and the game will be hard. With the straight jacket removed the admin/coaching will be expected to improve the on field performance (how long they have to show that is not known of course) and if not then CFG will have been operating in Australia long enough to find local staff to train or have European/American staff ready to come over.

Excited. But there is a brain cell that is wondering whether we are going to become a youth academy for Man City first and a team second...

He can get that here can't he? Presumably...

On the topic of Kennedy, I have a good source that told me that he is also looking at playing in one of the Arab leagues where he is being offered petro-dollars.

How very odd. I lived in Yokohama for two years and the falcons were my adopted team back then. And now CFG buy a stake in them. Next it will be Santiago Wanderers (the team I followed when I lived in Valparaiso)...

Furthermore for those of us who came into the A-League recently and have no idea about O/S players/clubs (other than the really big names like Messi) I am not likely to get excited by any visa player signing as I don't know them. And yes you can look up highlights on YouTube but they are not going to put in the mundane things like defensive work, positioning, etc. So for me the excitement grows when I can see the player fit into the team and then become integral to the team's success.

I always had doubts about Babalj - for me he had too big a turning circle and would always take the ball to the corner facing away from goal. Although when he first returned he seemed a much improved player but a few weeks of JA, made him ordinary again. Not sure what could be done to improve his career at this stage.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. But multi-year?? I hope that there are exit clauses in case of non-performance.

I think that he is worth risking a 1 year contract. His pace is still there and he could read the play reasonably well. I suspect that he was released because he publicly complained about the in-goings at PG.

I certainly would like some solid news from the club rather than waffle. However regarding the marquee that may be more difficult as I presume some of the candidates will be concentrating on the WC - let's face it, if they are good and they are under 30 they are likely to be in the expanded squad and perhaps they consider that if they do well they may be able to extract some better offers. If they are not in WC squad then they may be over 30 or better than A-League standard but not at the EPL/Liga/Serie/Bundesliga level (which may still be OK). Theoretically, the board (or whomever controls Heart's purse string) should be able to make a decision independent of what is happening in the EPL but perhaps they are all waiting on that final match.

I have mentioned in the past that Heart could indeed become a talent production factory or more likely a talent spotter/filter for other clubs. In this model the winning of championships is not a requirement as success is defined by the talents found and developed. Having said that there is also the possibility that the club feels it has more to gain by bringing in youth and see how far that will take the club - Bielsa did this at Athletic Bilbao and Ange did it at the Roar. The optimist in me says that it may be the latter.

Interestingly enough no one mentions any South Americans as marquees. Given that Manuel P. is from Chile I would presume that he may have a few ideas/possibilities as well. It may even be possible that the marquee may not be known until after the world cup where perhaps a more obscure player playing in a non-European club may shine and be brought to Oz prior to a trip to Man City.

Well spotted! Would guess you are right. IIRC a while ago I saw a post on twitter where someone had spotted the Melbourne Heart youtube account following the MCFC youtube account. The tweet was posted a couple of months before the takeover. On the other hand, people also noticed recently that Messi had started following City on Instagram, yet I'm far from convinced...We shall see, though. Out of interest, I know I've seen people saying that they want Westpac to remain, but if Heart were to keep the red and white but change to Etihad, what would your feelings all be? And what if Westpac were to switch to being one of those back-of-shirt sponsors you all have over there? I'd like to keep Westpac as a sponsor in one way or another as they've been with us from the start. Not fussed about Etihad, as long as we don't have to play at the stadium. Keeping the colours is more important to me than who's the sponsor. I am a big fan of AAMI park but when the Rugbys started playing I realised how much damage those sports do to the surface. At that point in time I realised that perhaps Etihad and AFL are not that bad. However the atmosphere will always be superior at AAMI.

I agree with expanding the coaching staff but I am curious as to the quality that is available in Oz. Medical/physical staff we should be ok with so I am not sure whether Gus is needed or not but skills staff maybe more difficult to come by. So the club may need to import staff or alternatively select promising options and take them for training at Man City.

That's the problem when you come last - every young player is going to tear the game apart, then reality sinks in. They are young, make mistakes and don't come up every week. None the less, I am happy to have him at the club next season. He will be judged by season's end as to the type of player he is.

I hope not. If its today when all the papers and news outlets will be talking about the final between Roar and WSW, then it must be bad news! If they wait till the end of the week or next week then that means CFG have news that they really want to share with the existing STH/fans and the world at large.

It may be just me and the people I hang around with but we all prefer quality ahead of notoriety. ADP was brilliant because he was a classy player on the field and just as classy off the field. Kewell was also great in this regard. But for me quality football will bring people through the turnstiles and have people watching their TVs.