Adelaide United v Melbourne City Match Day Jamboree!!!©

[Jessesdad]

I am an expert with NFI. Happy to admit that.
I read this forum a lot but only contribute sometimes. Often after a game when I need to vent a little.
I enjoy reading posts from people I disagree with and with those who - like me - are entirely right about everything.
That being said, this is a small, parochial forum and - like all small communities - it tends to be a bit hard on those who rock the boat. Mr Valkanis (no doubt smarting from losing in front of what was his home crowd) expressed some frustration and copped a pretty heavy barrage from the 'locals'. By the standards of larger forums he hardly rained fire on our heads. I wonder if we're a bit touchy sometimes.

So, MrV, spray away or stay away - up to you. As far as I'm concerned you're welcome here and completely free to suggest that I have no idea what I'm talking about, just so long as I can return the compliment should I wish to.

[Rojos]

Tongyik can learn his trade over there and come back the finished article to us, like Mauk.

[Ghost]

Valkanis, you have NFI of how a forum works if people can't express their opinions, just like you have.
If you think I've made a bad statement, then argue that instead of slagging off anyone with a different opinion to yourself.
I'll stick to my opinion btw, AU should never have lost Kmauu or Tongyik and then be forced to sign players who are not up to standard like Kitto has shown in every game so far this season.

Cheers

I can understand how the club lost Kamau but losing Tongyik makes no sense. There was a spot for him but we kept Warland instead, a massive error in judgement of the two players ability.

I suspect Tongyik may have had something to do with the Garuccio deal.

We needed City to release him from contract to sign him.

We needed a left back more than a CB so I think we had to rob Peter to pay Paul so to speak.

That would make sense.
There have been some many movements between the two clubs it is hard to keep track. It is something like Mauk, Marino and Garrucio our way and Malik, Tongyik and Kamau their way in the last year. Overall it seems to be a fairly even swap.
Also Melling, Marrone and Dugandzic have played for both, probably missing someone.

[Capac]

City have a record of getting SA players. I think early on they recognised that there was a gap with the amount of players that get brought through United vs the quality of the youngsters in SA. Not there we are terrible (we still weren't great till a few years ago) but the fact we aren't aiming to be Central coast and only have limited spots for younger players.

That said in terms of tongyik we have to also remember when we let him go Elsey was still 3rd in line so he was going to get very little game time.

Also South Australians or players that have played for both include Goodwin, Sarkies, Babalj, and Ramsey. Plus Aloisi and skoko played for them in that first season.

[EdDog]

I think the reason Heart/City get a lot of AU players is purely because the Aloisi/Petrillo/Valkanis connection.

Heart/City staff have had roots in SA for a number of seasons now.

[The Claw]

Did anyone hear Griffin on 5AA? He talked a bt about contracts, but the bit I still don't get is why AU can't offer a 2-3 year contract with a release clause if certain $$$ are met and the club is overseas? That way when a player like Kmauu or Tongyik is signed up longer term and is only leaving if the club gets financial reward or contract ends. In the case of Mauk, sounds liek the club set that too low and a club came in to their surprise.
From the outside, It appears that the club really needs to look at its talent identification process because they seem to miss a lot of high potential players that are right under their noses and hardly ever maximise the potential gain. It goes right back to the Leckie days as something the club has not got right.


In the case of Heart/City/Uniited, SA ties have been there from the beginning and it makes sense in away that we are united in our mutual hate of the Victory in a way.

[shinAUFC]

I think it comes down to limited squad sizes, its always a bit of a gamble as to who will make to jump to senior football and thrive.

Sadly limited games and squad positions do not help.

Remember kamau signed for city while he was injured and the general feeling was that kamau was nothing more than a squaddie.

Hopefully we can keep odoherty until he gets a big overseas offer

[Stuckey]

Did anyone hear Griffin on 5AA? He talked a bt about contracts, but the bit I still don't get is why AU can't offer a 2-3 year contract with a release clause if certain $$$ are met and the club is overseas? That way when a player like Kmauu or Tongyik is signed up longer term and is only leaving if the club gets financial reward or contract ends. In the case of Mauk, sounds liek the club set that too low and a club came in to their surprise.
From the outside, It appears that the club really needs to look at its talent identification process because they seem to miss a lot of high potential players that are right under their noses and hardly ever maximise the potential gain. It goes right back to the Leckie days as something the club has not got right.


In the case of Heart/City/Uniited, SA ties have been there from the beginning and it makes sense in away that we are united in our mutual hate of the Victory in a way.

Its due to players and agents getting a percentage of the contract as a sign on bonus. If you offer a player a 3 year deal for $100,000 pa. A 2% sign on bonus is $6,000. If they offer a one year deal that same sign on bonus is only $2,000. These figures are just an example I don't know how much a sign on bonus is, but I expect that offering every player a longer term deal is something the club feels they can't afford.

But I totally agree I'd love to see the club offer players longer term deals. I think O'Doherty and McGree deserve to be around next season. I think offering them longer deals is important. We see Isaias being offered on which is great. Obviously he is a key player and the club has prioritised signing him. Whether that means the club is going to continue more longer term deals or that is all they feel they can afford is obviously something we'll find out in the future.

[blahblah]

Its due to players and agents getting a percentage of the contract as a sign on bonus. If you offer a player a 3 year deal for $100,000 pa. A 2% sign on bonus is $6,000. If they offer a one year deal that same sign on bonus is only $2,000. These figures are just an example I don't know how much a sign on bonus is, but I expect that offering every player a longer term deal is something the club feels they can't afford.

There may also be an issue of the sign-on bonus being accounted for in the year of the signing. Hence if a number of longer term contracts are signed in a single year then the amount of room in the salary cap becomes tight indeed.

[Stuckey]

Its due to players and agents getting a percentage of the contract as a sign on bonus. If you offer a player a 3 year deal for $100,000 pa. A 2% sign on bonus is $6,000. If they offer a one year deal that same sign on bonus is only $2,000. These figures are just an example I don't know how much a sign on bonus is, but I expect that offering every player a longer term deal is something the club feels they can't afford.

There may also be an issue of the sign-on bonus being accounted for in the year of the signing. Hence if a number of longer term contracts are signed in a single year then the amount of room in the salary cap becomes tight indeed.

That's true. Although that ends up being poor management from the club I'd say.

[mcjules]

As a youth player, it's a bit risky to sign long deals because you can't renegotiate your wage. I'm sure they could put some KPIs in though (like games played) which if hit mean a wage increase but it still gets tricky with the salary cap.

[The Claw]

Its becoming clear to me that the FFA and the salary cap rules, lack of transfer fees and so on is now holding many aspects of organic league growth back. Lowey jnr has shown zilch since taking over.
We now have a hitch potch of rules which allow some clubs to spend 3 times that of the cap and clubs like AU cant sign homegrown players to long term deals because trivial amounts might put them over the cap.
Not saying AU cant do better coz they can, but the FFA needs to have a good hard look at themselves.

[Stuckey]

As a youth player, it's a bit risky to sign long deals because you can't renegotiate your wage. I'm sure they could put some KPIs in though (like games played) which if hit mean a wage increase but it still gets tricky with the salary cap.

That's true. I recall the talk when Leckie moved to Germany I think his wage increased 5 times.
But when you think about it another way if you're a 18 year old kid and the club says here's a 50k pa contract for the next three years plus a buy out clause. Unless they're already playing HAL level consistently I doubt few would knock that back. By the end of their contract they are a 21 year old earning possibly closer to $60k. Obviously that's not setting them up for life but there aren't too many industries that offer something like that.

[Stuckey]

Its becoming clear to me that the FFA and the salary cap rules, lack of transfer fees and so on is now holding many aspects of organic league growth back. Lowey jnr has shown zilch since taking over.
We now have a hitch potch of rules which allow some clubs to spend 3 times that of the cap and clubs like AU cant sign homegrown players to long term deals because trivial amounts might put them over the cap.
Not saying AU cant do better coz they can, but the FFA needs to have a good hard look at themselves.

The FFA did just bring in a new TV deal which is the biggest in the game's history so I don't think saying they've done nothing is unfair.

But I agree the salary cap is getting to the point where it doesn't serve all clubs fairly which is entirely the point of it in the first place.
As I've said before I truly believe two new components to the salary cap would fix it.
1. Open up transfer fees to ALL Australian clubs (Not just HAL clubs).
2. Exempt all "homegrown" players from the cap and besides marquees include everyone else in the cap.
*Homegrown players will be players that have come thru a club's youth system for an agreed period of time/games before making their HAL debut or signing their first HAL contract. I think somewhere between 12-18 months or 30-50 games is fair enough. I think a period of time is probably a smarter way to go as a player my get injured during that period.
So if we look at AU's squad:
Hall
Marrone
Ochieng
Warland
Elsey
McGree
Kitto (if he hadn't been cut)
Mileusnic
O'Doherty
May all qualify as "homegrown" players.