Socceroos to return to A-League

[marinermick]

I have been told from an inside source that Socceroos Tony Popovic, Josip Skoko and Tony Vidmar will return to the A-League after the World Cup.

The FFA is organising it and they will be farmed out to three different clubs.

If we lose Megssy and maybe Heff then I think we should be trying for Popa.

Good, strong defender and will fit into the "no dickhead" policy.

[brett]

Agree. I love to watch Josip too but we're not really weak in that area.

We could have Poppa, Queensland take Skoko and Melbourne have Viddie to strengthen said teams evenly.

[marinermick]

wyomingtiger said:

Agree. I love to watch Josip too but we're not really weak in that area.

We could have Poppa, Queensland take Skoko and Melbourne have Viddie to strengthen said teams evenly.

that would help the league

i say that vidmar would want to go to adelaide to be home

skoko is the player that they really need in melbourne so this could be a possibility

you can guarantee that popovic will mysteriously fit under the sydney fc salary cap

also talk that okon is going to new zealand and lazaridis wants to return

[brett]

laz would replace heff nicely if we need to.

[brett]

not getting caught up in the individuals for a minute, this is really great for the league.

having the world cup between HAL1 and HAL2 is working perfectly with timing.

HAL1 benefitted from the qualification, the momentum will hopefully stay with football through the necessarily long offseason, and high profile aussies with no hope of 2010 and careers starting to wind down will be flocking back now.

there's potential for each club to picking up a name made famous in november last year, and that's what australian football really needs in my opinion to start competing with the other codes on a credibility level. football will no longer be 'that other sport where the best players only play on the other side of the world'. we need our benji marshalls and andrew johns on our own shores.

[marinermick]

wyomingtiger said:

not getting caught up in the individuals for a minute, this is really great for the league.

having the world cup between HAL1 and HAL2 is working perfectly with timing.

HAL1 benefitted from the qualification, the momentum will hopefully stay with football through the necessarily long offseason, and high profile aussies with no hope of 2010 and careers starting to wind down will be flocking back now.

there's potential for each club to picking up a name made famous in november last year, and that's what australian football really needs in my opinion to start competing with the other codes on a credibility level. football will no longer be 'that other sport where the best players only play on the other side of the world'. we need our benji marshalls and andrew johns on our own shores.

well, not quite the benji marshalls after this week's incident

[DJ]

If this happens then it would be great news for the A-League - and I agree Popa would be ideal if we lost Meggzi (or should I say when).

Stan would wanna go to Perth I would imagine, Vidmar Adelaide I agree there, Skoko is a very good player and would fit in at any club.

Fingers crossed these boys come home!

[dibo (pron. "DIB-OH")]

wyomingtiger said:

laz would replace heff nicely if we need to.

that is a bloody brilliant idea!

he's been seen as one of those top blokes, who probably now isn't 'roos material but would certainly draw a crowd and still has games left in him.

i'd like that better than poppa, mostly because i'd love to see stringers get a good go at CB, and maybe draw in a junior for backup.

[Ursus]

I am a fan of Stan,
And would love to us to have this man,
On the Coast where he could get a tan,
I'm sure he would fit in with the team and Ivan,


And they're coming to take me away ha ha...

[Rubbernose]

I've also heard Tiatto may be coming back, perhaps to Melbourne.

You'd think the likes of Tiatto, Viddy, Laza, Poppa and Skoko would command salaries somewhere around the $250-$350K mark, yeah?

Sydney and Melbourne have already maxed out their 'Marquee' option assuming they maintain the services of Musc**t and Dwight, but such players could still find their way onto the rosters of those clubs.

I've read recently that;

a) as we've all read the FFA will be divy-ing up part of the new Foxtel rights dosh equally between all clubs, to cover salary costs. This has been touted as being $1.8m per club....and

b) the season 2 salary cap will be raised to $1.8m.

I suppose it's no co-incidence the 2 figures are the same. The FFA perhaps figure that if we give each club $1.8m under the guise of covering salary costs, that will now be the salary cap.

But that raises the question; obviously each club are in different financial situations, so would the $1.8m come with an expectation of using it entirely on salaries, or would each club be able to allocate the funds to different areas of expenditure as they see fit?

Financial stability of clubs is obviously high on the FFA's agenda, but I get the impression that so too is a visible upward trend towards efforts in attracting (more) better players for season 2, and "increasing the standard" blah blah blah. I don't think they want season 2 to remain stagnant in this area.

When you look at what we achieved this season with what I often hear reported as a team payed $900K, I suspect down at Mariners HQ they'd be pretty happy to put a significant chunk of that $1.8m towards the club's bottom line.

But staggeringly, if this were so, the Mariners could essentially DOUBLE their salary expenditure, without even touching a Marquee option.

So lets just assume that hypothetically speaking the FFA do give clubs $1.8m with the proviso they spend it all on salaries. I may be crazy but I'm actually starting to suspect this is what the FFA want to do, btw...

Lawrie would need to spend an extra $1m to round out his squad...

Consideration could be given to Mariners finances and you could halve that, and it's still a significant change, and certainly opens up the door for the inclusion of a player of the calibre mentioned above.

Food for thought.

[dibo (pron. "DIB-OH")]

rubbernose said:

But that raises the question; obviously each club are in different financial situations, so would the $1.8m come with an expectation of using it entirely on salaries, or would each club be able to allocate the funds to different areas of expenditure as they see fit?

Financial stability of clubs is obviously high on the FFA's agenda, but I get the impression that so too is a visible upward trend towards efforts in attracting (more) better players for season 2, and "increasing the standard" blah blah blah. I don't think they want season 2 to remain stagnant in this area.

I think the idea is exactly as put above - backroom costs are the club's responsibility, and they can get by however they like (assuming they meet the minimum investment rules etc. to prove they're not about to fall over). the important thing is ensuring that the quality on the park is up to scratch - you can't underspend, and there should be no excuse for not spending evey cent you're allocated to put the best possible team together within the rules.

rubbernose said:

When you look at what we achieved this season with what I often hear reported as a team payed $900K, I suspect down at Mariners HQ they'd be pretty happy to put a significant chunk of that $1.8m towards the club's bottom line.

the way it's now set up with the sponsors' deals and tv money is that players are paid for by tv, stadium, backroom, guest players and marquees would be paid for by sponsors. therefore, we attract big sponsors, we hire more/better staff, have better facilities, do more off the park and also develop the capacity to hire marquees and guests to boost the other revenue source - gate receipts.

other off-field investment becomes an option as well, be it a big whack into the local football academy to develop more young mariners, contributions to improving facilities at CCS and so on...

[brett]

i have also heard 900k as the mariners wage bill. remember that keeping the same players for HAL2 would see this instantly rise to at least 1.1mil due to players such as Danny, Wilko, Ossie, Hutch, Heff etc etc getting payrises to keep them in our colours. The loss of one or two of the better players to Europe would lessen the damage a little, but their HAL1 wages wouldnt have been astronomical anyway because the likes of Beauchamp weren't yet superstars a year ago.

so bringing in one or two decent signings to round out the squad plus a returning socceroo and we're up towards the cap pretty easily.

[dibo (pron. "DIB-OH")]

wyomingtiger said:

i have also heard 900k as the mariners wage bill. remember that keeping the same players for HAL2 would see this instantly rise to at least 1.1mil due to players such as Danny, Wilko, Ossie, Hutch, Heff etc etc getting payrises to keep them in our colours. The loss of one or two of the better players to Europe would lessen the damage a little, but their HAL1 wages wouldnt have been astronomical anyway because the likes of Beauchamp weren't yet superstars a year ago.

so bringing in one or two decent signings to round out the squad plus a returning socceroo and we're up towards the cap pretty easily.

from an interview with lawrie mckinna on the a-league website

Coming into the finals, the only thing that was a wee little bit disappointing, was the tags of misfits that we were a $900,000 team and that’s all rubbish, because if they did their homework, we spent our salary cap like everybody else. You got the impression that half the squad had jobs outside of their football commitments, which was just crap. Don’t get me wrong, we used that negative publicity well, because we were the underdogs, but I thought it was a bit disrespectful to the players. I think our players proved they are no misfits, by any means and they are good solid players, who do a good job.

[Rubbernose]

There's always been a fair bit of speculation over the Mariners' salary. All squads actually.

Perhaps the $900k figure often touted for the final was the worth of the entire first X1 team squad on the park?

I've always been under the impression we didn't use the full extent of the salary cap, but I guess that comment from Lawrie lays that to rest.

[dibo (pron. "DIB-OH")]

first XI i could believe. that would imply that the remaining 9 were sharing somewhere in the order of 400-600k between them.

that would be a story in itself - first XI players averaging around 80k, squad players averaging around 45-65. that would be a very equally-paid squad!

[marinermick]

rubbernose said:

There's always been a fair bit of speculation over the Mariners' salary. All squads actually.

Perhaps the $900k figure often touted for the final was the worth of the entire first X1 team squad on the park?

I've always been under the impression we didn't use the full extent of the salary cap, but I guess that comment from Lawrie lays that to rest.

maybe that figure excludes mrdja's salary who was our highest paid player

as soon as mrdja got injured his wage was covered by insurance which actually saved the club considerable dollars

[jollyroger]

Its got to make you wonder what could be achieved if australian football was recieving the money the AFL got for the TV rights from channel 7 & 10.

I think it was 580 million for five years?? Imagine a piece of that pie filtering down to the a league clubs.

Oz football would be offering a great life style, good league and decent salaries. I think australia would offer an attractive carrot to the players of the world

[jollyroger]

Paul Okon isnt everybody's cup of tea however, i have always liked him as a player. I am surprised he hasnt moved back to oz earlier. I think hes in cyprus playing at the moment.

I am not sure whether he fits into the dickhead category.

Overall i think its great that these players are coming home. When you look the australians playing abroard at the FFA website, you have to wonder why they would want to play in the lower leagues of europe instead of the A league.

[brett]

jollyroger said:

Paul Okon isnt everybody's cup of tea however, i have always liked him as a player. I am surprised he hasnt moved back to oz earlier. I think hes in cyprus playing at the moment.

I dont really like him, but cant remember why. I think some of the players that have been made out to be dicks for having fights with soccer australia (did paul do this once?) are now more likely to get sympathy for me because we can now see how shit SA was compared to FFA.

However, there are Ned Zelic's that will always be dicks.

Either way, it'd be interesting to see what Okes could do. New Zealand could do worse.

[ryan]

Paul Okon is a class act. New Zealand would do very well to get him.