How Do Clubs Without A Lot of Money Stay Competitive In The Capital Football Premier League?

One of the most commonly uttered observations by suppporters, officials and players around the Men's Premier League goes something like this - "Its hard to stay competitive if you don't have the money to pay and attract a core of good, experienced players", and, "As soon as we produce good players they go because another club can offer them money to play and we can't". You must have heard them both or something like it.

The fact is that only two PL Clubs, Belconnen United and Canberra FC have their own beautifully prepared ground and licences club to underwrite football operations. They are two terrific "turn key" football operations in the ACT region. Only two! More power to them I say.

But is there another one like them on the horizon? I don't think so.

No surprise then that these well established and resourced clubs attract many of the best local players. There robustness in terms of resources and infrastructure is matched by superior performance on the field, year in and year out. Their playing rosters are usually very good and have depth. They are what we might call a "semi professional" football club in the context of football in the ACT region. What they do is good for football, but not necssarily good for less well resourced PL CLubs. That is the simple reality here in the ACT - well, everywhere football is played!

The question that arises as soon as discussion heads in this direction, is whether Capital Football should intervene by some means and make if easier for all clubs in the PL to complete. That's when things get very tricky!

So where does this apparent divide leave the rest of the PL Clubs in the ACT? Their collective profile goes something like this - No licenced club, no dedicated, owned and maintained ground and facilties; limited sponsorship, tenuous and small revenue streams, massive reliance on volunteers,very limited ability to provide remuneration to players and the ver present danger that the best of their players will be attracted to any other club in the CF competition that can offer a payment. Some of our players can come or go pretty cheaply, so cheaply in fact that its embarrassing, while club loyalty goes out the window. Many of our coaches get little for their efforts.

This financial / resource divide is a constant threat to the stability and competitiveness of the CF Premier League. In tighter financial times, locating signficant sponsors in the ACT region is more akin to searching for the needle in the hay stack. And when it comes its usually not a great amount of money, but clubs are gratefull for anything.

Canteen operations become crucial in covering off on the meagre bottom line, which is why home games are so important to Clubs. The margins are very thin indeed, a fact sometimes lost on football administrators. When a PL club is instructed to move its home game to say Hawker, moving the canteen is a huge task, usually undertaken by the precious few volunteers and just as often with their private transport. Clubs are not support by CF for loss of precious income or additional costs. money leaks quickly from Clubs that are operating on the smell of an oily rag - and that is probably more than not!

Big Clubs (by our standards anyway) can be easily mismanaged, as Club Presidents are quick to point out. And they right to do so. There is ample precedent for concern when it comes to Clubs spending beyond their means to secure players to win premierships. The A league has evidenced a procession of clubs that have become financial basket cases and required assitance to continue. Probably a good thing we never got an A League team in Canberra or it might have drained a very small pond, or wallowed in defeat - but that's another story.

Perhaps the future of Belconnen United FC and Canberra FC is beyond the ACT region PL Competition?
In the meantime, maybe its time to think about leveling the playing field in the CF Premier League just a little bit. Salary caps don't work. What does?

The following article is from the President of Football NSW, which provides a glimmer of hope. Its worth considering.
SALARY CAPS AND PROTECTING CLUBS FROM THEMSELVES

Football NSW has no salary cap on our semi-professional State League competitions. The reason is that we’ve tried it before and know it doesn’t work. Our State League is so competitive, especially at the Premier League level, that some Clubs in the past have used the same ‘inventiveness’ demonstrated by the Melbourne Storm (though on a much reduced scale!) to circumvent such measures.

Even so, we recognize that some Clubs are overspending on players, to the long term detriment of their continuing financial viability and that of the Premier League as a whole. This has a consequential effect on less well off clubs, who must spend perhaps beyond their means just to remain competitive. This goes to the issue of long term financial viability. In short, our senior Clubs must to some extent at least be protected from themselves.

Later last year, Football NSW turned instead to a points system adopted by the AFL in country Victoria to limit spending on players. It is a potentially more effective approach than the largely discredited salary cap. This was implemented for season 2010 for the NSW Premier League. It is intended to be rolled out to all divisions of the State League in the next year or so, and ultimately to all areas of Football NSW where player payments are part of the competition structure.

It works by placing a successively higher points loading on players with higher levels of experience and imposing a limit on the number of points that can be used. In other words, it limits the number of top flight players that can be imported or maintained, thus limiting the market somewhat and thereby driving down financial outlays.

For example, a limit of 120 points was imposed on the two grades (up to 40 players but commonly 35 or 36) that may be registered in the 1st and reserve grade teams of a PL club. At base level, any player with previous PL playing experience (inside out outside a particular PL club) attracts 6 points. This means that at any one time, a PL club that wanted to use all its players with 1st grade experience could only register 20 players. Instead, they are required by the points system to use a combination of top level players and those from lower divisions (2 points) or their own Youth League or from Associations in combination (0 or 1 point)

The benefit of this approach is three fold. First, it requires a balance of experienced and up-and-coming young players – a player development pathway. Second, it is self-perpetuating, so after two years, every player who was with the Club at 1st grade level then attracts 6 points, so renewal from underneath becomes necessary. Thirdly, it limits the number of top (high cost) players who may be signed up before running the risk of topping the 120 points limit. Thus a former A-league player counts for 10 points.

This system is not draconian. We applied it to all of our PL clubs in 2009 and very few, just two or three, overtopped the total allowed points. Maybe we set the bar too low, but we need to ensure that in the experimental year clubs are not deliberately disadvantaged.

The main thing is that the points system is wholly transparent, easy to understand and calculate, and easy to administer. Unlike salary caps. It does not prevent high salaries being paid. But with a limit on the number of top level players that may be used, it surely has the effect of dampening down the number of top level (highly priced) players any one club can register. So the talent is more widely spread, to the advantage of the competition without denying to some better off clubs the ability to register some really top level players.

We believe this to be a much fairer and transparent approach than the now surely largely discredited salary cap approach.

Jim Forrest
27th April, 2010
President
Football NSW