The answer is simple enough some would say - so that you can get the best playing roster and become a strong chance to win the competition.
But where does that money come from - the money that goes into the players pockets?
Well for most Clubs in the Capital Football Premier League it comes from a few sponsors, donations, raffles, canteen takings, sale of gear, Club functions, not to mention reigstration fees for each player (and what do clubs get of that) and the like. Every dollar is counted and counted upon to keep the Club afloat. Its all hard graft for a few motivated people in the Club.
The Clubs with a licence to play in the Capital Football Premier League must satisfy Capital Football that they can meet the costs of campaigning in the Premier League. Easy for them to say, but do they have their collective fingers on the pulse? What does it cost a Club to run four teams in the Men's Premier League? Good question. A little bird told me that some were surprised when told by a Club that had a good season, that it was just hanging on by a thread and faced the same daunting challenge again to find the money to go around again. What planet are some of these people on? How many Board members go to PL games (mens and womens) in season or the Summer 20s (another cost to Clubs and one that should have been absorbed by Capital Football, but that's another story and I'm easily distracted) and so on? You don't even get a shoulder to cry on, much less an ear to bash!
I know some things for sure - its costing more each season, the money is getting harder to find and more and more players are looking for a pay day. Out here in Clubland, we are all getting a bit worried. Player payments are a pox on our game.
At the end of every season in the Premier League, Clubs with money eye of the emerging talent and make offers. One young player told me four weeks ago that he had been approached to go to another PL club for $260 a game and another for $170 a game. If you were young and offerred this moent would you (or I) move - I guess so. This causes lots of problems for some PL Clubs.
Another aspect - that small group of Club officials and supporters that make it all possible for players to play, go looking for a minimum of $40,000 per season for a Premier League Club licence per season. Some officials argue the figuer is now closer to $70,000 per season if you want to cover all the contingencies and that's before you get to player payments of any significance.
Now we are not talking Manchester United type payments to PL players. What is said to be paid (and this is hard to verify with real precision) is not big, big money, but try finding $100 per player per game a season. And that's before you cover off on the training costs - we train (and play sometimes) on absolutely crap playing surfaces and when we try to relocate to good ones such as Hawker enclosed or the AIS, it costs Clubs money. You don't get any help from the FFA, CAPital Football or anyone else in solving this basic football problem.
So why on earth would most of the Clubs in the Capital Football Premier League, without a huge sponsor or a licenced club behind them, get entangled in the business of paying players to play? It can only lead to the Club collapsing and leaving the Premier League. That's the history for every code of football, including our poor, but not so old A League competition. The Youth League players don't get a living wage and the our very own Canberra United plays for the love of it. And yet, we think its a good idea to pay players in the Capital Football Premier League?
I'll tell you why - because the few clubs with money / resources put together the best playing rosters. These few Clubs can pay per game, and they pick and choose the players they want from across all the clubs that are prepared to go to them (and not all do). Well that's there good fortune, but it reeks havoc on the competitive nature of the teams across the competition and the survivability of those other Clubs. That should worry Capital Football and Capital Football Board because it worries the hell out of the other Clubs that are not well resourced and float on unpaid volunteers.
We have a variety of structures among our Premier League Clubs - some have a junior club based, others make arrangements to get it from elsewhere. This structural difference raises many questions, but I'll confine myself to one releveant to the issue of paying players. Why would a big Junior Clubs form a united "super Club" if there was a real risk that the revenue earned via the junior football contributions (and thats where the real money is people), could be consumed by player payments to Premier Legaue players, who play for no more sunstantial reason than a boy or girl in the Div 3 Under 13s within the same Club? Well, you would have to mad to get into that sort of arrangement.
Paying players robs the game of resources at Club level necessary to grow the game and develop all the players. We are not a professional football environment where player payments are concerned, but all Clubs do their level best to make it so in every other way - with less and less each season. That too should worry the Capital Football Board.
This week I interviewed the President of the Goulburn Strikers, Graeme Welsh about rumours I had heard about the Strikers.
The usual Club stuff - playing roster, coaches for next season and so on. They started well in 2010 and fell away and we all know how that feels. Its always accompanied by a certain amount of finger pointing, blame shedding and if onlys. Things change all the time at Club level. I was struck by the "statesman" like approach of Graeme Welsh (as I was by his predecssor Shane Wilson), very experienced bloke, not easily fooled or flustered was my impression. When we got to the subject of Clubs poaching players with offers of match payments and he made more sense than I have heard in a long time. Four things he said hit home for me when it comes to paying a player in our league (I would summarise as follows):
- The money you take is money from your club and your mates
- If you want more money, get another job
- We are not really professional (in terms of paying players) until the players start bringing in gate receipts (we have A league clubs that can't do that).
- Don't ask your mates to pay you for doing something you enjoy.
Listen and form your own opinion.
Download the Podcast here: