It's always difficult when you have to part with something or someone against your will. Whether it's the security blanket which ensured your peaceful slumbers as a baby, or the first car that you bought with your own money, or the Ukrainian-Australian striker that had provided you with goals and entertainment galore on sunny Perth afternoons. All these things must pass; it is an inevitable part of life's timeline.
So it's with some amusement that I watch the reactions of various Australian football fans as they deal with transfers out of the A-League; specifically in the past 12-24 months. In this time, we seem to have grown much more confident in our league and the players that we have on show. Which is great - we do have some really good players in this country. Sure, there are some that continually surprise me with the fact that they have a contract, but on the whole I think even the most ardent critic of the league would acknowledge that there are less Steve McMahons and James Robinsons in the game at present when compared to five or so years ago.
Thing is though, when the standard of the league improves and you see some talented youngsters coming through, of course agents and clubs in other countries will become interested. It's part of the global football economy - which, I would be happy to add, at the top level is completely screwed (just like the real world economy) - and I'm sorry, but Australia is no exception to it. Take the recent talk of Matt McKay moving to Rangers, for example.
Now Rangers is a big team in a league with European competition on its doorstep. The Scottish Premier League is also a stone's throw from England and the Championship and Premiership, and despite the fashionable let's-all-take-a-dump-on-the-SPL attitude that seems to prevail at the moment, it's actually not the most dire football league in the world. I'm not going to get into a comparison of the quality of their league and ours - even the ex-SPL players who ply their trade at Perth say you can't compare the two - but the fact is that for an Aussie player there are more teams, more competitions, more games, and more opportunities to impress in Scotland than there are in our great country. After all, no one seemed to be telling Scott McDonald to come to Sydney FC from Celtic or Middlesborough, did they?
Another good example was the Luke De Vere transfer; some of the reaction at the time was priceless. "He's going to Asia? ASIA? WHAT? ASIA? TO PLAY WITH ASIANS? NEVER!". Hi-lar-ious. Like it or not, clubs in China, Korea, and Japan have more money than us, in most cases better leagues than us, and let's face it - if you've lived in Queensland for a fair while chances are you might like to try somewhere a little different. Why do you think so many of my fellow Sandgropers disappear to the northern hemisphere or the far east? It's as much about lifestyle and experience as it is about football and money.
So why then the bitterness about our good players leaving? Sure, it is very hard to lose a good player no matter what, but at the same time it's an opportunity for another player and it gives the club some much-needed cash (and let's face it, it's not like A-League franchises don't need a little bit of cash at the moment). I am surprised at the journalists who jump on the anti-selling bandwagon, too. I found Phillip Micallef's article on Matt McKay for The World Game guffaw-inducing when I read the following line:
Something certainly has to be done to stop this never-ending exodus from a competition that is fast becoming a feeder for foreign clubs,
What? Stop us becoming a feeder league? What should we be instead then? Buy up the Messis, Ronaldos, and Neymars of this world? Let sheiks run our franchises from the Middle East? (oh most humble apologies your greatness, but you and your emirate don't actually get any say over intellectual property, you just pump the money in please, that's a good boy) Or maybe we should just let clubs make their money solely from the billions we make in merchandise purchased by consumers around the globe? I hear Melbourne Victory is just massive in Tuvalu. And the Peruvian miners are rumoured to be appearing at Sydney Football Stadium any day now as part of their global branding plan.
It's time to face facts, people. We are a feeder league - but there is nothing wrong with that! Lower leagues (and top divisions) all over the world face the same problem, but whilst people are sad to see players leave they don't cry armaggeddon when it inevitably occurs! The fact that guys like De Vere, Rukavytsya, McKay, Leckie, Amini, Burns, etc can go overseas and in many cases bring good money back into their clubs, without there even being a fully-fledged development program at most of them, speaks volumes for what talent Australia has in its own backyard. Imagine what will happen when the Mariners' youth academy has been functioning for a decade? Or when clubs like my own stop filling newspaper inches with talk of academies and start pouring concrete foundations for them instead? We will get to a point where the average skill level of a young A-League player rises, no matter how we end up doing that. In the meantime the cream will leave our shores, because that's what's always happened.
If you look at youngsters Ryan, Aryn, and Rhys Williams - all graduates of my local club ECU Joondalup - they missed the A-League system altogether. They were purchased straight from the state system. The same thing happens over east too, as clubs that have existed for much longer than the A-League have strong relationships with overseas clubs in Croatia, Italy, England, etc. The overseas teams know there will always be a chance of finding talented youngsters at these clubs, and they get reports on progress and send over scouts or coaches to take a look. Melbourne Knights are well-known for sending players to Croatian sides, West Ham have brought their academy teams to Western Australia to play local talent, and there are many other state league teams with ongoing overseas links. If the A-League clubs want a piece of the action, it's up to them to cultivate similar relationships.
There's the rub - the clubs themselves have to think hard about what they're doing when signing and scouting players. It cannot be the job of some university commerce grad on a pittance of a wage to monitor when contracts terminate and what new terms should be offered. Teams cannot expect players to keep signing on "just because", and fans should not expect players to stay on A-League salaries when China calls simply because it's "for the good of the league". Perhaps if your typical Australian pundit followed Burnley, Bradford, or Bromley as opposed to Chelsea, City, or Celtic, they'd better understand the dynamics of sale-based football. You get talent, you nurture it, and naturally a bigger fish picks it up. It's up to the clubs to ensure that the terms signed off both in the players' original contract and the actual transfer are beneficial to the player and to the selling club.
There's no use complaining about $300,000 release clauses for a $3 million rated player if the club allowed the clause to be inserted in the first place. Likewise, there's no use bitching about contracts that include a re-signing clause if x goals are kicked or n games are played. You backed the previous coach or administrator who approved those contracts, now you have to play along with the consequences; whether you want that player or not. It might sound harsh, but losing a few very talented players for pitiful levels of compensation is just the thing most A-League teams need to have happen in order to make them serious about looking at the contracts they approve and the players and staff they recruit.
In the meantime, Matt McKay and his kin should be free to seek their fortunes overseas if they so wish. If they're going on for a pittance, well that's not their fault is it? They should be leaving with our best wishes and the hope that someone will replace them soon enough. Our place in the world of football is to be a seller; just like many leagues the world over. There's no shame in that at all... so we may as well get good at it.
