You know what worries me? The stuff that DOESN'T worry me. The stuff that goes on behind closed doors that we don't hear about. Because if the Nik Mrdja transfer is okay, can you imagine the stuff club CEOs propose that the FFA do actually veto?
What wild, weird and wonderful schemes do clubs come up with to enhance their team's chances that the FFA just take one look at, laugh, then get the big red REJECTED rubber stamp? It's a frightening thought.
Almost as frightening as the FFA allowing Nik Mrdja's odyssey of being axed by Central Coast Mariners to sign for Melbourne Victory and then be re-signed by Central Coast Mariners, all on the same day.
This was the transfer that crossed the line. This is the one that demands we overhaul the laughable transfer market in the A-League.
The A-League has always had a 'unique' approach to transfers. The fact that transfer fees between A-League clubs is forbidden has always forced some creativity in making moves happen.
Clubs have been happy to 'terminate' contracts to allow players to switch clubs when they are are no longer needed by one club and desperately needed by another, usually to fill an injury gap late in the season.
The expansion of the A-League added another element when rival clubs could begin contract talks with prospective players nine months out from the end of their current contract...and just a couple of months into the new season. Unsettling much?
Finally, injury replacement signings are legal right up until midday of the day before the second last round of the home and away season, ie the eve of the finals series.
Oh and somewhere in there we have a transfer window or two, but you'll be hard pressed to identify them as no club seems to honour it.
There have been a series of eyebrow-raising new arrivals recently, including Daniel McBreen at Perth Glory and Charlie Miller at Gold Coast United.
All of those have been legitimate, in the spirit of the rules and to the letter of the rules. McBreen's trade with Perth for Jimmy Downey to North Queensland Fury was a player swap in the transfer window - as conventional a transfer as you can actually get in the A-League, even if McBreen is going to a third club next season.
Miller was not wanted by Ange Postecoglou at Brisbane Roar so he asked to leave early before he lost match fitness. He was a free agent (who had been in the final year of his contract anyway) and joined a new club that did want him. Simple.
But the Mrdja deal by comparison stinks to high heaven.
Technically under the rules, it is legitimate. But to any impartial observer this is clearly a loan.
The player leaves Club A to join Club B knowing he will be going back to Club A in six months, where he's got a contract for another year.
It looks like a loan. It works like a loan. It shouldn't happen outside the transfer window.
Furthermore, if someone wants to buy the player while he's at Club B, Club A - the club that has just sacked him - will get the transfer fee, because Club A is also the club that has just hired him for next season.
Funnily enough, that's also just how a transfer fee during a loan would work under those circumstances too.
What makes this different to the others is his return to Central Coast Mariners at the end of his spell at Victory. Fair play to Mariners for being honest about it - and opening Pandora's Box as a result - but is the money saved really worth making the league look grubby?
The two clubs have worked together to manipulate contracts to make it appear somehow different from a loan and bring it within the letter of the FFA's rules. However, so far as I know, no-one anywhere else in the world has ever had the gall to try a similar stunt.
However it may still breach FIFA's rules which states a player may not approach his club to terminate a contract to make himself a free agent so he can join another club outside a transfer window. The meaning of that rule and its application in this case are obviously up for debate.
But the club and FFA are keen to stress it was 'a mutual' decision to terminate Mrdja's contract at Central Coast Mariners. Presumably it was also mutual for them to sign his new contract at the same time. What wonderful Orwellian double-think: "We don't want you any more - but we still want you..."
The FFA are clearly happy with the way the transfer was conducted, repeatedly insisting it was all above board on Friday. Yet over the weekend, they had changed their tune and said it was allowed because of "special circumstances", according to the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday.
Really? How come the FFA never mentioned those "special circumstances" in their series of emails to us on Friday? Neither club mentioned it either, other than that Mrdja was an injury replacement for Billy Celeski (which is a rich vein of humour right there, anyway - Jacob Timpano to be the injury replacement for Matthew Kemp next?)
At the end of the day, Nik Mrdja should never have been allowed to move now. Victory have depth and a first-class squad, but they also had all of January to sign a clearly-needed back up replacement for Danny Allsopp.
However Robbie Kruse still took to the field for Melbourne Victory this weekend, Nathan Elasi is still waiting on the sidelines and they still have a youth squad to mine. Victory have a large squad and 15 youth players to fall back on, which is supposed to be the first port of call for injury replacements.
Ernie Merrick's concerns that his squad could do with strengthening for the finals (or even the ACL) are not 'special circumstances'. There is absolutely no need for Mrdja to join Victory now.
What's more, there is no need for the FFA to compromise the integrity of the A-League by allowing it.
But more importantly, they could be jeopardising our role in the Asian Champions League. If I were the boss of a team beaten by Victory in the ACL and Mrdja had played, I'd be straight on the phone to the AFC to investigate his signing.
The FFA have clearly condoned Mrdja's transfer. If the AFC disagree with the FFA over it, they may judge the FFA's rules and interpretation of those rules are incompatible with the ACL and deny future A-League teams a place until we change our rules.
(This is not an anti-Victory thing either - how would they feel if Kawasaki Frontale do a 'dodgy' deal with Nagoya Grampus to "short-term sign", say, Josh Kennedy to play against Melbourne in the ACL?)
So let me offer a solution. Change the rules now for next season, and do not register Mrdja for Victory's Asia campaign this week.
Proposed rule change #1 - Transfers can only happen in the recognised transfer windows. How WACKY is that??
Proposed rule change #2 - Free agents can be signed at any time until the end of the January transfer window, but free agents whose last professional game was in the A-League must wait at least three months from their last A-League appearance before they can be picked up by another A-League club, unless or until it is a transfer window.
This way at least we will eradicate backdoor deals, clubs conspiring to alter reality to manufacture circumstances that circumvent the rules, and deals based on who you're mates with and who will bend over backwards to help you...rather than just the best team over the course of a season winning.
If the Mariners had not announced Mrdja's re-signing, it would have been a surprise but palatable. If it had all happened as a proper loan a week earlier when the transfer window was actually open, it would not have raised an eyebrow.
But as it is, it is clearly wrong and needs to be fixed.
You cannot start cherry-picking which rules you obey and which are open to interpretation or manipulation. These rules apply worldwide and we expect the FFA to protect them, not allow them to be abused.
This should have been one of the things we didn't have to worry about. This should have got the FFA's big red REJECTED stamp and a chortle as it hit the shredder.
