Victory, City likely to keep Perth's two new A-League stars

Perth Glory's two new star A-League signings may remain at Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City due to quarantine issues and CBA negotiation break downs.

Andrew Nabbout, who signed from Melbourne Victory last month, and Nathaniel Atkinson, who only signed recently, may both remain at their respective clubs.

Atkinson released a not-so-cryptic Instagram message yesterday (since deleted) featuring an excerpt from The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo Di Caprio screaming 'I'm staying', with City likely to hold on to one of their prized young assets.

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Nabbout's future at Victory during a cleanout under Grant Brebner appears the most uncertain of the two, however Victory have already publicly stated that they intend to spend their entire salary cap next season.

Nathaniel Atkinson back to Melbourne City? 👀 pic.twitter.com/dlg4hElOKP
— A-League Hub (@AleagueHub) September 20, 2020

This follows Glory CEO Tony Pignata's comments to the media that bringing people from Victoria to Western Australia was "a hard no" due to COVID restrictions.

"You could get an actual team in, but individuals are very hard, especially when they - like Andrew - want to bring their families," Pignata said.

"Andrew doesn't want to come here without his family, I know from experience, I haven't seen my family in over four months.

"It's hard. I can really understand where Andrew is coming from, we've had discussions with Andrew and Nathaniel and their management saying, 'let's sort this out.'"

With Glory owner Tony Sage releasing a letter to his club's members reiterating that he may be forced to stand down his players if the PFA don't accept the clubs' proposed 30% wage cut, COVID regulations may only be part of the issue.

Pignata insisted that there wasn't a major financial barrier to bringing the players into Glory, but a regulative one.

"It's not about not paying players, we've paid our players up until next week as well as their annual leave," he continued.

"Out there they want to throw stones at clubs and management, but we want to make sure that we do everything right for everyone.

"It's no use with me paying them and then them not coming here, it's going to be hard to get them across in the timeframe that we need. We've been dealing with WA police and it's difficult getting people who aren't WA residents back and our premier is going to further tighten the restrictions.

"We can't sit this out for six to eight weeks, so if we end up in a situation where Andrew and Nathaniel don't come, so be it."

While Pignata's comments outline that the club still haven't paid either of their new signings, PFA joint-CEO Beau Busch made it clear that the club still has a legal obligation to these players while under contract.

“Talks remain ongoing with the clubs in an effort to reach a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and the Perth Glory players were due to meet with their club tomorrow to have further discussions," Busch said.

“Attempts to pressure the players through threats and misleading commentary is unhelpful and damaging, particularly while the players continue to work in good faith to reach a solution.”