Salary cap restrictions keep Adelaide United poor
MATHEW Leckie, Awer Mabil and James Jeggo earned Adelaide United less than $1 million in fees when they left the club, far below fair market value.
THE salary cap is stopping A-League clubs from getting market value for their development work, according to an expert.
Adelaide United’s Craig Goodwin joining former Reds James Jeggo, Mathew Leckie and Awer Mabil and Tomi Juric for the Brisbane leg of Socceroos coach Graham Arnold’s camp is a great sign for the Reds development team but not for United’s business.
Leckie and Mabil in particular are looking to be mainstays under Arnold’s tenure but Adelaide has hardly reaped its just fiscal rewards for helping the duo reach the national team.
Leckie, Mabil and Jeggo earned Adelaide less than $1 million in fees when they left the club.
And Juric leaving Adelaide for Western Sydney before a free transfer to Dutch club Roda is another example of the 13-year-old salary cap being a restriction of trade.
“In many ways, the cap disconnects Australia to world football – which can be incredibly damaging to clubs. They have not been able to build value through transfers and there is an arbitrary barrier to attracting and retaining the sort of local and international talent the A-League needs,” players’ union chief executive John Didulica said.
The salary cap has stifled Adelaide’s ability to get market value transfer fees as Reds’ accountants juggle contracts to stay inside the restrictive trade cap system.
An alarming case was ex-Red and Gawler Eagles junior Riley McGree’s transfer to Belgian Club Brugge in 2017.
At the time he was on a Reds scholarship deal.
Adelaide did not even get the mandatory FIFA training compensation fee for the 19-year-old who is on loan to Melbourne City from Brugge.
Mabil earned Adelaide a transfer fee when Danish club Midtjylland paid more than $700,000 for the winger during his Reds contract.
Goodwin, 26, returned to Adelaide in a bid to put himself in the Socceroos’ shop window after his final months of his two-year deal at Netherlands club Sparta Rotterdam tested his character.
Adelaide didn’t get any training compensation for Goodwin’s departure to Holland in 2016.
Adelaide earned $140,000 in training compensation for Leckie when he signed on a free transfer for Borussia Moenchengladbach in 2011 but $40,000 went to two of his former Victorian clubs.
Adelaide managed to sell Jeggo to Austria’s Sturm Graz in 2016 for about $70,000.
The Socceroos face South Korea in Brisbane on Saturday and Lebanon in Sydney next Tuesday.
“My focus is on the national team camp now,’’ Goodwin said yesterday.
“I want to try and get into the that Lebanon squad and we’ll see how we go from there.
“I’ve roomed with Jeggo (in Socceroos camp before) but we’ll wait and see.”