More than 50 per cent of A-League players have contracts expiring at end of 2019-20 season
More than 50 per cent of A-League players have contracts due to expire in coming months, a staggering situation which has prompted calls for the salary cap to be axed.
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The A-League is destined for another off-season of mass turnover with over 150 players of the 273 players coming out of contract.
Melbourne Victory and Wellington Phoenix top the charts.
Victory has just four players contracted for 2020-21, leaving the 20 who are coming out fighting for deals, including Ola Toivonen, Thomas Deng, James Donachie, Tim Hoogland, Andrew Nabbout, Lawrence Thomas, Birkan Kirdar, Anthony Lesiotis and Adama Traore.
The players’ union (Professional Footballers Australia) is calling for the salary cap to be scrapped, declaring that the mass uncertainty proved the so-called equalisation mechanism was past its use-by date.
Wellington Phoenix has 21 off contract, followed by Central Coast (16), Western Sydney, Sydney FC (14), Perth Glory (13), Adelaide United and Newcastle Jets (12).
Melbourne City’s new-found stability is underlined by just 10 players coming out of contract, with only Brisbane Roar (7) having less.
Nathaniel Atkinson, Dean Bouzanis, Harrison Delbridge, Lachlan Wales and Denis Genreau are the City players whose deals expire in 2020.
The off contract figure equated to over 57 per cent of players having one-year deals, as fan discontent rises amid the A-League merry-go-round, with some players having featured for as many as seven clubs.
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The 2017-18 season was the highest percentage of players coming off contract (63.4 per cent), followed by 2018-19 (61.5 per cent) and now this season.
While some of the players will eventually stay on with their clubs, many will be forced to look elsewhere, as clubs juggle salary cap pressures and squad restrictions.
“It demonstrates that the salary cap model is no longer fit for purpose and reinforces the chaotic nature of the league’s regulations,” PFA chief executive John Didulica said.
“We cannot build value in clubs and value in players if we have this chaotic cycle of player movement every season. It is counter-productive to every aspiration that the league has, whether its producing better players and people to deepening the connection between players and fans.”
FULL OFF-CONTRACT LIST
ADELAIDE UNITED 12 OFF CONTRACT
Carlo Armiento
George Blackwood
Mirko Boland
Yongbin Chen
Benjamin Halloran
Michael Jakobsen
Nathan Konstandopoulos
Vince Lia
Daniel Margush
Michael Marrone
Kristian Opseth
Ryan Strain
BRISBANE ROAR 7
Daniel Bowles
Jack Hingert
Jacob Pepper
Izaack Powell
Aaron Reardon
Kai Trewin
Jamie Young
CENTRAL COAST 16
Mark Birighitti
Jair
Milan Duric
Dylan Fox
Ziggy Gordon
Eun-sun Kim
Abraham Majok
Michael McGlinchey
Jacob Melling
Lewis Miller
Joshua Nisbet
Tommy Oar
John Roberts
Mario Shabow
Matthew Simon
Gianni Stensness
MELBOURNE CITY 10
Nathaniel Atkinson
Florin Berenguer
Dean Bouzanis
Stefan Colakovski
Harrison Delbridge
Joe Gauci
Denis Genreau
Rostyn Griffiths
Gianluca Iannucci
Lachlan Wales
MELBOURNE VICTORY 20
Matthew Acton
Kenny Athiu
Jay Barnett
Corey Brown
Benjamin Carrigan
Thomas Deng
Kristijan Dobras
James Donachie
Tim Hoogland
Joshua Hope
Elvis Kamsoba
Birkan Kirdar
Anthony Lesiotis
Andrew Nabbout
Jakob Poulsen
Storm Roux
Matthew Sutton
Lawrence Thomas
Ola Toivonen
Adama Traore
NEWCASTLE JETS 12
Nigel Boogaard
Jason Hoffman
Wesley Hoolahan
Lewis Italiano
Noah James
Ben Kantarovski
Patrick Langlois
Glen Moss
Kosta Petratos
Yerasimakis Petratos
Matthew Ridenton
Kaine Sheppard
PERTH GLORY 13
Joel Chianese
Dino Djulbic
Ivan Franjic
Alexander Grant
Chris Harold
Soobeom Kim
James Meredith
Tomislav Mrcela
Juande
Jacob Tratt
Tando Velaphi
Brandon Wilson
Gregory Wuthrich
SYDNEY FC 14
Luke Brattan
Trent Buhagiar
Thomas Heward-Belle
Luke Ivanovic
Joel King
Adam Le Fondre
Milos Ninkovic
Andrew Redmayne
Paulo Retre
Ryan Teague
Marco Tilio
Harry Van Der Saag
Alexander Wilkinson
Michael Zullo
WELLINGTON PHOENIX 21
David Ball
Liberato Cacace
Ulises Davila
Luke De Vere
Cameron Devlin
Callan Elliot
Louis Fenton
Gary Hooper
Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi
Stefan Marinovic
Callum McCowatt
Liam McGing
Timothy Payne
Reno Piscopo
Alex Rufer
Oliver Sail
Walter Scott
Jaushua Sotirio
Matti Steinmann
Steven Taylor
Benjamin Waine
WESTERN SYDNEY 14
Mathieu Cordier
Mitchell Duke
Tarek Elrich
Matthew Jurman
Bruce Kamau
Daniel Lopar
Radoslaw Majewski
Alexander Meier
Tass Mourdoukoutas
Danijel Nizic
Tate Russell
Pirmin Schwegler
Nicholas Sullivan
Nicholas Suman
WESTERN UNITED 11
Connor Chapman
Alessandro Diamanti
Andrew Durante
Luke Duzel
Ersan Gulum
Thiel Iradukunda
Dario Jertec
Filip Kurto
Scott McDonald
Jerry Skotadis
Valentino Yuel
Originally published as More than 50 per cent of A-League players have contracts expiring at end of 2019-20 season
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