A-League: Call to reduce foreign imports to help Australian youth

• The Australian
• 12:00AM January 13, 2018
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• RAY GATT

  

  Sports reporter

  Sydney

  @Gatty54

  

A self-described “mentor”, he has an almost manic determination to see A-League clubs provide more opportunities to young Australian players to develop in the national competition.

Which is why he says he is extremely frustrated at what he sees as a lack of courage and foresight of clubs and coaches, who are more intent on “wasting time and space on some second-rate foreign players” than looking to give our rich vein of talent an opportunity.

“Nothing excites fans more than a young, fresh, brave talent with energy and enthusiasm to make a mark,” Grimaud told The Weekend Australian.

“We are on the cusp of an exciting era ... just look at the Australian under-20s squad.

“Angry is probably not the right word, but I am certainly frustrated by the lack of belief in these kids. I see so much great talent out there and it is going to waste.”

It is not hard to feel his ­frustration, especially when you look at the A-League this season and the emergence of the likes of Perth Glory’s Jacob Italiano (16), ­Melbourne City duo Daniel ­Arzani (19) and Nathan Atkinson (18).

Throw in Melbourne Victory’s Christian Theoharous (18), 17-year-old Rahmat Akbari ­(Brisbane Roar), Apostolos Stamatelopoulos (18) from Adelaide United and Western Sydney’s Keanu Bacchus (19) and Grimaud makes a convincing case for his argument. Italiano and Atkinson aside, most of these players have only been getting bit-part appearances, mainly as substitutes.

Grimaud has no doubts the numbers of young players and their game time could be improved and he believes the way to do it is to reduce the amount of visa players in the A-League.

As it stands now, clubs are ­allowed five foreigners — a figure Grimaud believes is too high.

It’s a thorny subject, given most clubs have stridently opposed any reduction because they believe the foreigners not only bring class to the competition but help boost the interest of fans.

Certainly, in players like Sydney trio Milos Ninkovic, Adrian Mierzejewski and Bobo, Perth’s Diego Castro, Newcastle’s Pato Rodriguez, Victory’s Leroy ­George and Massimo Maccarone at Brisbane, you have top-quality foreigners who fit the bill.

But for every decent foreign player, there are two who don’t hit the mark. They are the mistakes, Grimaud says, the clubs and the game cannot afford.

“Do we need so many visa players? Absolutely not.

“I would like to see the number reduced to say three plus one Asian player, though that could be an issue because we just can’t ­attract the really decent Asian players under our salary cap.

“So, for me, the ideal number would be three and that would stop clubs signing a foreigner for the sake of it.

“As it stands now, I believe we are getting some second-rate ­foreigners who add absolutely nothing to the league.”

Grimaud, who counts the likes of Robbie Kruse, Mathew Leckie and Brandon Borrello on his books, believes a reduction will not only force A-League coaches to look more to local talent but it would make them more circumspect in regards to the visa players they actually sign.

“If you only have three then you are going to be very careful as to who you sign. You will need to have very good scouting because you cannot afford to make a ­mistake in this department,” he said. “With five, you have room to move and making a mistake isn’t too bad.”

In contrast to Grimaud’s view, Perth Glory chief executive Peter Filopoulos and highly regarded agent Lou Sticca stopped short of calling for a reduction.

Instead they believe a better option is to force clubs to include more under-20s or under-21 players on the matchday teamsheet.

“I’d rather see a mandate that of the matchday squad of 16, you must have three under-21 players involved,” Filopoulos, one of the most forward thinkers in the game, said.

Sticca says the age limit should be even lower. “My position is clear, FFA needs to have three under-20s on every teamsheet for the full A-League season.”

Whether the clubs are prepared to listen remains to be seen.

Championship-winning coach Graham Arnold has built the Sky Blues’ success on his eye for decent foreign players.

While he is an advocate of ­Australian talent, using it to great effect when he took Central Coast Mariners to the title in 2013, he has had a set view that having Australian talent in the squad can be ­detrimental because players ­usually spend long periods away on international duty.

Arnold caused much debate ­recently when he said the A-League is not a development league. “I was maybe the only coach who looked at the international program before the season started.

“I don’t understand what the fuss is about. I did not a hear a comment about the young players going, but I didn’t know the A-League was a development league,” Arnold said.

“It’s a meaningful competition in which clubs expect to win ­trophies.”

A-League: Call to reduce foreign imports to help Australian youth

I would prefer having less visa players than making a youth rule. 

As a youth rule perhaps something more like, if you are the home team you can have 16 players, 17 if 2 are under 21 or 18 if 3 are under 21. It is then no extra travel costs to the league. 

Ah more rules. 

How about more teams? 

and just have a 3+1 rule like AFC

This + 2nd DIv

This will fix nothing and just make the standard worse. If players are good enough, they will get a run.

If left unchecked, the likes of Arnie and Aloisi would just bring in less foreigners and more recycled shit like Mat Simon.

Interest would be almost non existent in an already boring league. 

The only thing i'm for is making sure every team is playing under 23 year old Australian players.

That is one rule that is critical to the future of our game.

All of the clubs complain about the limitations of the salary cap and the size of their squads . How about addressing both issues with a youth policy .

Each club is allowed three or four extra Australian under21s in their squad who are outside the salary cap . They would be a much cheaper option and promote good youth players into the A league .

If you think the crowd numbers are currently too high, yep, this will work wonders.

More likely to replace Ninkovic with Cernak than improve youth opportunities.

If we want younger players to get meaningful time in the A-League then we need a system that results in those younger players presenting with superior skill and football IQ than they do now.  Manufacturing spots for them is only suitable as an interim measure at best.

'Man with financial interest advocates for system that will make him more money'

Squad rules are fine - I could probably live with a 3+1 requirement (simply because this brings us into line with other AFC nations and AFC competitions) but as Gyfox said, manufacturing spots for U21s is an interim measure at best. Not to mention that most people bang on about the Matt Simon's and Manny Muscat's of the competition, but if there was an U21 quota, what incentive would there have been for the Jets to take a punt on Nabbout (23 when signed by the Jets) or the Victory signing up Antonis (24) for 2 and a half years? Football development doesn't magically finish at 21. Some will bloom early and fizzle out (Kaz Patafta anyone?), whilst others will have an average youth career before becoming a really great footballer.

You can't mandate who will play on a match day to clubs ...that is totalitarian.
Fix the standard of youth coming through and they will naturally get gametime.
The only way to fix that is to look at what Germany did years ago to bring on young players .
Quite simply ,more resources need to be diverted to coaching kids and then identifying the best and making it worthwile for them to stay in football after age 15 .
(School scholarships, encouraging football in schools , club academies etc . All takes money so spend less in other areas and divert in to the area that counts the most ....youth.
Also bring in transfer fees. It will encourage smaller clubs to develop youth to sell. It will also encourage bigger clubs as they will see the economic benefits in creating a saleable asset .

3+1 rule is fine. any other squad quota rules are complete crap. there is literally zero point playing players who aren't good enough just because they are young, thats what a youth league is for. 

Solution 1: Accept what we have and try to make it work for all scenarios. Lets throw a few women and under 12s in the squads too
Solution 2: Add new teams and implement a proper competitive football system, complimented by proper structure for other parts of the game

This is what happens when you grow up in a country where the most dominate "sport" is a single league

As I have long said, we need to bring in external expertise, such as those who made the J league and K League work. Then we wont have to spend decades trying to solve a problem that has long been solved by others

Agree with this.

Rarely does any club have more than two imports who are unequivocally better than locals.

Before anyone suggests more than this number of imports are a clear asset for any HAL club, think carefully how they look off the ball in Ball Possession Opposition.

Some former top imports who have better technique on the ball than local players do less than any locals in between spells in any given game when they rely on hardworking Aussies to get the ball and give it to them. It is why many of these imports are no longer wanted for top line football in Europe.

Of course the likes of Broich,  Ninkovic, Berisha, and many of the defenders, like Schekeveld, Jakobsen, Bruijs,  are excellent when the other team has the ball, but many imports don't do a lot of graft in the HAL. At the same time when the imports get the ball they can often look very good. Importantly, they don't make the mistakes young Aussies do either. Also, the imports are unlikely to improve as individuals, just collectively in HAL team game plans.

Shit idea. Two new teams to the league and that's immediately nearly 40 spots up for grabs by Aussies, not including spots in youth sides. 

if you think the standard in australia is beyond what can be done by under 20's you are kidding yourself.

there is nothing on the line here. there is no good reason to be playing 2nd, 3rd, 4th tier foreign imports over australian youth.

There is not a single youth player at Roar better than Kristenson, Papa, Beauteac or Maccarone. So the only guaranteed outcome of this idea would be to weaken the team, the league and hence the appeal of the a league product.
A second Star Wars round would be preferable.

Interesting comments.

I've missed a lot of recent HAL football. Having said this I'll look at these players, player by player on an individual basis haven observed them play quite a few games. I'm also going to include young Aussie players under 24ish.

* Beautac - Don't know him well enough yet. Saw some good things from him last night on the ball.

*Papa - Is he unequivocally better than all of North, DeVere, Bowles and that young CB with the  long neck who made an auspicious HAL debut last year? Positionally, Papa is good, but he will not improve as an individual much more than he currently is at this stage of his career.

*Kristenson -  He has been missing for a while this season. Like Papa he does a lot graft work and is one of the best imports at Roar, but there are many Australians who currently play this position well across the world and could be as good as Kristenson. Caletti, who has filled in, is worse off the ball and not as good a 1v1 ball winner, but is technically better than Kristensen with quicker handling speed and is a better passer and mover.

* Maccarone - I'm not sure how many field goals he has scored this year? He does little in team pressing and squeezing plans in BPO. He relies on team-mates to get the ball for him from what I've seen and does little graft to win the ball back from other teams. There was an energetic young Roar striker who played in the same ACL game last season  and has a lot of promise and is far better when the other team has the ball than Maccarone, but who is a worse a  finisher at this stage of his career.



Apart from Beautac, whose game I'm unfamiliar with, none of Papa, Kristenen or Maccarone ( apart from his finishing?) are better than younger Aussies.

How do you make an outrageous statement like that and accuse others of kidding themselves

The youth league is nothing but youth. Have you seen the quality of that lately?

The reason for shit imports is the salary cap. The reason why there aren't good players alongside good players and real competition for places is because of the salary cap

Without the salary cap you'll see predominately youth in the bottom teams and the best will rise to the top and rightfully earn their place in a big team. You'll also see more teams as you wont see teams at the bottom of the league with $7.5m budgets trying to compete upwards


To get the best out of our youth we need a competitive system where the best are getting regular game time against players they can learn from, and earning their spot in a team. Despite its flaws the NSL managed to do this. The A League wants to be the AFL for fans who would rather watch the AFL

you really think the standard of the a league is beyond what can be done by youth?  that's funny.

how many foreign (ineligible for an aus cap) imports where there in the average NSL team? 

We have the youth league and the standard is appalling. Young players need direction and leadership. They also need mature players to work off and competition for places

The NSL didn't need foreign players. By having the best players in the top 4-5 clubs it created a higher competition than had players been equally allocated to the teams. This meant that even as a semi professional league with no resources the teams were able to draw the best out of players. If the A League did the same then the standard would be much much higher as it also has professionalism, facilities and resources. Players can do a lot more when they aren't working full time jobs

But the A League doesn't do this. If the model was reworked then you might find that the over 20s that you currently think are inept will actually step up to a higher grade, which the young players cannot step up to. The under 20s only look good because the A League is competitively shit

The A League needs foreign players to get that balancing act between making it appealing as we need a TV deal and sponsorship to survive, and also bringing in new styles of play. Plus there is a level of expertise these players can pass on that will be missing from our game if we just worked with Aussie players. But we don't need any more than 4 (3+1) per team because then it cheapens the competition and as we see in other countries, the big clubs will do what Mr Burns did when he wanted to win a baseball comp - at the expense of developing local talent

Young players will work through the system and climb the ranks like everybody else

If that means by your claims we'll end up with teams of under 21s because they are the best then so be it. I cant see it happening though

Sorry but reducing the quality of the league is a bad idea. Youth need to be better to make the first teams and that means they need better quality, more professional development leagues. That is where you want to be looking, the tier down from the a-league.

Making the league worse won't make our youth better.

The foreign imports is probably the main thing that makes the A league almost watchable. When you have folks like Roy Odonovan who has spent most of his career struggling in the English lower leagues and he comes to Australia and suddenly hes banging on goals willy nilly it says something about the quality of this league. Also many of the foreign imports we have now are quite good and coming from the better leagues in Europe and South America and still at an age where they can still contribute.

Our myopic vision of preferencing players because they are 1) Australian and 2) young will result in the degeneration of the A league from a watchability perspective and bring down the overall standard of play, which will infact stifle the development of young players. One of the priorities of the A league should be the increase the playing standard not reduce it and youre not going to achieve that via miguided nationalism and age bias. If anything we should take the shackles off and have more foreign imports.

If that happens it will kill off the national team, otherwise, where will national team players come from? trees or visionary islands? 

I have yet to see an example of any nation on earth having their national team "killed" because of foreign players in the local league. 

I reckon if there was a blanket rule against any foreign players in the league you'd be one of the first up in arms about Australian players (youth or not) not having good enough competition in the A League, and therefore failing at international level.

Where do Iceland's players come from? The high quality Icelandic league? Or do they just have decent coaching and offer a pathway for players to go overseas?

The A League's salary cap rewards mediocrity, doesn't allow clubs to reach any decent commercial potential and as such ensures the team owners invest as little as possible into their clubs. 

China and Korea have both banned foreign goalkeepers. Korea for nearly two decades now and China for who knows how long. 

Can you name a single Korean or Chinese goalkeeper that has developed in the last twenty years? Hell, ever? Without looking it up I guarantee your answer is no. 

Arsene Wenger revolutionised English football and could arguably be credited with helping the English golden generation come about - whilst being the first manager to name an entirely foreign starting 11 in English league history. 

Minimising foreign players helps who? No one. The only thing it does is lessen the excitement of the local league and help certain people keep a nationalist stiffy for a few years. 

Based on the EPL model how has England's national team been going for the last 20 years? Didnt they lose to that country you just mentioned in Iceland whom invested in coaching and facilities 15 years ago? 

Do you want to watch a starting 11 that has no local players at all? Players that have no emotional connection to the football club? 

Who are the current world U20 and U17 champions? :)

How many of these guys are going to playing regualary in the EPL in the few years time is my question? :) 

England has had the talent to win stuff the past 20 years but bottled it on the big stage. Losing on pens numerous times, Beckham's red, Rooney's injury etc, stopped them capitalising on their very good teams. But that's what happens in tournament football, one mistake and its over.

Yep.  Can't help bad luck.

52 years of it.

They have struggled but have done very well in some very recent underage tournaments.

The senior English team has been atrocious in big tournaments for 50 years considering they have such a good domestic league.

I disagree with that, the likes of Brazil, France, Argentina, Spain and Holland had more talented teams than England.

These countries also had a clear way of playing 'an identity' which help there cause too, the likes of Gerarrd and Lampard recently complained about that. 

sounds like the usual excuses. why is it then that a handful of teams always win it. why isnt england in the mix?  because their league is an international league rather than an english league.

If it's the international nature of the league that's holding England back, why didn't they win anything major in the 70s or 80s when foreign spots were still severely limited?  

In 1998, 2002, and to a slightly lesser extent 2006, England had strong squads full of lads who were playing regularly at top clubs in the Premier League - one could argue that because they were playing against the best in the world, week after week.

Rio Ferdinand made an interesting comment a while back, that because of the competitive nature of English football, and the attitude of English players, the teams of the late 90s and early 00's that he played in tended to put club above country to the point that when they went away to tournaments they would mix with club-mates rather than as a single squad.  In affect, he felt closer to Vidic at Man Utd than he did to Terry at England.

I somewhat agree. Look at most EPL sides and then Wikipedia Spanish sides, even the big ones and you see a lot more Spanish products. 

i can assure you that England was shit long before they allowed foreigners to be signed.

I thought Chelsea had the first completely foreign starting 11 near the end of the century. I remember the fuss at the time.

For me as a former Pom, this is why I've lost interest in English football.

It should be 3+1 anyway, i dont know why we haven't moved along with Asia and implemented that. 

I think the AFC countries don't like us that much and not having 3+1 is a reason (a small one but crucial towards engaging with Asia). 

Put it this way if we want better youth players the tear underneath needs to be looked at, the national youth league is a complete farce (it only contains 8 games) if anyone believes it could be a serious development league has rocks in it's heads.

I personally would scrap the NYL, use that to create a second division, move the NPL season with the a-league and align all seasons together and create a national calendar like the rest of the world does. 
In that way young players could either get loaned out or have there youth/reserve teams play in the league and get that match hardened experience at a higher level for 8 or 9 months per season( ideally should be 10 or 11 months).

Our seasons need to be aligned with each other if we serious about developing more elite players, we need to create a market where youth development is seen as an incentive and not seen as a cost, that mentality itself has been going for too long.

Beckham played for Real Madrid when they weren't good enough to beat Barcelona

@barca

That is my same thinking for the Mickey Mouse u23 tournament now. How many will play for Socceroos?
They hype it up like this us our future team.... it's not. Some will play most won't

Agree, not many will be Socceroos from this list, better off sending the team that will form the main squad for Tokyo 2020. 

Exactly. I would have liked to see something like this:
GKs: Margush, Maynard-Brewer, Delianov.
RBs: Pierias, Cleur.
CBs: Deng, Ouzounidis, Ryan, Warland.
LBs: Gersbach, Bandiera.
CMs: Genreau, Tokich, Grozos, Francois.
CAMs: Najjarine, Brook.
RWs: Arzani, Hammond.
LWs: Italiano, Theoharous.
ST: Iredale, Folami.

Minimal disruption for the A-League and other clubs (Deng is the only player in the list that was getting regular senior game time before the squad was announced), and most of these players are playing abroad or at youth level. Most of these are new faces and some have great potential. All are eligible for Tokyo 2020. It would have been a great opportunity to bring a squad like this and put these players on the radar instead of taking A-League players that we already know about.
And since this particular tournament is ultimately meaningless (no youth world cup or direct Olympics qualification from this) it is a good opportunity for experimentation and rotation. And if it ended as a disaster then it is a learning experience for these young players, and there is less fallout because it was an experimental team anyway.

With the actual squad that has been selected, most of them are overrage AND it has disrupted the season of several clubs. If we crash out with the current squad then that is far worse than anything that would have happened with an experimental squad like the one I listed. I cannot see the motive behind some of the selections in the current squad, particularly since (in my opinion) it is not even the best possible squad we could have sent.

Thoughts on having a 3 + 1 rule, but then all of them outside the cap? Would that increase the quality of foreigners across all teams? Or are we just going to see Victory, Sydney FC and City as the only teams getting class marquees? 

Do we add a minimum wage like the Dutch league have/had? To try ands ensure quality of imports. I am not sure that it still stands but the Dutch used to have a lower limit which worked out at about 700 000 ASD on any foreign signing.

@angus

I think it is good and bad

Good if you get it right and the players perform. Also promotes a quality of player

Bad if you get it wrong and over pay someone to reach the minimum. It also takes away the chance of buying/paying players cheap then selling them on.

Two changes to improve options for young Aussie players (other than the obvious increase in number of franchises), and by extension help develop players for the national team(s).

1 - Don't change the number of visa spots, but enforce a match-day selection that only includes 3+1.  As you'll be picking your best visa players standards shouldn't drop too much, and the extra spots mean you have a better chance of getting a good player.

2 - Change the definition of visa player to 'any player ineligible to play for Australia'.  Thus, when a foreign national comes over and sticks around for 5 years, he doesn't suddenly take a place from an Aussie player; also when an 'Aussie' player opts to represent a foreign nation he no longer has the option to use his citizenship to get a run in the A-League at the expense of an Aussie player.

Number 2 is a restraint of trade and the FFA would get taken to court and very quickly that rule would be shot down. If you have citizenship, no matter if you are dual national or not, you can work in any industry.

I agree with number 2.

Smeltz when he was playing and Georgjetski and the Greek Bris and Turk AU and so on.

Also, if Berisha becomes Australian he can never play for Australia.

Many people here have disagreed with it and claimed discrimination. I can't see FFA doing it but it would be good if AFC made such a rule which every country had to follow.

I recon bring the foreign player quota in line with AFC, expand the current squad numbers to 28 - 30 and get rid of that stupid injury waver replacement rule so you have to take from your own youth pool. This will force better coaching development as you want your young players to be able to step up to the first team and over time we should see better young players coming thru.

You want to bey able to replace Bruno F with McCormack not some kid.

In this instance why should MC lose a top player most of the season because some hack did a dirty tackle in the FFA Cup?

Perhaps if MC didn't have access to another foreign player they could invest in a top class Aussie player - perhaps the nations leading international goalscorer might be an option..?  Not sure he'd ever sign for City though.  ;)

A bit of an out there idea but could we not make every spot on the bench have to be an u23?  Would mean minutes for development and the need to recruit and develop kids.

Perhaps we could get more Vietnamese youth playing in the A-League?

The league has a problem with recycling average players rather than imports. We need imports to make the league more attractive as they all usually give us something. Look at Bobo, Adrian, George, Castro, FBK. How Zadkovich has a contract for as long as he did is baffling. 

so many dumb suggestions floating around smh. 

its very straight forward. to produce better players we need to have international breaks because without them coaches will prefer to pick non-internationals (including youth internationals), we need transfer fees because that will provide further incentive to producing and playing young players and we need more teams at a national level ie more teams in the a-league and a second division and a third division etc. 

International breaks might not work too well as far as marketing the competition goes. We're not Europe. Other sporting codes don't have them.
I've never understood why we haven't had transfer fees for contracted players. 

Why is England continually being used as an example?

What has Argentina done in the last two decades? Have they been performing poorly because of foreign players in their local league?

The premise is ridiculous.