Every club is losing money so only those prepared to lose even money would benefit from the removal of the cap (ignoring for now the possibility the distribution may go up next season).

That’s likely to mean only SFC and City would make use of the increase. WSW could dip in to their owners pockets and spend more.

Jets and Adelaide are in belt tightening mode and it’s unlikley charlesworth would spend more at CCM, same with Nix.

Glory are probably at breaking point with Sage blowing his budget this year and unlikely to increase spending next year even if the distribution goes up.

Roar probably have the second wealthiest owners in the league but they’ve never loosened the purse strings on big marquees although they’ve always funded 2 to the tune of $1.2m+ each year

Victory are probably the mystery, would their owners splash the cash?

Why do people think clubs will go bankrupt if the cap is dropped? All clubs except MV are losing a lot of money now. The cap doesn't prevent clubs from losing money. Apart from marquee players clubs don't even spend their own money on salaries. All clubs currently receive grant money as well as have their travel expenses covered by the FFA. The clubs currently receive enough money to cover the salary of every player on their roster (excluding marquees). So because neither CCM or NIX have marquees this season, they are effectively spending $0 of their own money on player salaries this season.

As for scrapping the cap, it shouldn't be done without introducing FFP at the same time. I'd argue that FFP should be in place even with a salary cap.

If the cap is scrapped, why would clubs like MV, MC and SFC suddenly start spending big? What would be the incentive? There is no prize money. They don't get a share of finals ticket sales. There is no risk of relegation. The only incentive is the ACL in which the prize money for winning is US$4M (US$2M for runner up). Hardly a reason to go out and spend big. I believe the spending increases we would see would be more about retaining players and signing longer contracts. This has two huge positives. Firstly it means clubs have a better opportunity to receive a decent international transfer fee if/when players leave for overseas. The second positive is an increase in fan engagement. Fans (especially the young ones) want to be able to get behind their favourite players. Clubs need genuine team heroes. That doesn't happen now as players are lucky to stay at a club for more than 2 seasons.

As it stands right now, many things needs to change for genuine growth to occur. The league has grown as far as it can under the current format. No amount of expansion will fix that. Actual changes need to happen. The cap is just one of those changes. Getting rid of it entirely may not be the best option but it definitely requires a major overhaul. Nobody is benefiting at the moment.

Removing the cap should coincide with introduction of transfer fees and promotion and relegation.
Otherwise you end up with another distorted competition.
If you have no cap and no transfer fees,then the smaller clubs will die.All their best players will be be stolen for nothing and the disparity between top and bottom teams will be bigger than what we have already.
Imagine a top team with a squad of all the best Australian players and top foreigners against an npl standard Roar and CCM.Think about it!
It would be 10-0 each week.
You have to have the whole football pyramid with transfer fees first.You have to relegate the worst team or the whole game will be a joke.

@ crimson

Agree, removing the cap is just one of a series of measures that need to be introduced around the same time. The other one is add to the list is prize money - say $1m for finishing top, $100k for finishing bottom.

It’s funny how the discussion is about clubs like CCM spending at the bottom end of the cap and clubs like City, Perth and SFC getting marquees etc. Doesn’t that show the cap is broken?

No because CCM were close to spending the cap, McCormack may have even been a marquee. It shows that the floor is broken.

On paper CCM should be doing a lot better than what they are. This shows that the coaching staff is incompetent, the culture is toxic and the scouting and transfer team isn't great either.

The clubs are hand picked for the A League, chosen for their ability to meet certain criteria and prove the ability to manage the clubs. Why then would these clubs then just suddenly go bankrupt because they lack the understanding of how money works?

Why wasn't question 1 on the exam for club owners a puzzle about little Johnny having $50 and whether or not he could buy $100 worth of stuff?

This notion of clubs going bankrupt by overspending is so fucking stupid I can't even take it seriously anymore. No club has gone broke trying to win the A League even though there has been ample opportunity to do so

The biggest reason for the Lowy's removal was the vote of no confidence in the entire football community. Empty your pockets here and let me run the game because you can't be trusted. The salary cap is a legacy to that mindset

I would be happy for CCM to spend $2 million on the cap and get a marquee coach and spend on their development academies. Preferable to what they have now.

I don't get people saying that the big clubs spending big on quality players would be a bad thing .
If you have a few teams who are very good ...others will have to lift their games to compete.
I think it would raise he standard of the league overall .
It would also mean our young Aussie players would be up against much better players each week.
This would be great for our National team chances.

It would also get crowds more interested in watching as the standard raises.

At present clubs can spend what they want on good coaches ...but they don't ....why ?
The better coaches don't want to come here.
I think we could attract far better coaches to our league if they know they can buy decent imports and produce better teams .
Also clubs currently probably figure why spend a fortune on a coach only to have him coaching below par players ?

I see no downsides to getting rid of the cap ( I would have financial prudence rules along the lines of the Euro model though).

If we have a "few teams" (I think only 3 will be very good) are very good then the rest of the teams will be weaker as a result. We're not like Europe where we can buy a heap of overseas players. This means that the cost of Australian players will increase and clubs WON'T be able to improve as they don't have the funds to compete because the richest clubs will monopolise all of the best Australian talent. The 3 top teams will improve but the rest of the league will be weaker as a result thus reducing the quality of the league. Crowds for most teams will drop as the standard of football will be lower as well as most clubs being stuck in mid-table before eventually being relegated. 

We don't need to attract foreign coaches either, we need to give more Australian coaches a chance.

In principle there is nothing wrong with letting clubs spend all they want.But we are stuck with a closed league where underachievers dont get relegated and dont have fear of relegation.
We sit here watching CCM dismantled by WP.Not a big spending club.
Thats the problem.
If a lot of clubs spend up big and CCM remains the same,how can we tolerate them getting absolutely decimated by 10+ goals game after game?
We are stuck because of this closed league.
Either we unleash all the restraints so clubs can reach their full potential.But endure weekly massacres or we plod on in damage control until all the ducks are in a row and we can then unleash the restraints.
The first option risks ridicule and the second a dead league with no fans.

Garbage

With 18 Australian players per club you are effectively saying there are only 54 good players in Australia. The whole point of the 4+1 rule is to prevent teams from buying the league. They must instead use local talent which keeps things more even

Yet you are proposing that the opposite is true

The only way it will grow is if we open it up and we allow the top teams to bring in revenue to share with everyone, through broadcast revenue and through transfer fees.

Crowds aren't going to get any worse than they are now.

The rest of the league will improve as well because players will be exposed to the top 3 squads regularly. This is how standards improve. You have the best teams setting the benchmark and the other clubs pushing that limit. 

I don't think the other clubs in the comp will simply sit idle and battle for 4th spot. They will grind out results against these top 3, neutralise their threats etc. Australian players will improve because of that.

Trickle down doesn't work and never has. It works in a boom bust cycle and after a while a recession occurs. This is how the Great Depression and Great Recession occurred.

Nope. They will play against those sides a handful of times during the season while playing against weaker sides most weeks. The other clubs can't reach those benchmarks because they don't have the funds.

The best local players are still a lot better than the worst and clubs will still buy the league which will result in a sizeable increase in player wages which the poorer clubs won't be able to compete with.

Saying that clubs can't buy the league with the 3+1 rule is ridiculous and one of the dumbest things I've seen posted on here.

25% of the time, which is more than a handful. As for the remaining 75% of the time, those 'weaker' sides will be playing at the same standard as well.

As for not having the funds, then it forces those clubs to use their resources better - better talent identification, tactics from coaches, etc.  

It does but they still won't be able to compete. In most leagues, the same teams are at the top every season because they have the most money.

Not all the good players will go to the big clubs, some will opt for guaranteed playing time at smaller clubs over playing off the bench/being a rotation player at a big club.

The occasional player will but most will want to be at one of the few clubs that could actually win silverware, even if they are a bench/squaddie.

You have just described every league in the entire world.

That's how it works. 

Smaller teams need to improvise to try and compete and that's reality.

Socialism The League does not work

It sure as hell works better than those leagues where most clubs have no chance of winning anything because they have less money.

You shouldn't reward clubs just because they have a rich owner. That's like giving a billionaire free money.

Demonstrably untrue.

Go have a look at the national teams of China, Japan and Korea. All of these leagues have operated without a salary cap thus far. Of the domestic-based national team players (the "best" local players, you would assume), they are spread out over a number of clubs. 

You're suggesting that Sydney, Victory and City will hoover up all local talent and leave the other clubs with scraps, when this isn't in the case overseas. All of their national teams pick players from the variety of domestic clubs, so why do you think that if it doesn't occur overseas it is going to occur here?

It works if you implement policies that ensure resources are redistributed. Unless the whole world plays under a $3million salary cap then we are just tying our hands behind our back and saying that we don't want to be part of global revenue streams.

But that never ends up happening. It works in theory but not when it's actually implemented. It always exacerbates inequality.

So what is your idea to increase revenue given that our TV revenue is likely to fall by about 50%

Just to add to that. Aussie players with ambition will push to Europe. That's not gonna make it easy for 3 big clubs. Look at City now. With all their support and financial firepower, they are rubbish. 

Also, even with the salary cap in place now, SFC and MV are consistently in the top 4. The current system is broken and we're better off adopting a model like the rest of the world rather than constantly trying to patch up a broken system. 

Chinese NT has 7 players from Guangzhou Evergrande with 6 more being called up in the last year. 
Beijing Gouan has 4. 
Shandong has 4.
Shanghai SIPG has 2. Had 3 before Wu Lei moved to Spain.

Half of the Chinese NT are from two clubs and 15 of 23 players are from 3 clubs.

Japan and Korea's NT largely play overseas. Looking at the domestic based in Korea's most recent squad and their recent call up's, 9 out of 27 are from Jeonbuk. Japan has a more even representation but the Japanese league is probably one of the most competitive in Asia if not the world.

Sydney spent a few years in mediocrity. Victory have been successful because they're the best run club imo. CCM have struggled because they are poorly run and most of their employees who make the big decisions are incompetent. Didn't Perth struggled in the early years of the league due to issues off the pitch?