Greens call for visa quota
Written by Craig MacKenzie / Vol.7 No.17

CON BIOS and John Ioannou were grim-faced when we sat down in the Bentleigh Greens committee room on Friday night for a meeting they had initiated.
Their demeanour took me by surprise. A few minutes earlier the final whistle had sounded which was a cue for the Greens players and supporters to start celebrating a resounding 4–0 VPL win over Melbourne Knights who had ended the match with 10 men.
It was a night to remember for the home team but a Knight to forget for visiting goalkeeper Martin John who had questions to answer for three Greens goals, twice caught out in the air and once on the deck.
After the match the double doors leading to the Greens dressing room were thrown open and supporters streamed in to join in the chanting and backslapping. A beaming John Anastasiades looked well pleased with the night’s work.
Soon Greens president Bios and team manager Ioannou left the happy throng and were now sitting in the committee room with me.
It didn’t take long to find out why they shared such serious looks. Bios opened proceedings by naming the six players that had left the club in the previous fortnight.
Ioannou then explained the circumstances of their departures. Here in part, is what I was told.
Bentleigh alleges that Stuart Nicholson agreed to stay a fortnight back and the club paid a bond on his accommodation only to find the next day that Nicholson had signed for State One outfit Whittlesea for a purported $4000 signing-on fee.
“He kept saying that he would stay then suddenly we found out that he’d gone,” said Ioannou.
The other departures were James McGarry and Ryan Davidson to Bulleen, Tom Matthews to South Melbourne, Sean McIlroy to Heidelberg and Hayden Doyle to Oakleigh.
The exits of McIlroy and Doyle didn’t come as a shock because Heidelberg coach George Katsakis and Oakleigh general manager Aki Ionnas had the good grace to contact Bentleigh and alert the club to their interest in these players.
And the Matthews switch to Souths didn’t come as a shock either albeit that the Greens found the circumstances of his departure extremely disappointing. Matthews had told Greens three weeks before his move that Souths were keen to get him. What annoyed Bentleigh was its claim that once Matthews raised the alarm the club contacted Souths only to have the mooted move denied.
That alleged denial didn’t amount to much come the opening of the VPL transfer window.
Then there’s the matter of Davidson’s switch to Bulleen. As an aside let me tell you that Davidson’s career here has been colourful to say the least.
Not long after arriving from Scotland to play for Dandenong Thunder he was involved in a claim that he played under a false name in a State One game that Thunder won.
The FFV threw out that claim when an affidavit was lodged saying that when the game in question was being played Davidson was holding a coaching clinic at Sandringham City’s juniors.
What is remarkable about that affidavit is that at the time I phoned then president of Sandy juniors, Renato Fonti, who told me that as far as he was concerned no such clinic took place.
That same season Sandy seniors played Thunder in a friendly at George Andrews Reserve and I have to say that the Ryan Davidson I saw that night bore a stunning likeness to a player that scored in the match at the centre of the controversy. What an amazing coincidence, eh?
But fast forward to the present and Davidson is now at Bulleen. Bentleigh claims that the former Hearts player spoke to them to see if they could match the Bulleen offer but the Greens refused to do so.
Bentleigh now believes that Davidson was offered $900 a game with Bulleen, $2500 to sign on and a further $2500 if the Italian-backed outfit won promotion.
On the playing side Bentleigh’s response to all of this has been to sign Alex Rojas, Luke Pilkington, Michael Gwyther and Ryan de Vries.
There now are half a dozen under-21 players in the senior squad and Ioannou claims that Anastasiades has had a remarkably positive effect on the players.
“Johnny A has brought the dressing room together. It’s all down to him. He’s given the boys a lot of self-belief and in my time here I’ve never seen the playing group as close as this,” he said.
“From the very first session he told the boys that the long ball was out. He told them if he saw someone play a long ball he’d fine them $10 and the players reacted well to that. You could see how we played in the second half tonight. It was great to watch.”
But it is the club’s off-field response to the comings and goings that may well have a lasting effect.
“I have learnt a lot this year,” said Bios. “I’m not going to have all these visa players in my team when I have three under-18 teams with nowhere for our young boys to go.
“And the visa players don’t have contracts so they can walk out on you anytime.”
Bentleigh has met with Football Federation Australia about this matter and senior coach Anastasiades and some other VPL coaches will soon meet with Football Federation Victoria president Nick Monteleone to discuss the same topic.
Bios and Ioannou want a quota placed on the number of visa players at a club, much like there was many years ago.
They argue that a team stacked with visa players simply stops younger local players from developing and they claim to have broad support throughout the VPL. They acknowledge the quality that most visa players bring to the spectacle but are adamant that FFA must step in and place a quota on their numbers.
“I think next year something might happen about this,” Bios told me.
Bios recently held a meeting with two remaining visa players, Jack Webster and Wayne Wallace. Bentleigh re-affirmed its commitment to the players and the club claims that the players reciprocated.
But while the State One transfer window remains open Bios remains cautious.
Bentleigh has been receiving calls from two prominent coaches telling the club that they are going to lose all their visa players. The club now dismisses these as crank calls and does not want to name the coaches involved.
I’m sure many readers will be able to take an educated guess and in most instances come up with the right names. Just think about two prominent figures involved in the cattle market for players shunted over here from the UK.
But Bios and Ioannou want FFV to do more than implement a ceiling on the number of visa players allowed at each club.
They want the rules of competition changed to make it mandatory that three or four under-21 players be named on the senior team sheet for every game.
And in my view they are on the money.
Not only has such a rule the potential to widen another development pathway for young players it also can save clubs considerable outlays given that these youngsters would not command as much money as experienced players.
But that’s all in the future and it remains to be seen how the powers that be will act.

An inconvenient truth
AFTER meeting with Bios and Ioannou I started thinking about the VPL and State One competitions.
They are the only competitions under the FFV banner that are allowed to have contract players albeit that many of the players in these leagues are not under contract. In other words they are amateurs.
It is unpalatable for FFV, I know, but there is an inconvenient truth about our sport here, one that is usually only mentioned in hushed tones in dimly lit alleyways.
And it is simply this – the two pillars on which our showcase league and State One are built are tax avoidance and a flagrant breach of the rules of competition.
The match payments floated in this column are going to non-contract players who are not supposed to be paid more than $100 a game. As for taxing their payments, well, what do you think happens?
And all of this takes place under a veil of legitimacy where leading administrators, politicians and sponsors pat each other on the back and pontificate about how well the sport is developing.
You can be involved in Victorian football without having a sense of the ridiculous but I can assure you it helps to have one.
While the onus is not on FFV to do something about the tax situation it can open its eyes to the realities of competition and lobby FFA to do likewise.
Those bodies need to acknowledge that capping payments to non-contract players at $100 is ludicrous. On top of that it is impossible to police.
It makes a farce of our rules of competition. Its continued existence and FFV’s failure to enforce it open up the federation and our sport to public ridicule.