Bit of a shitpost but I have been thinking about this for a while and reckon it could create some interesting results. Lets assume a scenario where the salary cap and the salary floor (and all those regulations that come with it) are gone at the end of this season. No more restrictions on how much clubs can spend, they can now get whoever they can afford. For the sake of it, lets also assume transfers and loans are allowed too.

So what is the best possible starting eleven in the A-League that could be created if a club (e.g. - Melbourne City) could open their pockets entirely without restriction? What are the next best elevens from the next biggest clubs (e.g. - Victory, Sydney, Wanderers) that they can create without being impended by a salary cap? And on the opposite end, what would the most budget starting eleven look like? What about the best eleven of young prospects in this country from a club wanting to nurture young talent and sell them to bigger clubs in the future? 

Using the Transfermarkt Advanced Player Search is very helpful in painting the picture: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche
(sort by Australian nationality to get the list).

 
Use Lineup Builder to create a starting eleven: http://lineupbuilder.com/new.php

Lists for easy access
Goalkeepers: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337485
Rightbacks: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337487
Leftbacks: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337488
Centrebacks: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337489
Defensive Mids: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337491
Central Mids: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337493
Attacking Mids: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337496
Right Wings: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337501
Left Wings: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337498
Centre Forwards: https://www.transfermarkt.com/detailsuche/spielerdetail/suche/8337505
Current Foreign A-League Players: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/a-league/gastarbeiter/wettbewerb/AUS1

You’d immedia see the standard of imports improve from your Victory’s, City, Sydney.

No longer would you have Sanchez’s or bit part players who can play a role for a position that needs filling within the cap.

You would see these clubs have the ability to financially retain these star imports without the need to squeeze or juggle a cap.
Which means we would have to ability to financially retain Leroy George with Asian clubs and other a league clubs sniffing him out.

A thread about not having a salary cap? 10+ pages

For all intents and purposes we do not have a salary capped league. It has been watered down completely. This is what you get. The rich clubs dominate. Why do you think the HAL is stale? The salary cap had a purpose but why pretend anymore - it serves no purpose whatsoever in its current format - just get rid of it.

Trophy would be shuffled between the few rich clubs whilst the rest of the league struggles to compete financially and become basket cases that cant compete. Itll be like the any of the big euro leagues where the league is fractured into have and have nots before its even started minimising the across the board competitiveness. But as pat says the caps been so watered down recently its not really doing what its meant to do anymore. 

I went ahead and made some mock A-League elevens using the Transfermarkt lists, with a couple of stipulations:
> Australian players only
> Choose the highest valued players first 
> No players from the big 5 leagues (Mooy, Ryan, Leckie)
> No players based abroad who are under the age of 25 (since they would be unlikely to return to Australia as they are entering their prime or still have a long career ahead playing abroad)

The best squad according to Transfermarkt:


The next best squad:

  

A cheap squad of A-League squaddies for a club on a shoestring budget:


A squad of promising young players for a club generating revenue through transfer fees:

The other leagues have a full pyramid and we don't,  will the salary cap help us get better in Asia? Just asking for a friend.. 

10/10 clubs lost money last year. It’s only those clubs with big backers that could spend significantly more - SFC, Jets and of course City. Be interesting to see how Victory and WSW responded

What is the best possible squad that could exist in the A-League? What is the second best? Is there a large gap between them? Personally I think no.

Some more questions to consider:
> Would the lack of a cap increase or decrease the amount of players switching between clubs every season? Or would we still see clubs trading players every off-season, via transfer fees instead of swapping?
> How would scrapping the cap effect youth players? Would they remain sparse or would more clubs be willing to integrate young players?
> Would Melbourne City (by far the richest club) really be able to dominate the league by buying all the best players? Or is the gap between the best squad possible and the 2nd best squad possible relatively small?
> What players could realistically come and play in the A-League with no salary cap? Is every Australian player a potential target or are there some players that are still off-limits (like Mooy, Ryan, Rogic, Leckie, etc.)?

For some reason the best available squad (according to Transfermarkt valuations) is not showing in my original post.
 

Wouldn't look much different than it already does now. Your big city/rich clubs at the top and your CCM's and Nix at the bottom. The biggest change would be the increase in quality of foreign players but it wouldn't change so dramatically. Same goes for the quality of local player, would increase a bit but wouldn't change massively.

All the same players receiving 25% more.

Which are the few Rich clubs

Sydney
Melbourne City
Melbourne Victory
WSW
Perth
Brisbane
Newcastle

All these clubs are owned by multi millionaires or billionaires. You said a few.

At least 75% of the players that have gone to Asia would be retained in Australia, for one thing, so I'd think the quality would be fairly better.

It would be a lot better no doubt, but nothing crazy.

I probably should have titled this thread “name the best hypothetical A-League squad if there was no salary cap”.
We talk a lot about how the cap should be scrapped (and I believe it definitely should), but not about what that would then look like in a practical sense. What would the title winning team look like if there was no cap? Would we be bringing home names like Jedinak, Kruse, Oar, Juric, Sainsbury, Spiranovic, etc? And what kind of foreign players could we aim for? Would we see more players akin to ADP, Janko, Villa, etc? Or is that aiming too high?

You’d see inflation of average australian players’ wages, a slightly better retention rate for above average Australians, slightly better foreigners, equal amounts of big name players.

Remember just because the opportunity ma be given to clubs to invest, it’s not inevitable that there will be the investment.

For me I’d like to see foreigners exempt from the cap and 2 australians or something outside the cap in an effort to better retain the quality Australians in the league

Why would they be? And who would be willing to pay more than the wages they get in Asia, particularly China.

Well two options:

The first is it will look exactly like Scotland despite us having a 3+1 rule and the league will be dead by round 2 of the first season. Not only that but despite clubs having no money they'll spend millions they don't have on mediocre players and fold one at a time. Some clubs wont even make it to the first drinks break. City will be awarded the first 25 titles in advance


The second is the biggest football clubs in Australia will be A League clubs. There will be heavy competition between the top 4-5 sides and the quality of the top sides will be like we haven't seen before and cannot imagine. Derbies will be meaningful and top of the table clashes will be epic. We will also be more competitive in the ACL as our best talent is condensed into the top few clubs. We'll also see improvement in all national teams

At the bottom of the table we'll see 2-3 sides like NQF or GCU in their last season and contrary to popular hysteria they will not be missed as we see a like for like replacement each season (assuming P/R is put in place). And if there is no P/R then its not much different to what we see with CCM and WP now. Teams changing the top of the table by handing out points and goal differences. Their attendances and ratings will be low (not much different to bottom teams in the current league) but the average will be up and the Friday / Saturday night content will be valuable

Put bluntly, it'd sh1t all over what we have now - but all the more if HAL clubs are on avg. being coached by better managers than right now.

Put simply, if HoldingBidfielder's 2 strongest HAL squads were being coached by Kenny Lowe I sure as fck wouldn't go out of my way to watch them as a neutral.

Guys we can't have no salary cap because then Sydney, Melbourne Victory and Mebourne City would always be at or near the top of the ladder. 



Like we already fucking have. 

Definitely a good point. What managers in this league could do well in a gig overseas? Merrick? Maybe Kurz?
There are some Aussie coaches that I would really like to see in the league, and could do a better job than the likes of Okon, Aloisi, Lowe, etc.
I want to see Ante Milicic, Mirko Jelicic, John Anastasiadis, Harry Kewell, Arthur Papas, Joe Montemurro, Damian Mori, and Alen Stajcic get chances managing in the A-League. And having Ange back after his stint in Japan would guarantee another entertaining team to watch. Right now there arent any managers who have a philosophy or style of play that was enjoyable like Ange during his Roar days.

Probably assume Adelaide fits that list now aswell.

My bet would be the first option, with MC spending just enough to hold onto top spot and the rest of the teams spending a bit more on the same players they have now. SFC, MV and WSW will fade as they are no longer able to compete with MC and sponsorship will decrease.

"Sponsorship will decrease" Huh?! How do you figure that? How does a scenario where MC would be the biggest football in the country = less sponsorship than current levels?

Typical "fear the boogyman" stuff used to keep us plebs below the bureaucrats 

It would be a disaster. Sponsors and advertisers would be attracted to clubs with large market potential like Melbourne and Sydney, giving them huge sums of money to purchase the best squads and win trophies. Smaller clubs like CCM and Newcastle will get much less investment which means they wont be able to compete in the player market and this will have a deleterious affect on results, gate receipts, merchandise sales, player retention etc. Eventually these clubs will go bust and the A leauge will be contested only by clubs from the major capital cities.

It will be a simple case of haves vs have nots, which is great for the haves and would be utterly miserable for the have nots and their fans. Australia doenst have the culture, tradition or fan density to support this kind of model.

The only way it could feasibly work is if markets like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane were split into at least four teams to create fairness and market parity across the league, so smaller teams have a chance to compete and attract sponsor interest.

He means less sponsorship for the league and the other clubs, not City.

The league would look like this every year if the cap was removed.

City

Daylight

Sydney and Victory will be fighting for 2nd.

WSW and Newy will be fighting for 4th.

Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide fighting for 6th

CCM and Nix will be battling to avoid the spoon.