Double Edged Sword
Without kicking a ball this week’s events exemplified the eleven year history of our premier domestic competition.
Monday morning Melbourne City was the destination for many with the golden boy of Australian football, Tim Cahill turning out for his first training run at his new home. Apart from 9.81 seconds the media attention in Melbourne was firmly focussed on the Socceroos all time goal scorer and how he would approach the A-League for the very first time in his distinguished career.
Melbourne City took the well timed opportunity to release their new kit, present the majority of the squad and basically take the day for all it’s worth, and rightly so. The signing of Cahill shouldn’t be underestimated with City now a genuine title contender and more importantly for the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) a crowd drawing team.
Whilst those at FFA HQ were basking in press release glory and dreaming up new territories for marketing opportunity a storm was brewing up North, albeit an all too familiar storm. Managing director Daniel Cobb was sacked by the Bakrie group and before you could open the back pages to Cahill’s signing you were online reading about the latest Roar saga and how a club had once again let their fans and the remainder of the league down.
It wasn’t so much about the events of the day but the many chances the FFA have given the Bakrie group to get their house in order. For too long now the FFA has stood by and watched Brisbane self destruct on an annual basis with financial troubles and here they were in Melbourne throwing money at some of the richest men in world football.
Whilst the Cahill deal is a very good business decision it doesn’t help the development of the league if Brisbane is allowed to continue their current cycle. If you don’t think this issue has taken its toll on the Brisbane fans check out our membership tracker and remember only a few seasons ago Brisbane were the premier team in the competition. A trickle over one thousand members have signed with the club and the current situation won’t grow this number.
The FFA cannot ignore this saga whilst selling fans Tim Cahill coming to the A-League.
This also brings up the ‘Tim Cahill’ third marquee rule. The FFA need to announce some type of criteria to appease fans and counteract any City based favouritism. Whilst sound financial decisions need to be made when the money of the FFA is involved, the other nine clubs need to be given the same opportunity afforded to City.
If City is the only club to take advantage of the third marquee player they will have a distinct advantage over the remainder of the completion but if it comes out that the FFA has denied multiple requests from other clubs regarding the third marquee the move could potentially backfire against the league, Tim Cahill and Melbourne City. Instead of creating a positive environment for Cahill returning to Australia the FFA could create a negative by-product via the ‘third marquee’ ruling.
With Cahill remaining an active Socceroos player it does muddy to waters to who the FFA adjudge worthy of an FFA marquee position with him provided more value than a player who has retired from international duty such as Brett Holman or a lesser international player who would still be as valuable as Cahill on the pitch. Introducing a third marquee player is a double edged sword for the FFA and Cahill remains the only candidate when October comes around the pressure will be on City’s Number 17.
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