The A-League needs to eventually compete with the European leagues, it can’t be a poor cousin forever. Obviously it won’t be on the same level as the EPL or Spain, but it needs to compete with the lower leagues. All who don’t have salary caps and don’t go out overspending and subsequently going under. A salary cap is put in place to save owners from themselves, if they can’t run a business without overspending and going under they shouldn’t be in charge of a team in such a cut-throat business.

Don’t quite see how a relegation system affects whether a salary cap would work, no salary cap would still essential work without a relegation system. I do believe the A-League will try to introduce one in 5-10 years. I agree the system is working well for the time being, but it inhibits growth and will be hard to negotiate out of a CBA deal.

How do you compete with the European divisions with a salary cap in place? None of them have a salary cap, so I can’t see how it will work. It’s an obvious disadvantage which could cripple the league. It needs to do away with a salary cap until it’s introduced worldwide. Football is not like it’s dinky counterparts League, AFL and Union…it’s worldwide. We see the top Union talent leaving NZ and Australia because of the low salary cap set by the Super 14s. Football is already a far more international game, with far bigger grounds. Players leave because of the standard, something not necessarily seen in the other codes.

MLS is not the right blueprint for football, Australia doesn’t have the potential market of 300 million odd people.

The salary cap will prevent further investment in new players, limiting the level of play. Sure, it helps level the playing field…but split tv, sponsorship, etc. evenly and set up a pooling fund of a percentage of profits instead.

Football is a different beast, the salary cap eventually needs to go if the FFA wants to compete worldwide. Either that or all leagues need to adopt it through new FIFA guidelines.