Quote Originally Posted by halo se7en View Post
I think his point was that if the Mariners are spending 2.6 million now because they've had to reach a minimum, they could possibly spend 1.5-2 million and still be getting similar players and similar results. The difference is that extra half million could go towards some form of development, or membership drive etc. We might lose some journeymen, but there'd be plenty of NPL players around the country who would bite their arm off for a chance at the a-league and some exposure, and get paid well, but not over the top.
That may be true.
But whatever system you have, you are going to have clubs with more resources than others. Salary cap or no salary cap. In the NSL you had the likes of Marconi who were top of the tree resource wise and Morwell, Breakers at the bottom end.
It is too easy to say that the mariners would probably get the same result with similar players at a lower money level. My guess would be that the results would be a lot worse, as you would have a lot more players earning less but at the same time not up to the required standard.
The better player that did not make it into the "bigger" club (they can only sign so many) would by pass the league altogether and you would have even more players heading off overseas at an earlier age than you do now. This would result in the whole league being a lesser standard.