Yeah they do. And the fans hate it. Because it's shit. IMO it's something we're doing right. Not wrong. Like the salary cap. Only the wealthy clubs win long term if we change this. This is not the same as being a development club. We should fight any such idea to the death. Short sighted to do otherwise.
"Better to get something now than nothing in a year or two." We don't have a history of losing all our best players on a free. We have a history of giving them long term contracts to ensure when they do break out, we capitalise. I wouldn't have liked to have seen Mile bought by SFC, kick our ass for a year, then get sold OS for more than we got. Or Matty Ryan went to MV after his first season with us...
We'd be forced into those shit awful battles where the player wants to go, but the club doesn't want to make the deal, but the player and dressing room harmony is all but screwed until it essentially takes place. We'd have to change our policy and start standing in players way.
Can't believe you really want this drama in the HAL - especially when we are the club who would have the shortest end of the stick out of ALL the clubs?
Salary cap and transfers different issues.
Transfers:
Why limit our selling opportunities? The Australian market would be our biggest opportunity. Look at Caceras as an example his lack of European passport might limit his overseas opportunities. We can sell to Asia where they only want the best due to their restrictions, lower England leagues have to much choice to spend much and Holland etc also want the best players. A lot of the players we sell are Socceroos or have Socceroos potential. They don't come around all the time. Also we have sold a few times in Jan when the player has been in the last 6 months of their contract therefore reducing the price we would have received and no guarantee they would resign or they did resign based on a condition that we would sell as soon as they found a buyer.
Caceras wanted out for some reasonable reasons that were basically club inflicted but also might have had someone pushing it. He allegedly wanted to go to Syd, we were prepared to let him go if we got players in return, which is fine but does the new player really want to be here (another argument). Sydney getting the shits shows they had him in their sights and might have been niggling at him. We didn't need to cave and possibly wouldn't have and he might have come back and tried harder knowing a line had been drawn or he might have had a bigger sook so hard to tell. Our motto is to sell for profit, so to make us viable we need to sell.
Look at the other end, Fitzy. He obviously was not a sellable commodity but Melb City took him. If there was a transfer system we might have been able to get some money for him. Even 10k is better than the see you later we got. We could sell lesser players to Aussie clubs as well it's not all about the big deals.
All this is what the club wants, fans yeah for sure I don't want them running around for the other clubs but if we don't sell in our contract period they can just walk. Maybe the recent history of everyone going to Syd clouds the judgement
Also a transfer fee goes club to club and has no effect on the player.
So doesn't matter what we get for the sale the buyer still needs to put his contract in the salary cap. If Syd or City want someone bad enough let them pay us what we can get. If the player gets an increase at the new club they might be happy. E.g we might pay Caceras 100k and City might pay him 200k per year. Let City or Syd waste their spare cash on us if they want. Not our problem if the players wage is less than a transfer fee.
Also we don't need to sell. It can be easy to shut down transfer gossip. Jump on the front foot. We are not selling the end stop talking about it.
Look at Dortmund hands off their striker he not for sale don't bother, but Madrid are weak in their comments because they want the chatter.
The risk could be we have to look at longer contracts than present and that could be a problem if they fail.
Ideally the Jan window doesn't exist but that will never happen.
Also
Salary Cap:
Absolutely needs to be kept and strictly. Already the small changes are making an obvious divide in my mind. Think we just lucky Syd and West Syd Marquees aren't as good as City. Overseas recruits are very important atm.
I think the drama already exists in the A League the remedies are just limited to release or swap deal. We might not always want what the other team has to offer.