Point being, if you’re spending the floor because that’s all your club can afford (ie Mariners), you don’t have to worry about excluding anybody from anything, marquee or designated or home grown. You want to count every dollar. The clauses are all written so that “up to” x dollars or players or percentages are excluded, not everyone who fits the bill.
Entering a period of austerity while still seemingly beholden to spending agreements dictated by the post-ADP/Cahill/peak-Fox/expansion/pre-COVID period, I would be surprised if (m?)any clubs, even us, are looking to max out all exceptions.
Interesting side-note that I came across while looking for the actual salary cap for this season (the official Salary Cap System page on the website is broken for me, or maybe for everyone), I noticed this in the PFA’s announcement of the current CBA (emphasis mine):
The five-year CBA sets the foundation required to re-launch the professional leagues following a period of significant uncertainty, while providing flexibility to continue to enhance the CBA through an annual review for the W-League and a mid-term review for the A-League following the 2023/24 Season.
I think Rodwell is perfect for the 5th visa spot (if he is willing to stay for close to minimum wage). I think at most we need 4 foreigners - Lolley, CF, LW and DM (to replace Brattan). Our midfield 3 or Caceras, Holman and Brattan is quite strong. Only weakness is Brattan is getting old. It would be silly to recruit a visa player for RB or LB as we have adequate options in Grant and King. Our centre back pairing should be JCP and Matthews - one is the Australian U23 centre back and the other is a better player! I think it’s pointless to recruit a new visa player to sit on the bench behind these two, to only play if there is an injury. Rodwell however may actually be ok with that situation - surely he has loads of money and what else is he going to do for a career. At least in this scenario he can have some kind of mentoring role that eventually turns in to some sort of coaching role.
Matthews heavily rumoured too. Gurd coming back is great for depth if they both go, but we’ll still almost certainly be in the market for a starting CB again and possibly another depth signing. If Rodwell is happy to extend on low coin, I’d honestly keep him for the depth signing if we can get an Australian CB in (or if we keep JGR and Matthews somehow).
Rodwell has missed 63% of the games for Sydney FC (regular league) through either being injured or not being chosen due to injury recovery. 63% in two years. And to make it funnier, he’s missed more games year after year.
Year 1 (WSW): Missed 12 games
Year 2 (SFC): Missed 15 games
Year 3 (SFC): Missed 18 games
How the flying f*ck are we even discussing this? There is zero return on money, we’re wasting resources in treating him and he’s taking up a spot. You guys do realise that if Rodwell was gone last year, we very much would have kept Adamson yes? That’s what Rodwell’s presence gives us. He takes up a spot, we pay him a salary to do nothing and we hope he gets better.
Brattans getting old - 34, but Rhyan Grants not far off that too.
All this is hyper dependent on Matthews and JGR staying next season. The club has already reportedly received 2 offers, reported to be in the 7 figure region for JGR.
Even if we keep Matthews and JGR on for next season and they stay fit, do we really want to be spending any money on a player and waste a foreign player who is a glorified bench warmer?
Send him off into the sunset. I would hate to see us spend a nickle more than we have to on him based on what we’ve seen.
You’ve got to be kidding, right? He’s played like 500 minutes this season out of a possible 2700, and not been overly impressive in any of them. Oh, and he isn’t cheap, either.
It’s an especially odd take given this comment later on in your post
But you want to keep Rodwell who only plays the amount of minutes a squaddie would, anyway? I don’t understand.
Then in that case, he would’ve accepted a minimum wage at the Wanderers, and with Sydney FC. For sure, that did not happen in either case. Why would it now?
Caceres will be 32 by Round 1. 2 out of 3 players starting over 30 in the middle of the park isn’t ideal given the high-energy game Talay wants to play. In an ideal world, we would get another, under-30s player that can help rotate the minutes between those three. Whether its feasible or not is another matter.
His injury record is not some sudden revelation to anyone paying attention. People already knew he was crocked. He should’ve already been on pretty low coin, to be honest, given the very low chances of him playing more than half a season. Wanderers and Sydney FC bowed to Rodwell’s demands in the past. Why would he suddenly accept half of his salary now? The rest of the league has also seen how flimsy his fitness is and will surely have nothing to do with him. His last chance in this league is probably Auckland.
I can guarantee that ABJ or one of his contacts can find at least half a dozen players on Rodwell’s money that are currently better, fitter and willing to play for that salary in his position. There is no reason whatsoever to even consider a contract extension for Rodwell. He’s past it, he hasn’t played more than half of the league games for a single season in seven years, he’s wasting a not inconsiderable amount of salary cap money, and he’s wasting a vital foreign spot.
He was a marquee or designated player there. I think he was on ~$500k pa. He didn’t resign with then because he wanted more money. He then signed here, late in the offseason…
Perhaps take this with a pinch of salt but Salary Sport claims he’s on $503k AUD a year (aka £265,200). As much as I’m shitting on wasting money on an injured/past-it foreign player, even I have a little trouble believing that. I’d believe it more if it was $300k-$350k.
This is saying he was offered $400k a year with WSW for a two year contract. Sydney would have had to beat that if they wanted him to move, and I can assume they didn’t beat it by $1k… It’d be realistic for him to be on $450k-$500k a year with us if not more…
I don’t know what I was expecting to see in this thread, but people seriously suggesting that we should keep Rodwell wasn’t one of them.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen arguments along the lines of “if we can get them near minimum wage…” Not happening. Brosque was a one off, never to be repeated.
Surely the argument isn’t “he might play for cheap to repay the club out of the kindness of his heart” but “he might play for cheap because there aren’t better offers which allow him to continue playing professionally without leaving or uprooting his settled family”?