The Football (all sorts) Thread

[i_amtrunks]

Another way they could look at salary cap exemptions is some sort of loyalty bonus. For example, 10% of a player's salary is excluded from cap calculations for 5 years of service to the club, and 5% more excluded every extra year after that.

It has been raised a few times, and I personally do not see why it would be a bad idea, it encourages a one club player, and those players become a boost to club and fans. I like the setup of your system, 5% every year past 5 years is a good increase, as players barely play for more than 10 years anyway. (at least on the good money).

Aside from the fact that this protects the more established stars, it also serves to encourage player loyalty and provides an incentive for clubs to develop players rather than buy talent without developing any. Some clubs (Raiders, Panthers, formerly Illawarra) develop a bunch of players without any real reward when other clubs buy players without doing much development (Easts mainly, Parramatta to an extent and Melbourne - but they have an excuse to be fair).

I too love this idea, as I am sick of seeing Newcastle, Penrith and Wollongong juniors nabbed by Easts and Manly. Parramatta have a great junior system, but they prefer teams like the dogs and Cronulla to buy them young, train them up, and then Parra buys them back. Melbourne technically have their junior system in South East Queensland.

However it'll never happen as then what would Easts, Manly (and to lesser extents) Cronulla, the Dogs (both not going to last much longer) and Souths do, since they have the smaller or in Easts case, non-existant junior leagues.
And if it won't benefit Easts, then no matter how good for the game it is, it won't happen.

Anyone follow the Benji Marshall saga this week? I understand football players need to earn as much as possible in the 10 years of their careers, but when they are already saying they play too much, it's too contradictory to then want to play Union in Japan during the off-season.