Paying players in local football - Part 1

The silly season has begun, cheque books are being waved and frantic club chairmen are desperately seeking new blood in the hunt for glory, or to avoid relegation.

Am I a month late?  Hardly, the pre-season horse trading that has characterised recent iterations of the Central League and Capital Premier League has begun again in earnest.  But with the financial viability of the NZFC again in question, and considering the parlous state of many grounds around Wellington it is time to question seriously the necessity of paying players at club level and ask how it serves club members and football as a whole.

As incorporated societies clubs do not have to file financial statements (although some do) and as such it is difficult to gauge the exact nature of the various amounts on offer at different clubs.  But all of us who've played football in Wellington are used to a familiar scenario; an unusual face turns up in an unusual place for pre-season training fuelling speculation that inducements have been offered.  We all know players who've boasted about some wedge in the back pocket, or served on committees where the matter has been discussed.  

The fact is, the majority of clubs in Wellington pay players to play football, in grades as low as Capital 1.  The sums are generally small, and often in the form of win bonuses.  But, at times the financial rewards are substantial, they are getting larger and across all clubs across a season a significant amount of money is lost to the game every year.  How are amateur players in amateur leagues, funded substantially by charitable gaming trusts expecting and receiving payment for turning up on a Tuesday and a Thursday and playing on a Saturday?

I should at this point declare my own interest, I have been paid for two seasons in Capital Premier.  This is not a boast, those who have seen me play will know that I have nothing to boast about, but a prime example of how poorly judged the allocation of funding can be.  Each week we won it cost the club more than $600, more than $6000 for the season.  Not a huge amount, but meanwhile our second team played in a mismatched kit, our training ground was ramshackle and when it rained we didn't train.  

I enjoyed receiving the brown paper envelope with two twenties, which was often spent over the bar at Karori Park.  But I found it odd then, and I feel much more strongly now observing the game from afar, it is a waste of money.

Let's get this straight.  Bringing in good players in an attempt to increase standards or to coach is a Good Thing.  What I object to is the routine and unnecessary payment of average players at amateur level to do no more than turn up to training and play on a Saturday. 

Recently, a well known Wellington player missed half a season because no-one would meet his five figure price tag for Central League football.  Clubs in Capital Premier have offered substantial four figure sums for players to transfer.  By all accounts the Northern League is worse - anecdotally many players have skipped the NZFC because they can earn more playing winter football.  Rumour has it that an ex-Knights player, not good enough for the NZFC, has demanded a $4000 signing on fee at his winter club this year. 

In Wellington, clubs seem to believe that they need to pay players to be taken seriously.  Wairarapa United, one of the few clubs who can argue that they have improved the region's playing stocks with the signing of numerous pacific islanders, have stated their intention to attack the Central League in 2009 with a budget of up to $160,000.  Wharfies are pursing players aggressively.  Peering through club's financial statements (which are available at www.societies.govt.nz) some interesting gems appear.  

In 2006, Naenae spent $45,500 on "coaching" of their approximately $150,000 income (incidentally of which around $100,000 was in charitable grants) and a further $6,807 on international travel when their first team finished 7th in Capital 1.  International travel.  For Naenae.  In Capital 1.  

Lower Hutt spent over $100,000 on an unsuccessful 2008 Central League campaign including $41,000 on coaching, more than the total spent on the rest of its senior club.  Napier's figure was $83,000.  This is not a witch-hunt, I'm merely highlighting some items of interest (which are similar at other clubs), but these are astonishing figures in amateur competitions.

We now have a generation of footballers who expect to be paid for their services, and are willing to tout themselves around the region to get the best deal.  But I don't blame the players.  Players are only worth what someone is willing to pay them, if the clubs didn't create a market then the players themselves would have no bargaining power.  Although there is very little competition from outside the region for players, and few if any would leave for footballing reasons alone, a thriving, and frankly absurd, club led demand has developed.

Let's not forget that the NZFC was introduced because clubs had demonstrated that the win-at-any-cost mentality pursued to seek promotion to the old National League was unsustainable.  Clubs have shown in the past that given a sniff of success they will abandon organic growth and look for a quick, and often disastrous, fix.  In recent years both Gisborne City and Richmond City have spent big money attracting out of town players in the Central and Mainland Leagues respectively, and then had that funding conspicuously withdrawn, leaving them back where they started. 

Gisborne were bankrolled by Auckland based businessmen, employing Kevin Fallon and a host of Auckland based players and ferrying them round on a private jet.  Those days ended when an invitation into the NZFC was not forthcoming.  

Richmond brought Alick Maemae, Nelson Salae, Jeremy Brockie and Benjamin Totori to Nelson in 2007 before a fraud investigation by the Securities Commission led to the mid-season withdrawal of the backer.  The club was barely able to raise the funds necessary to complete the season.  The players involved never played for the club again and neither Richmond nor Gisborne play in either of those leagues in 2009, life is back to where it always was.  

Although the money was provided by external sources, the substantial financial investment had very little benefit to either club or to football in general.

And all of this when our flagship semi-professional competition that is on its knees through lack of funding and more and more of the best young players overseas at college in the states.  Players are being paid more as the standard has diminished.  

Where once players with experience in professional environments were brought from overseas, guys like Tim Butterfield, Graham Little and Spud Murphy, increasing the quality of play we now have a finite pool of players moving between neighbouring clubs for ever - increasing amounts (witness the recent exchanges between Stop Out and Lower Hutt and the pursuit of New Zealand under 20 players temporarily in Wellington prior to the Olympics last season).  

How has the situation been allowed to develop?