morell wrote:Jetters wrote:I don't understand how paying players gets mentioned in this story, or why clubs that don't pay players wear it as a badge of honour.
Then you don’t understand what the word honour means.
If you don’t, the etymology is actually quite interesting – it is an nonfigurative idea which is related to a perception of your (or your social frameworks) worthiness and respectability. You are given standing based on your harmony related to specific set of moral codes of the society at large. Deeper than that it is actually related to the concept of the human condition, and, as hard as it is for big tough burly footballers to accept, love.
In simpler terms, having some players paid and some not, or having some clubs pay and some not, breaks the harmony of the social construct. So when a club or player expresses “we don’t players” with a sense of pride, it is probably related to the fact that they see the others parties as causing disharmony by paying, which creates a concept of being unfair and are therefore … dishonourable.
And I for one agree. Having such disharmony between what clubs do and do not do for success, in particular in the lower divisions, is ruining the fabric of the D6 league, the SAAFL competition in general and the sport as a whole.
Jetters wrote:When asked why is the club not going well, the answer is not 'because we don't pay players' it's 'no one (or no one good) wants to play for us'. Clubs obviously invest their $$ in whatever they think is best for the club, if they think paying players vs facilities, equipment, juniors etc is the best way to do it, then why wouldn't you?
If you say 'we would like to pay players, but we dont have the $$', the answer is still not 'because we don't pay players' its 'we can't raise enough money to be competitive'. So your club off field is too weak vs the competition.
If you want people to play for the love of the club vs $$, you have to make your club more valuable to those people than the $$ they are being offered. So if they leave its still not because you dont pay players, its because the players don't value the club highly enough. And really, how much can div 7 footballers be paid? Surely stuff all, so if they are leaving to get paid stuff all elsewhere, they must not care too much about the club.
These are such simplistic and naive arguments they borderline on the obtuse. Summing the problems Angle Vale (and many other clubs, including Mitchell Park) are facing into a simple equation like you have is a bit like saying you can fly to the moon because of e = mc2. There are many complicated issues at play here, most of which are beyond the control of the affected clubs.
But, your last statement about making the club more valuable to footballers than the $$ being offered is, despite being overly simplistic, still somewhat accurate. The problem being, however, that creating a club which has footballers value it more than the $$$ being offered is becoming increasingly difficult to do. As has been widely discussed, clubs are prepared to pay more and more, clubs in lower divisions are paying more and more. Employment, family, travel all factor in here to sway the pendulum well and truly in favour of the clubs that do pay.
So you could have the happiest, friendliest, best run little club in town, and still not be able to compete in the division you have been put in simply because of other clubs willingness to pay coin – uh, oh disharmony!
“So pay some coin!” I here the pundits cry. OK, so MPFC pay coin in 2015. We go ok, do well in D7, come back to D6 if we’re lucky, pay more coin to stay competitive in D6 2016, maybe pay more again in 2017 to win the flag and go up to lofty dizzying heights of D5! Woo hoo! Pay a bit more to stay competitive. Pay a bit more again, pay a bit more, pay a bit more, pay a bit more etc then WHAM! Tipping point, bubble bursts, “peak player” occurs and you get Kilburn. And Brahma Lodge.
As a sport we have well and truly lost our way if this is the model we are espousing as the best way to move forward.
