Wouldn’t it be more understandable in a smaller league? Those managers coulda gone to any other half-decent club in England (and realistically Europe too since flying around Europe isn’t too far) but chose the rival of their former club. Moreover, Europe has plenty of quality managers and the clubs chose to hire ex-managers of their rivals. Ditto for players, Arsenal and Spurs didn’t have to buy Chelsea rejects.
276 (max) to be precise. 216 being the minimum (depending on club budgets).
There's also no guarantee that a professional VFL player will actually make it to the AFL but for fully professional football players there's always lower division leagues for them to go to instead of the top flight.
That’s because the only pro and semi-pro Aussie rules leagues are in Australia.
So a kid at 10 is 4 times as likely to be a professional footballer in Australia if he chooses AFL? THATS sad.
Hopefully the upcoming collective bargaining agreement update means that our players in the Dub and A-League Men get a fair go ahead of next season but we'll have to wait and see what the PFA and APL have agreed on first.
Oh forgot the link haha one moment
The PFA want 18 players on senior contracts in playing lists but the APL only want 16 contracted players in addition to no designated marquee players altogether as well as abolishing loyalty and homegrown players, and locking scholarship players to their club's farm system.
Better not have any injuries then. 18 seems way too thin of a squad for an entire season.
It's only 18 players on senior contracts but the expectation is that the playing lists will comprise more than just the senior contracted players so at least there is depth to cover the entirety of the A-League season.
18 is already the current minimum. Although I doubt any clubs are ever at the minimum.
