South to be acknowleged as 20th century Oceania's greatest club

Apparently FIFA botched their Centenary celebrations by not having this casual soiree in 2004, so they're making up for it by acknowledging our awesomeness - and that of some other pissant no name clubs, I think one of them's called Royal Madrid or something - by inviting us to dinner and handing out some golden trinkets.

The other clubs to be invited are Penarol (Uruguay), Asante Kotoko (Ghana), Al-Hilal (Saudi Arabia) and CD Saprissa (Costa Rica). The body which made up the criteria is the FIFA recognised, International Federation of Football History & Statistics. 

Full media release on the South website. They've been sitting on this one for a while, and they're all very excited, and rightly so. Of course, people from all angles are putting their own spin on this honour, but that's the way the game's been played. I'm going to try and enjoy it for what it is, on its own terms. 

And another thing

This is the last word I'll have anywhere online about this. From here on in, just look it up yourselves.

The so called $3000 rule, as it stands, is a myth.

It does not relate to transfers. It relates to development fees, the regulations and gradings of which are implemented by FIFA.

Depending on whether a player signs their first or second professional contract, $3000 or $5000 is split between the clubs they were at between the ages of something like 12 and 21.

Transfers in Australia are capped at 50% of what's remaining on the player's contract. So hypothetically if Carl Recchia (for demonstration purposes only, snigger) signed with us on a 1 year contract at $1000 a game, and an A-League club wanted to snare him 4 weeks before the end of our season, the maximum we could ask for is $1000 - half of what is left due to him.

In reality, it really is just an update of what Paul Wade did back in the day - he'd demand 1 year contracts with a maximum transfer clause - with the added assistance of the Bosman ruling and an over supply of dumb clubs overspending on over the hill park footballers and their counterpart greenhorns who are rightly milking the cash cow for as much and as long as they can.

And just how stupid can these clubs get? Well apart from board member and pleb fan alike still running an incorrect line 5 long years after it all went to shit, there are clubs who still insist on paying their players under the table payments, which in the event that a player is picked up by an A-League club, they can't sell him for what they're actaully paying him! It's fucking genius stuff.