Con calls for end of of service

THE NEWCASTLE HERALD

By Robert Dillion and Renee Valentine

NEWCASTLE Jets owner Con Constantine says it it time for Football Federation Australia to abolish service agreements and instead increase the salary cap for A-League clubs.

Each club is entitled to use service agreements third-party sponsorships for players that are collectively worth $450,000 a season and are not included in the $1.8 million salary cap.

Constantine, who has been criticised for refusing to use service agreements, wants them scrapped and the salary cap increased to cover the shortfall.

"Service agreements put the clubs in a difficult position," Constantine said yesterday. "I don't believe having a service agreement in place does any justice to the club.

"Give us a salary cap increase, maybe $400,000 or $500,000, that everyone can work from. That way it is all transparent and we can go from there."

Constantine argued that clubs such as Newcastle find it much tougher to compete for third-party corporate support than big-city teams like Sydney and Melbourne.

"They're dealing with four or five million our region is 250,000 people," Constantine.

"It's not giving us a fair go. But besides all that, it should be all open and transparent.

"Everyone should know from the word go how much the salary cap is and how much they have to spend.

"As it is at the moment, nobody knows because of these special service agreements."

Jets coach Gary van Egmond has said several times that the club should start using service agreements to compete financially with rival clubs.

Van Egmond was quoted yesterday saying that he feared several Jets players were ready to depart after the grand final, and that the likes of Joel and Adam Griffiths and Ante Covic could follow in 12 months.

Constantine admitted he had "had more pleasant reading in the morning" than headlines referring to a possible player exodus.

"But at the end of the day, most of those players have contracts for another 12 months so they're going nowhere for 12 months," he said.

"I don't see any of them leaving Newcastle just because we don't have a service agreement for them."

Asked if he was disappointed with van Egmond's comments, Constantine said: "Gary's probably under a lot of stress.

"The players are probably putting pressure on him, and he's nervous about the big game this week. We'll have a chat about it at a later date."

Van Egmond denied yesterday that there were any suggestions of wholesale player departures.

"Right at this moment, there is nothing as untoward as far as that is concerned," he said.

"The issue you have is obviously you want to try to ensure that we keep the group together.

"It's a very young group and it's a group which, if you did keep together for another three or four years, obviously you're always going to be putting yourself in the mix to get success they're only going to get better because of their age right at this moment.

"But we have restraints and every club has them, we're no different, and it's just a matter of trying to work out which is the best way of keeping players to ensure that we keep the group and the nucleus of the players together."

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