Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderball
Losing Zator for no transfer fee and because the league can barely pay minimum wage is a serious concern. 2021 has to be a big growth year, followed by a bump in pay, because I can see a lot of casual fans not sticking around if they see too many players retiring because they can’t afford to stick around. It’s one thing to sell players to other (better) leagues, it’s another to lose them to a day job. Casual fans expect a lesser MLS, not a lesser USL Championship.
Northover was not exactly a star player, but when you see guys like him and Gasparotto walking away to take a pay raise in a 9-5 gig, that looks really bad.
Agreed that Zebie and Wheeldon are not at the Cavalry level (frankly, neither was Northover in 2020), and their departures make sense.
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Yeah you’d assume by full year 3 that the league and clubs expected to see growth in revenues and thus salaries, when the CPL started.
With the pandemic more money was lost in year 2 than anyone forecasted, and year 3 will likely also lose more money then forecasted before in year 1 unless fans can pack the stands from June or July onwards.
So then you’re looking 2 or 3 years from after this season to get that bump that was originally forecast this upcoming year. With other clubs around the world in the same boat, transfers from development leagues like this will probably be down over a normal situation for a few years.
Though clubs were knowing that they’d take losses in a normal environment for a few years, pandemic means that this has likely extended that window of financial losses to 6 years from 2019, and some clubs may come financially unravelled before then.
And if you are university educated, almost certain that a decent full time job will pay better than the CPL, especially considering the extended (I heard it was to be extended to be committed to the club month earlier if they played in 2020) time commitment required to play. So, there are tough choices to be made by mid 20 year old players as to, if they want to play and can elevate into the next salary bracket in the CPL/a higher paying pro league, or say adios to football to make career with a more stable income.