Mariners owner blasts A-League heavy-hitters

The A-League's heavy hitters have failed in "their responsibility" to attract big names to galvanise the competition and it will suffer this season as a result, according to Central Coast Mariners boss Mike Charlesworth.

Mariners players celebrate one of the team's three goals Source: AAP

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While the cash-strapped Mariners don't possess the financial muscle to bring in headline acts like Didier Drogba, Steven Gerrard or Andrea Pirlo, Charlesworth contends it’s incumbent on the likes of Sydney FC, Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City to lift interest in the league by recapturing the zest for big box office stars of the ilk of Dwight Yorke and Alessandro Del Piero who have graced the competition in the past.

With UEFA Champions League winning striker Drogba signing for Montreal Impact for a relatively meagre $US1.6 million in the absence of any serious bidders from the A-League while Italian great Pirlo joined New York City on a salary of $US2 million, Charlesworth sees only missed opportunities from the A-League’s Top End of Town.

“The reality is the league right now needs big names and big personalities, even if the individual clubs perhaps don’t want them,” said Charlesworth, whose club makes no secret of its place in the pecking order as an outfit which develops and then sells players to survive.

“The FFA should be incentivising or pushing the clubs who can potentially afford it to make an investment for the league bearing in mind the clubs are only as strong as the league ultimately," he added.

“I don’t know how much pressure they can put on clubs, but I think ultimately we should all be encouraging investment to assist the overall product."

With season 11 kicking off to the second lowest aggregate attendances in the competition’s short history (12,916), Charlesworth claims that a fall in memberships among the majority of clubs is reflective of the “lack of hype” around the league.

“You need these players,” he added. “If the quality is increasing it's a great sign for our future standing, but the competition is also desperate for some star quality as we’re competing on the global stage for TV viewers.

“The Mariners can’t afford it, but some others can – we need to attract the Drogba’s of the world, for instance.

"When you look at what he's earning in the US, it’s not astronomical and he’d have created a wave of interest across the competition.

“It may or not be the case that the quality of the current imports raises playing standards significantly but we do need the big brands to stimulate extra interest.

“At the Mariners, we don’t have the population base and the money and will possibly never be in position to take on expensive marquees, so we go about things a different way.

“But for Sydney FC or Melbourne Victory or Melbourne City then I think they have a different responsibility … the problem for the bigger clubs is that they are often at the behest of their managers, and their coaches who want the best possible team regardless of fan engagement, and I fully understand that.

“So you go and sign an unbranded player out of Eastern Europe who’s an excellent player, and if the Graham Arnolds are incentivised by their position in the league then I get that, but it adds limited value to the league.

“The FFA should incentivise these bigger clubs to go out and get those personality players that can add value across the league, we are ultimately all in this together and I am not too convinced everybody fully understands that."