Soccer has "thundered past Australian Rules as the nation’s most lucrative football code," according to Davutovic & Warner of the HERALD SUN. An investigation has revealed 23 Australian soccer players based in the A-League or overseas earn more than the Australian Football League’s "highest-paid stars Lance Franklin, Gary Ablett and Tom Boyd." It comes as AFL players "are locked in a bitter pay dispute with league chiefs over a demand for a fixed percentage of the game’s rising revenues." The AFL’s A$1M ($730,000) men are Franklin, Ablett, Boyd, Nic Naitanui and Scott Pendlebury. But Australian soccer's "top dogs" earn "five times more cash" -- China-based defenders Trent Sainsbury, 24, and Matthew Spiranovic, 28, both earn more than A$5M ($3.63M) a year. Melbourne City’s Tim Cahill will collect A$4.7M ($3.41M) in his debut A-League season while former Melbourne City player Aaron Mooy pockets A$3.5M ($2.54M) a year on loan to League Championship side Huddersfield Town from Man City. Former ManU and Chelsea player Mark Bosnich, who was earning almost A$8M a year in his prime, said that soccer "would always dominate." Bosnich: "No disrespect to AFL, but they’re catering to a small domestic market, football is part of a world market" (HERALD SUN, 12/18).
