Would take the radio nz article with a grain of salt. They have said it before and are repeating it again. I have heard that they initially figured that out by looking at transfermarket one day. An actual quote from someone at the club would be more accurate.
Director of football Terry McFlynn told Stuff last week they were spending “nowhere near twice as much” as the figure of AU$3m (NZ$3.2m) that Australian Professional Leagues wants to institute as hard salary cap from the 2026-27 season, with a lone exception for one marquee player.
Director of football Terry McFlynn told Stuff last week they were spending “nowhere near twice as much” as the figure of AU$3m (NZ$3.2m) that Australian Professional Leagues wants to institute as hard salary cap from the 2026-27 season, with a lone exception for one marquee player.
“I think there are clubs that are spending double the salary cap and more, but I think we’re about fourth or fifth across the league, from what we can understand.”
The salary cap is AU$2.6m (NZ$2.79m) this season, though Auckland were allowed to spend roughly $400,000 extra, because as a brand-new club, they don’t have access to the exceptions for loyal or homegrown players other clubs do.
“The APL’s metric they used was a blended average across the other 12 clubs in the competition and what that spend looked like outside of the cap and that's what we were afforded,” McFlynn said. “It was the same when Western United and Macarthur joined a couple of years ago.”
Auckland have made full use of the exceptions for marquee players (two players whose salaries don’t count against the cap at all) and designated players (two players whose salaries – between AU$300,000 and AU$600,000 – don’t count against the cap).