Moyes fears cost of Cahill's extended duty with Australia
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Your support makes all the difference.David Moyes has expressed fears that he is to lose Tim Cahill for six weeks on international duty and the Everton manager can envisage the day when clubs look for compensation if their players are away from their domestic sides on a long-term basis.
Cahill's knee injury should clear in time for today's encounter with Birmingham City, but Moyes is preparing to lose him next week for Australia's match against Paraguay. Yet it is not that fixture that is causing him consternation; he is saving that for the AFC Asian Cup in January.
Australia joined the Asian Football Confederation in 2007 and will therefore send a side to contest the competition in Qatar with Cahill one of the first names on Australia's team-sheet. The competition is to be held between 7-29 January and by the time travelling and acclimatisation is considered, Cahill could be missing for some considerable time.
"I've got no problem with Tim playing for Australia, we've always been supportive of that," Moyes said. "He goes and plays for his country and in fairness to Tim whenever he's done that he's always come back and played well.
"The bigger thing is the Asian Cup because we could lose Tim to that in a similar way we lost Joseph Yobo to the African Nations so that's a big issue. He could be called up in the middle of December and they've got that competition through January.
"We've got to respect football in every part of the world, not just in our continent, and you respect their FAs, the way their football is run and their leagues – you have to.
"I think the time is coming where either this is all brought into line in some way or clubs are going to have to say that unless you're going to reimburse us we're going to struggle to let them go because the clubs are all struggling as well to pay wages."
Moyes also believes clubs could insist at a contractual level that players do not claim wages while on international duty. "I just wonder whether contracts in the future, for players from Africa or maybe now Australia, will stipulate that if a player wants to go away for an extended period with their country then they won't get paid by their clubs," he added.
"Obviously the PFA would have something to say about that but it might be something the clubs will look to do regarding the African Nations and now the Asian Cup. Clubs are tight for cash now and to lose players like Tim is a big thing."
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