PERTH Glory will not be making a move for Australian superstar Harry Kewell, club owner Tony Sage said today.

But he said the club would be on the prowl for a returning Socceroo such as Brett Emerton once veteran Mile Sterjovski’s contract as the team’s Australian marquee player expires at the end of the 2011-12 season.

Reports in Melbourne claim the 32-year-old Kewell is on the verge of signing a lucrative deal with Melbourne Victory after his contract with Turkish club Galatasaray recently ended.

It is firmly believed the former Leeds United and Liverpool player would demand a salary package of about $1 million a season, which Sage acknowledged is “not unheard of”.

Aside from the Victory, Kewell - who has endured an injury-ravaged past - has also been linked with a move to newly-promoted English Premier League side Queens Park Rangers and to a Major League Soccer team in the USA.

Sydney FC and Newcastle are other clubs that have been bandied about.

Although Sage remarked the Socceroo would have been “absolutely perfect for us”, the salary cap halted the club from approaching Kewell’s manager Bernie Mandic.

Also working against Perth’s favour is having New Zealand striker Shane Smeltz and ex-Socceroo Sterjovski locked in as the club’s respective international and Australian marquee players.

The wages of marquee players are excluded from the salary cap.

“I’d loved to have tried but unfortunately with our salary cap and our international and Australian marquee (slots) already taken, unfortunately we can’t make a bid,” Sage told PerthNow.

“Kewell would have been absolutely perfect for us but we only found out (about his availability) in the last week or so and we had already signed Smeltz and it’s the last year (for Sterjovski as the Australian marquee).”

Sage said the general consensus among A-League club owners was that Kewell would receive a salary of about $1 million per year.

“That’s not unheard of,” Sage said, alluding to the $1.2 million contracts handed out to John Aloisi at Sydney FC and Jason Culina at Gold Coast United in recent years.

“The minimum is a million, we couldn’t fit that under our salary cap so there’s no way we had a chance.”

With an eye on the future, Sage confirmed the club has been “asking about” Blackburn Rovers winger Brett Emerton for the past year.

Emerton’s contract with Blackburn – where he has been since 2003 – expires at the end of next season “so he’s one that would be perfect”.

Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer is another player out of contract at the end of next season.

“If any Australian that’s overseas wants to come back, we’ll be in the picture,” Sage said.

Sterjovski has just turned 32 and although Sage acknowledged he has struggled to light up the competition since arriving in 2009, he hopes the attacking player will stay at Perth once his marquee deal expires.

“I don’t think he will retire,” Sage said. “I think he’s got a couple of years left in him.

“He’s unfortunately not shown his best for Perth because he was hampered by injury most of the time he’s been with us.

“He’s injury-free now, we’re expecting a huge season from him and he wants to repay our faith in him.

“But after (this season), if he wants to stay on in Perth we would love to have him. It wouldn’t be as an Australian marquee though, we’d just slot him in back under the salary cap.”