ADELAIDE United chairman Greg Griffin says having to pay inflated wages has robbed the Reds of raw talent.

A-League clubs must spend 85 per cent of the $2.35 million salary cap with a maximum 22-player squad excluding a marquee player.

Griffin revealed the directive from the Professional Footballers Australia collective bargaining agreement prevented franchises from adding young players to their list on reasonable salaries.

"What I would prefer to see is no minimum salary," he said.

"For example, we've got two 16-years-olds, Paul Izzo and Jacob Melling, who have signed for us next year on $45,000 a season.

"I would much rather have six 16- or 17- or 18-year-olds each earning $15,000 and those that perform best will move to the next level.

"The more on the list the better it is for the game.

"We're being forced to pay that money but SA, we've got five Joeys in Mexico (for World Cup duty) and if I could put those five on a contract and divide the five into $90,000 isn't Adelaide a better club for that?"

Despite disagreeing with the minimum spend, Griffin believes in the salary cap after media allegations accused Sydney FC of spending more than $100,000 over the allocated Additional Services Agreement, but the FFA said the allegations were unwarranted.

Rumours also surfaced that Adelaide was in breach of the cap during its run to the 2009 grand final, but FFA officials described that innuendo yesterday as nonsense.

An FFA spokesman said Adelaide had never breached the cap since the league started in 2005 and reported its annual spend to FFA at least four times a year.

But Griffin, an advocate of the cap since the new consortium took stock of the club last November, said if the domestic game allowed the market to be a free-for-all like most professional leagues except the US, Melbourne and Sydney would dominate the competition.

"We cannot have unreasonable domination," Griffin said.