The consortium behind the Gold Coast AFL bid has declared it is not satisfied with the draft concession package the league unveiled for its would-be 17th club.

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The prospective club unveiled their red, white, yellow and blue colours and surf lifesaver mascot tonight at the official launch, but said they would let their nickname “emerge”.

They will be known as the Gold Coast Football Club and will present their official bid to the league on October 13.

GC17 bid committee member Graeme Downie said earlier this evening that his group had concerns the package was not generous enough to allow Gold Coast to hit the ground running in their 2011 AFL debut season.

The concessions include nine first round picks in the 2010 national draft, an expanded player list and increased salary cap – on paper they appear the most generous ever afforded an expansion club.

But Gold Coast say they have concerns with the package, developed by a working party comprising AFL and existing club representatives and approved by the AFL Commission.

Downie said Gold Coast should receive more draft picks to allow suitable bargaining chips for trading for the mature players the club will need on entry to the AFL.

“It’s not as good as it looks. We won’t be popping any champagne corks,” Downie told AAP tonight ahead of the GC17 bid’s official launch on the Gold Coast.

“The rules are fair and we understand the logic of them.

“But what we’re concerned about is that we have a maximum of 24 draft concessions. It’s a skinny start.

“We would have preferred more draft choices.”

AFL national development general manager David Matthews said the package provided a “balanced outcome” for both the Gold Coast and the other 16 clubs.

But the league made it clear some of the high draft picks were designed to be traded on to existing clubs, allowing Gold Coast to bring in senior players and other clubs access to 2010′s best 17 and 18-year-olds.

As well as unveiling the draft concessions, the AFL also set Gold Coast an on-field performance target for its debut year – at least five or six wins for the season and a percentage of more than 80.

“In year one, the list can’t be just completely young. They’ve got to get some maturity on to it,” Matthews said.

The club will receive first call on most of the country’s best 17 and 18-year-olds in two years’ time, getting the first three picks in 2010, as well as picks 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15.

They are set to join the Victorian under-18 competition next year and the second-tier VFL the following year before joining the AFL in 2011.

GC17 chairman John Witheriff said the club decided not to start with a nickname because no proposal had attracted strong popular support.

“We listened to the Gold Coast – we had nearly 95 per cent of the well over 10,000 people say to us `we want the Gold Coast’,” he told Channel Nine’s The Footy Show.

“We were evenly split at less than 30 per cent across (the) three names that we were focussed on.

“What we’ve done is taken a pretty courageous, bold sort-of Gold Coast step, really – we’ve said we’re going to be called the Gold Coast Football Club and what we’ve done is create a mascot who’s going to represent the icon of the city, the beach.

“We’re going to let that (a nickname) emerge and we’ve got a mascot that reflects our beach culture.”

KEY POINTS OF GOLD COAST DRAFT CONCESSION PACKAGE FOR 2011 AFL ENTRY:
* Nine first round draft picks in 2010 national draft – picks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15
* Expanded list of 48 senior players and nine rookies in 2011, reducing for the next four seasons and reverting to a 38-player senior list by 2015
* Extra $1 million in salary cap for 2011, reducing for the next four years until no extra advantage by 2015
* Access to a maximum of 16 uncontracted players from the other 16 clubs
* Access to 12 17-year-olds in 2009
* Access to 20 Queensland under-18s
* Ability to pre-list 10 players who had previously nominated for the AFL draft or were previously listed with an AFL club at the end of 2010
* Existing clubs that lose a player will be eligible for a compensation pick in future drafts

© AAP 2012

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