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It was a poor reflection on the football media that many journalists swallowed the AFL press release about its $1.144 billion pay offer to players and opined it was an offer “too good to refuse”.
To suggest this showed a remarkable lack of knowledge of the situation.
Put simply, whether the offer could be described as good or not, it put the league and the AFLPA on a collision course. And sadly few, if any, journalists were able to recognise it.
The fact is, the AFLPA were asking for so much more than what the AFL put on the table. To accept the offer would have meant compromising on so many fronts (both financially and non-financially) that there was no way the AFLPA could say yes and still claim to be an organisation that stands up for players.
I wrote an article back in July with the intention of getting to the bottom of where the two sides were at.
Back then, the two parties were $230 million apart financially (using the AFL’s own estimate that the players’ desired 25-27 per cent model would cost $1.32 billion over five years).
There were also many non-financial disagreements, with the players wanting a three-year term and a percentage share of revenue rather than a set amount.
So what, exactly, did this “too good to refuse” offer tabled at the end of last month do to bridge the gap?
Financially, it reduced the gap to only $176 million. In the non-financial sense, it was neither a three-year deal nor a percentage share. Oh, and we also now find out that AFL are asking players to sign over their image rights too.
While many were quick to praise the AFL because “they’ve found an extra $54 million” – the offer was a case of the league arrogantly assuming that throwing money at the problem would make it go away.
Well, money and intimidation, that is.
Just for good measure, the AFL threw in a tight two-week deadline for the AFLPA to respond to their offer.
Said Adrian Anderson: “It’s important the players meet the September 15 deadline because we need to provide some certainty for AFL clubs, state and territory bodies and our game development network who are all sitting back and waiting on their distributions for the next five years.”
It was a message to the players that not getting the deal done within a fortnight would screw things up for everyone else.
This, of course, came despite the AFL taking six weeks to come up with their revised offer in the first place.
Now, maybe what the AFL tabled works in the monetary sense. It’s still well short of what the league estimated the 25-27 per cent model would cost, but it is an improvement on the last offer.
But when you look at the offer as a whole, and look at what the players have said all along they’ve wanted out of this deal, it was an insult.
Combined with the deadline and threats, it was also a poor attempt at bullying the playing group.
The AFLPA were right to turn down the league last week. Of course, there’s a lot of talk that the players should just get on with things at accept whatever they’re offered. Certainly, the PR war seems to be swinging more and more in the AFL’s favour with each passing week.
But to the fans willing to abandon the players at this point: ask yourself, who is more responsible for the deal not being done by now – the league or the players?