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Publicise AFL player salaries to end misunderstandings

1st October, 2013
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Roar Guru
1st October, 2013
17
1875 Reads

The ‘Lance Franklin to the Swans’ story has gone off like a bomb. Most of the conjecture surrounds the terms of the deal, particularly the total dollars and length as well as the vagaries of the cost of living allowance in Sydney.

Both issues are being grossly exaggerated and misunderstood.

Perhaps we had it all in heads that Buddy was going go GWS Giants.

That he’d go for the big bucks to help out the family’s loser nephew was somehow tolerable.

That he’ll instead go to Sydney has set loose an array of anger against the Swans, even more so than when Kurt Tippett apparently changed his mind last year.

I think what is being missed within all of this is the fact players’ salaries aren’t published.

It means the football public gets extremely cynical when they see a player of Franklin’s quality and Franklin’s wage joining a successful team where another player such as Kurt Tippett is already being well renumerated.

That Franklin would be given a ten-year deal makes sense as this huge total figure will be spread out over the term’s duration.

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So Franklin might receive around $1 million dollars next year.

Shane Mumford was earning around $600,000 this year and he won’t be there next year, while Jude Bolton is retiring and the likes of Adam Goodes and Ryan O’Keefe aren’t earning the kind of money they were when they were at their peak.

In fact outside of Franklin and Tippett there’s likely not a Swan earning more than $700,000 a year.

Collingwood, who is most outraged about the last two contracts Sydney has configured, is likely paying that kind of money to as many as three players, perhaps four should Dale Thomas re-sign.

It seems the football world will continue to live in a state of bemusement and conjecture so long as these salaries and their length remain undisclosed.

The top sports in the US make no secret of player earnings. They are all published and easily accessed across a number of forums and make issues like this non-existent.

If we knew how much everybody was earning we wouldn’t have to throw our arms in the air like morons when something like this happens.

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We could instead simply go to the team page ourselves and do our own math.

If this were available perhaps many would be quite shocked to see there are quite a few Swans who are perhaps underpaid based on their perceived market value?

Mike Pyke was near enough to All-Australian this year. My bet is that he goes about his business earning relative peanuts.

As for the cost of living for players in Sydney I think this does need to be looked at and debated in a context based on the realities of how hideously expensive Sydney actually is and whether the Swans are exploiting this to land some of the league’s bigger fish.

The cost of living allowance should be about players who aren’t the game’s big earners and who might baulk at the prospect of playing in the Harbour Sydney because of reluctance to share a flat in Lewisham with five others.

The cost-of-living allowance should have nothing to do with Franklin as he house hunts in Bondi.

When the dust settles I hope one of the by-products is to put the issue of player salaries and their publication on the agenda.

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The AFL was poisoned by the drug scandal this year. It needn’t be sullied further through misunderstanding and secrecy regarding an issue that could be very easily fixed.

Publish everybody’s salaries and the issue would vanish.

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