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Collingwood president Eddie McGuire’s latest complaint about the northern state expansion clubs academies, combined with Western Bulldogs chairman Peter Gordon’s recent attack on the Sydney Swans, has exposed an ugly culture within the AFL.
The academies, put in place by the AFL in New South Wales and Queensland, are just the tip of the iceberg in a long list of complaints growing by the season.
If it is not the academies, it is the salary cap concessions, if it is not the salary cap concessions; it is the so-called ‘soft draws’.
For the last 18 months, the Sydney Swans have been relentlessly targeted for signing Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin on the back of winning the 2012 premiership.
Clubs don’t sign big-name players on the back of winning premierships – well, not if the club has a cost of living allowance, and that’s the problem. If the Swans didn’t have a COLA, would there still have been a problem?
McGuire’s comments about the academies, as quoted by the Herald Sun‘s Jon Ralph, indicate there will always be problems as long as long as clubs from non-traditional AFL states exist.
“I am red hot on this, this is going to impact on every Victorian and South Australian and West Australian club.
“We have given NSW and Queensland four academies where they can go and get players and hide them away and train them from 12 years of age.
“We have to get back to giving the game back to the supporter base and back to Victorian football which has been drained right through the last period of time.”
Since when has the rugby league and union dominant states of New South Wales and Queensland been a hotbed of Australian Football talent?
How can it be the AFL’s heartland states (Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia) are not able to produce local talent? And what about Tasmania?
It seems problems only arise once clubs from non-tradtional states start winning premierships, inadvertently creating a negative image for the game in NSW and Queensland. This negative image has been developing over the last 13 years, and it is rapidly making a farce of the AFL’s attempt to become a truly national competition.
The Magpies boss has form, as he was the main driver behind the Brisbane Lions losing their salary cap and draft concessions during their three-peat era.
The Lions are now, once again, on the brink of becoming a basket case, and it’s time the game’s governing bodies stepped in and set out a clear agenda of what they hope to achieve with expansion.
How can the AFL allow Victorian club presidents to continue to bully and attack expansion clubs, and not expect it to have a negative impact, especially when two Victorian club bosses are prominent in the AFL media?
How can new AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan tolerate the game being seen as belonging to Melbourne or the traditional states only? Never mind the sour grapes attached to the Lions and the Swans winning premierships, how about the growing impression there is no place in the game for a team in Sydney or Queensland, and that Tasmania should have had a team before the Gold Coast or Greater Western Sydney?
McGuire’s comments make a mockery of Port Adelaide chairman David Koch saying interstate clubs need to remind Melbourne that there is no V in the AFL.
Koch is frustrated the Power are not getting the recognition they deserve in Melbourne, however he cannot pretend his club has the same challenges as those in Sydney or Queensland.
McLachlan only needs to listen to the noise being made over the Sydney Swans, and the previous noise about the Brisbane Lions, to get an idea of what the noise will be like once the Gold Coast Suns or the Greater Western Sydney Giants win premierships.
The AFL needs to change this image if it believes in its mission of becoming a truly national competition.
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