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Hawthorn president Andrew Newbold siding with Eddie McGuire over the northern states academies highlights potential problems with the AFL’s equalisation plans.
Not only are the equalisation plans verging on farcical, they also show the league is clueless when it comes to plans for the expansion clubs.
The Age‘s Caroline Wilson reported Newbold agreed with the Collingwood president by suggesting the AFL move towards a “pure draft”.
“For there to continue to be anomalies in the draft when we are contributing $1.3 million to help equalise the competition is wrong,” Newbold said. “Why wouldn’t we want a pure draft?
“I think on that issue Eddie’s right. The AFL is contributing $250,000 to each academy. That’s money all the clubs are contributing.”
Reading between the lines, it sounds like because wealthy clubs like Hawthorn will hand over $1.3 million dollars to the AFL for equalisation, as will Collingwood and the West Coast Eagles, whatever they say should happen must.
How can the equalisation plans be viable if the wealthy clubs want to call the shots because they will pay more? Does that mean Sydney and Geelong can not have input because they will pay less?
To be fair to Newbold, he did say he understood the need to find more talent in the northern states, but understanding a need is not necessarily supporting one.
New AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has said the AFL will continue to support the academies, but it is not silencing the likes of Newbold and McGuire as detractors. It is ridiculous both clubs bosses would fret over the Swans being able to take Isaac Heeney – a possible top-three draft pick – whom the club has invested their resources in.
The Sydney Swans’ senior list of 38 players only contains 8 NSW players. It’s ridiculous the expansion clubs should not be able be to try and harvest local talent and field their own juniors – wouldn’t it go a long way to solving the problem of Sydney and Queensland clubs dealing with homesick interstate recruits?
Swans president Andrew Pridham had little confidence in the AFL equalisation process, as not only was the COLA being gunned after, so were the academies, fearing a Victorian agenda due to three of the equalisation sub-committee clubs being Victorian.
However, even some Victorian club bosses have their own reservations, with Geelong president Colin Carter slamming the equalisation plans as methodically and philosophically wrong.
Carter said the AFL had failed to address the divide between the rich and the poor clubs, and rich clubs such as Collingwood had successfully landed a deal to weaken the middle clubs.
The equalisation plans revealed not all clubs are on the same page, even though there is a desire for an equal competition.
If there is to be an equal competition, the AFL needs to map out its plan for the expansion clubs, as there seemed to be little in the detail, only the removing of COLA from the Sydney clubs to be replaced with a rental subsidy.
All four expansion clubs need a clear picture from the AFL for what is in it for them. They have seen the need to unite against the campaign to target their academies.
None of the other AFL clubs in traditional AFL states face the same challenges these clubs, especially from a resurgent NRL, rapidly developing their own war chest.
Though the Swans are on the verge of another possible premiership and are experiencing soaring membership, and the Gold Coast Suns are steadily settling into the premiership, the Brisbane Lions are climbing a steep hill of debt, and the GWS Giants are far from settled.
The AFL’s expansion challenges do not get any easier.
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