- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
A stagnant AFL trade week has prompted a renewed call from the players’ union for free agency to be introduced. The week-long exchange period produced only six completed deals, five of which occurred before yesterday’s 2pm deadline.
More AFL
How the AFL clubs fared in trade week
Prismall a long-term one for Bombers
Underlining the lack of movement, Sydney could not trade forward Ryan O’Keefe despite his keenness from the start to move to a Victorian club while Carlton and Fremantle spent most of the week in a deadlock which required mediation over ruckman Robert Warnock.
Carlton eventually got Warnock, but the six trades was a record-low and left almost as many players at their original clubs despite them wanting to move on.
AFL Players Association (AFLPA) operations manager Matt Finnis said the limited action meant players should be given more power to seek moves to clubs to rejuvenate their careers.
“We need a system where players have opportunities to have greater control of their careers by not relying upon transactions between two clubs to move when they’re out of contract,” he said.
“If you can free that end of the market, then inevitably there will be more incentives for clubs to do trades where players are looking to move because the risk is that they might lose that player the next year or the year after and not get anything in return.”
The AFLPA has long been pushing for free agency, and will hold more talks with the AFL Commission before the end of the year.
It will use this week’s inactivity as a major platform to call for the system to be shaken up.
Finnis said the AFLPA was keen for free agency to be introduced responsibly, with possible safeguards to be implemented on such criteria as age, experience, salary, years in the AFL system or games played.
Another factor reducing the number of trades this year was the talent on offer in next month’s national draft, which has been said to be on par with the ability found in the 2001 draft, which included superstars Chris Judd and Luke Hodge.
That, and the fact that the draft will be the last uncompromised selection pool before draft concessions are granted to the Gold Coast and Western Sydney franchises meant clubs were conservative when it came to trading.
However that did not prevent players, clubs and player managers experiencing their share of frustration during the week, as many felt restricted by the current system.
“There is a real sense of frustration out there,” Finnis said.
“There was frustration because there were potentially a number of trades that might have got done except for the fact that a couple of trades that would allow them to occur weren’t completed until the last minute.
“And there was frustration for player representatives where there’d been long and protracted discussions about deals which could not be achieved.”
Among the other suggestions made this week to shake up the trade period was shortening it to two or three days, having separate exchanges for experienced and younger players and encouraging clubs to trade picks in future drafts.
AFL football operations general manager Adrian Anderson questioned how many players were left without being granted the trades they wanted.
He said it was wrong to assume there were players who wanted to move but who did not, despite O’Keefe, Essendon’s Andrew Lovett, West Coast’s Mark Seaby and North Melbourne’s Daniel Harris all indicating they wanted a change of environment.
Although the league has opposed free agency to this point, Anderson said the AFL would wait until more talks with the players’ union before giving his view.
“We will sit down at the end of the draft period with the AFLPA and assess whether it is needed,” he said.
Anderson said there were still avenues for players to seek new homes through the national draft where uncontracted players will be able to nominate for the first time and the pre-season draft.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.