With the news of Lance Franklin’s impending move to the Sydney Swans revealed yesterday, the fuse was re-lit for one of the biggest debates in recent years, Sydney’s infamous cost of living allowance.
Having first reared its ugly head during the Kurt Tippett fiasco of last year, the legitimacy of such an allowance has continuously been raised.
Why does a top four team need such an allowance and how can the AFL justify the allowance when the extra salary cap space that it provides allows the reigning premiers to sign a player like Tippett?
To be truthful, such an allowance is not necessarily a terrible idea in principle.
However, the way the AFL have implemented the allowance has resulted in nothing short of a farce.
Helping players afford to live in such a high-priced environment is a noble gesture, certainly one not witnessed in other major sporting codes.
The problem with the allowance however, is that it overcompensates those who least need it, while at the same time, it fails to subsidise those who need it most.
To use Franklin as an example, who has been slated to receive $1 million a year before accounting for the allowance, under the way the allowance is currently distributed, he would receive an additional $100,000 to help ease the increased cost of living in Sydney.
Compare that to one of the new rookies Sydney will draft in the coming months, who will earn a base salary of close to $50,000 and an additional $5,000 to help aide in the cost of living.
It is that comparison where the cost of living allowance is truly exposed for the farce it currently is.
Surely it is that rookie who would be in far more need of help in adjusting to the financial costs of Sydney?
Yet it is Franklin and Tippett who benefit from this allowance, the two players who least need the financial aid for the price of living will receive roughly 20 percent of the total allowance.
The wider AFL community would understand if the AFL used the allowance to help those rookie and low-income players establish themselves in Sydney.
What the AFL community won’t tolerate however, is an allowance that only serves to prop up a team that has had the most consistent success in the last 15 years.
It seems inevitable that the allowance will be scrapped in another knee-jerk reaction by the AFL, however, there is room for a cost of living allowance, it just needs to be regulated to ensure that it aids those players who truly need it.
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