There’s a great acronym that I’m sure many of you have heard of before. KISS, or Keep It Simple, Stupid is a good principle for life – the simpler something is, the more likely it is to work the way you want it to.
Unfortunately, the AFL’s decision to give create development academies for all ten Victorian clubs – with more to come in South and Western Australia – has failed to heed this basic piece of wisdom.
Over the past few years the AFL has come under fire for granting certain draft concessions to northern states clubs so long as they develop local players with their own coin via development academies.
The AFL’s goal in this is simple – the more northern states kids it can recruit away from other sports, the better, and offering them an supportive pathway into the AFL at teams that play in their state is a great way to do it.
The clubs have a great incentive to run these academies as well because they can pick up prodigiously talented youngsters for well below their actual draft value – most famously in 2014 when Sydney secured Isaac Heeney at pick 18 despite Melbourne being willing to offer up pick 2 in a bid.
Heeney’s excellent performances in his first year in the AFL only added fuel to the fire for those at clubs in the traditional AFL states outraged that the northern states clubs were getting such a significant advantage.
The AFL has brought in a couple of measures to off-set this, introducing a new and supposedly fairer bidding system for academy (and father-son) players ahead of last year’s draft.
And now they’ve given all the Victorian clubs academies of their own – although they’ll be limited to multicultural and indigenous players – which they’re no doubt hoping will content them for the time being.
The situation reminds me of a game of Jenga. You take the blocks out of the tower, making it more unstable, and then you put them on top, which makes a collapse ever more likely.
Here the AFL has taken the draft, already made a bit unstable by the inclusion of northern states academies, and heaped a pile more blocks on top of it. In Jenga, the tower is meant to collapse eventually – but that’s not what we want in the AFL draft.
Clubs might be happy for now as they look to develop their own prospects, but it’s only natural that some territories will outperform others over time, and then the debate will come. Why should the territories by split up the way they are? Who really qualifies as a multicultural player?
The fact that ten AFL clubs are splitting up Victoria while Fremantle and West Coast will each have access to half of Western Australia makes it immediately clear that the system is never going to be tenable in the long term.
The simple answer? Get rid of club-operated development academies. The problem is not that we didn’t have enough, it’s that we shouldn’t have had them to start with.
The AFL draft is meant to be an equaliser – messing around with the rules of how recruitment works goes against that fundamental nature. Messing around with them even more, surprisingly, is not going to fix that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m strongly in support of programs that seek to increase multicultural and indigenous participation in the game. I’ve written about it before. Not only are they a great way to enhance the talent base of the league, they’re also great for breaking down social barriers between people who might not normally interact.
In setting up these academies the AFL is essentially privatising that initiative, putting it in the hands of talented people who have a lot to gain from it being successful – AFL clubs.
That might sound like a good thing at first – the incentive AFL clubs have from running academies could drive them to be a lot more successful than if the AFL was to manage them.
But, the goals of clubs and the goals of the AFL are not aligned here. The AFL is looking to grow the game, but clubs are going to be focusing on creating talented prospects for their own list. Clubs are going to find the most efficient way to do what’s best for themselves and ignore everything else – that’s their job.
For that reason, and to protect the integrity of the draft, the AFL needs to run these development academies itself.
Run them specifically with the focus of bringing our game to people who might not otherwise encounter it, bringing them together, giving them opportunities to go further with it, if they’re good enough.
But don’t put it in the hands of clubs. Don’t further compromise the draft. That path only leads to more headaches for the AFL and its fans.
lao hu
Guest
How about letting clubs set up academies and having a limited selection of players every year with the rest going into the draft?
Liam
Guest
Maggie, it isn't actually about the clubs. The romance here is for the fans, the people who remember going down to the games in the eighties and nineties, and watching the fathers getting their first kicks at AFL level, and now doing the same for their sons. Whilst to a certain extent, I do agree with you that the rule itself distorts the draft system - and the romance grows steadily less over time, as the AFL becomes more professional, businesslike - I still find it a good gesture to retaining the history of the game, and the history of the clubs. It may even create more situations where players stay with one club for their careers, and from a fan perspective, that cannot be anything other than a good thing.
Johnny Dalmas
Guest
Perhaps the big problem isn't the academies but the draft? Perhaps we should allow each club to set up their own academy (without any silly zones: they can select the junior talent they want to their academy). Perhaps we should then let clubs recruit whichever players they want to their list -- so long as they stay under the salary cap. Because perhaps it is a strictly enforced salary cap that is the great equaliser and _not_ the draft. I know! The world will end! Only few clubs will be able to win! But consider this: since 2000, 8 different clubs have won the AFL flag but 11 different clubs have won the NRL flag. Perhaps not having a draft but having the salary cap frees up player movement so that clubs can recruit the players that they need right now rather the play the silly bottom-out-and-rebuild-game that seems to condemn some clubs to a long time down the ladder.
Johnny Dalmas
Guest
"We live in Perth and most of the kids will see more AFL games in one weekend in Melbourne than what they will see in a year in Perth," Yep, this is why WA desperately needs a third team. 20 years ago you could just walk up to Subi with a couple of mates and get in. You simply can't do that anymore and so we have a whole generation of Perth kids for whom elite footy is a TV program, and not something you regularly watch live.
Josh
Expert
To be fair, I'm mostly saying that in response to those comments which seem to think I am suggesting killing off all forms of the academies and not developing the northern states at all. But I am also a big fan of repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.
Josh
Expert
I'll admit I do share your concern over how effectively the AFL would run these academies. To extend the metaphor from above, the AFL is essentially a government and the clubs private businesses - the latter is known for being more effective and efficient than the former. But I would think knowing that the AFL has made a specific move to expand into this territory by creating new clubs and would have gained more extensive knowledge about the best ways to run such programs, it might be ready for a more successful go at it.
Josh
Expert
There's no reason the AFL can't work with clubs to run academies without having an impact on the draft.
Josh
Expert
There's a bit of chicken and egg there. Does stability come from success or does success come from stability? Probably neither really, but the conditions that create stability also lend themselves to creating success. I feel we both agree that more needs to be done to help the northern states clubs, but for mine I don't think it should involve draft concessions. We can agree to disagree on that though.
clipper
Guest
Very interesting - had no idea that the growth has been as rapid - although no surprise with Soccer - growth in Sydney has been huge. Could be that the 'Barrassi Line is moving northwards'. Certainly a reason to continue with the academies, even if the full extent of the increase can't be fully measured.
Josh
Expert
The difference between the academies and the father-son rule is that every club can use the father-son rule. Yes it does distort the draft a little, but given that all clubs have access to it, I think the benefits of it outweigh the negatives. The output is not going to be the same for every club every year and at different times in history different teams are going to outperform others - the Saints for example have almost never had F-S prospects, while Geelong in part owes it's premiership era to strong flow of them. But as you've noted - this is entirely down to luck, and the luck can swing in favour of any team at any time. That's okay by me, because luck is a part of the game. What shouldn't be a part of the game is systemic advantages that are always going to benefit some teams more than others over the long run. Yes the Suns and the Giants are a long way of F-S prospects. But they also both got enormous list concessions when they started building to the point where both have lists chockful of young talent, not to mention that for now at least they have their local zones to recruit from. I think that offsets a lack of F-S talent pretty well. The romance in the draft system isn't about clubs blindly taking every son of a former player they can get their hands on. It's about footy fans getting to watch the sons of club legends take on the same guernseys as their old man.
Ben
Guest
Why not leave it the way it is. Have the clubs run the academies as they do the best job by a mile, and continue to work on the ensuring they get an appropriate benefit in the draft without unfairness. The recent changes via the points system have significantly reduced the benefits for the Northern Clubs.
Joe
Guest
So the issues are: - Should we have academies at all? Most of us agree that yes we should in the northern states, but in Victoria, not so sure. And why bring ethnicity into it at all? - If we have academies, who should run them? The clubs may run them better, but the clubs having first access to these kids distorts the draft.
RnR
Guest
Yes Joe, Josh has repeated his plea for AFL run academies many times. He clearly is a huge fan of repitition. What other reason could there be for ignoring the fact that letting the AFL run football development north of the Murray has been a colossal failure TWICE - and doing the same thing again?
Joe
Guest
OR we keep the academies, but as Josh has mentioned many times above, the AFL must run them and no club has the right to the players in the draft, thus keeping the integrity of the draft intact.
Joe
Guest
Q: What is the purpose of the draft? A: To equalise the competition. If you finish 18th, you get pick 1. If you finish 1st, you get pick 18. Any concessions which the AFL has brought in have compromised the draft. If you finish 18th, you should be entitled to pick the best 18 year old in the country, no matter where he lives, or how many games his dad played. If North Melbourne came 18th and there was the next Buddy Franklin coming through the TAC cup this year, I would want to draft him with pick 1. If this new Buddy's dad played 100 games for Hawthorn, they could take him ahead of North. How is this fair? North deserve the number 1 pick for coming last! The only way to make the AFL a level playing field is to get rid of the father son rule, academies, and play a 17 round season, instead of playing certain teams twice.
Dok
Roar Rookie
Not denying that Gyfox, but Victoria has multiple AFL teams, is a bigger city and has more supporters. As an aside my sons football team is going on a footy trip this year, where are they going you may ask ?, well not Perth or Adelaide but to the home of football in Melbourne to go to the MCG and Etihad to watch some games over a long weekend. We live in Perth and most of the kids will see more AFL games in one weekend in Melbourne than what they will see in a year in Perth, because of ticket shortages, sell outs and not being able to get a membership because of waiting lists, the lure of many football mad kids is not to Subi but to the MCG and a big Melbourne team.
Maggie
Guest
Josh, since the draft bidding system under the father-son rule is identical to that for players from club-run academies, the father-son rule equally distorts the integrity of the draft (by the standard you have set) but without any of the benefits of the academies many have described here. It is disingenuous to say all clubs have access to the rule as it is entirely dependent on the flukes of past players' genetic disposition to have sons which the clubs obviously can't influence - unlike the academy system where the club can influence the output of potential recruits through hard work and strategic nous. Furthermore, it will take around 20 years for the Suns and GWS to have any potential F-S recruits. And I am cynical about the view that it adds 'romance' to the draft system. If clubs were really motivated by the romance, they would take every eligible son who entered the draft. But they don't - they only take those whom they deem good enough to be valuable to them under the discounted bidding system. There have been plenty of eligible sons who have been left to take their chances in the draft. If you are as concerned as you express here about the integrity of the draft, to be consistent you should be arguing for the father-son rule to be discontinued as well.
Dok
Roar Rookie
I agree.
TomC
Roar Guru
There is an inextricable relationship between a successful club and an elite professional environment: no one would be praising the 'Bloods Culture' if the Swans were consistently losing games, and I know that you agree that success is the best way to bring about stability. So helping each of the four northern clubs consistently achieve the standards that Sydney have done would require a much more intrusive and unequal level of involvement from the AFL. And let's not forget that it took a hefty salary cap allowance to bolster that professional environment the Swans maintained, which was also true of the Lions when they were successful (but still losing players back to their home states). Sydney aren't a good example of success bred through a positive culture alone.
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
I doubt that RnR. Football (soccer) has an obvious advantage in the multicultural stakes, it stands to reason, but I'd wager that Aussie Rules is still way ahead of both Rugby codes in this area.