The AFL needs to fix the ridiculous compensatory pick model

They had their full list for the last four years - despite benefitting from their injection regime they were never contenders, played one losing final.

He would not have been free to walk wherever he wanted to though. He would have had to go into the PSD and pull a Luke Ball to get to his preferred club. Maybe that would have happened, maybe it wouldn't. Ultimately Boyd did force a trade but GWS got value back. I do have issues with the way he was able to force what he wanted on a club but that's not an issue that has anything to do with free agency and its compensation picks.

Technically not a free agent, sure, but when you have a player in Boyd demanding a trade back in 2014 otherwise he's going to walk for nothing when his contract expired at the end of 2015 - tell me how that's not a player who's a free agent.

I hope all twelve or at least some of the bomber players ie hooker hurley heppell activate themselves as Delisted Free Agents so the club can get not even a penny for them.

Boyd wasn't a free agent so this whole thing doesn't even apply to him.

Yeah - and how much did the Bulldogs have to offer to get him? I'll give you a hint, it was far more money then what Hawthorn, or Geelong, or Sydney would have had to offer. That's the rider to what he's saying above, when a bottom team does secure a big name free agent they generally have to pay overs for it. Look at Brisbane and Dayne Beams. Beams wanted out of Collingwood, so usually that would put them in a bad spot. But the Lions still had to part with pick 5 AND pick 25 AND Jack Crisp to get him.

???? What you said doesn't make sense. If they had never been caught and punished they would have been contending for the last 4 years (2013-16). Not sure how improving by 2022 or so is quicker than contending for this year and the last few years on top of that!?!?

I think Compensation Picks should be scrapped all together. Free Agency is the now. Clubs need to adjust and learn to deal with it.

Tom Boyd did go to a team who hadn't played finals in years - the Western Bulldogs. Boyd went to a team that had finished the last 4 years - 10th - 15th - 15th - 14th - a 4 year average finishing position of 13.5! Pretty awful you'd have to agree - and Boyd was a clear No. 1 pick.

You fundamentally misunderstand how the AFL draft works - it works by awarding better picks to the worst clubs so they improve. It is not there to ensure the better teams can increase their advantage at the top of the tree. Your use of the Franklin-Frawley example is a perfect illustration of how you don't understand how and why the AFL Draft was set up. It was set up to help poorer clubs increase their competitiveness against the better clubs. Melbourne got such a good pick for Frawley because they were (and are) such an awful club. If they had won the Premiership, they would have got Pick 19 as well, and it wouldn't have bothered them either - winning the Premiership means you're already a bloody good team and you don't need any assistance from the league when your best players decide to leave. Ergo - the Franklin situation. Obviously Franklin is a very good player, better than Frawley, however Hawthorn only received Pick 19 - do you know why? Because they won the Premiership! It would make no sense to change the system so that Premiership teams were awarded at the same level as teams that finish last for players rated as Top line, Band 1 (As both Franklin & Frawley were - despite their differences in talent). Judging from the last few years results it appears Hawthorn haven't suffered too badly given the departure of Franklin. It looks to me like the system is working as intended then. Now do you understand how the AFL Draft is supposed to work?

Thats exactly what needs to happen and contracted players should never get to choose who they want to be traded to. Too much player power.

Punished enough - is pure delusion. Paul Little screamed to the world their Draft Sanctions were for bringing the game into disrepute....and NOT for being guilty of ASADA/WADA breaches. What sanction has the Club been imposed with - for being found Guilty for WADA breach....absolutely none. Only the players have.

Every player at the Dons during the drug saga, has a chance to be a free agent due to Essendons negligence. Hurley while being contracted, can void his contract to leave if he wishes. Same with Heppell and the other contracted players. Hurley was an All-Australian too, that will provide a bigger value in free agency.?

I think the bigger problem is that clubs who receive free agents effectively get them for free, as a 'bonus draft'. Ok sure, they have to fit them into their salary cap and this might mean offloading players, but that's just salary cap management - they don't have to give any trades up for them. When premiership teams like the Swans and Hawks pick-up Buddy and Frawley respectively, without trading, they gain an unfair advantage over other teams in a draft system that is designed to favour the bottom teams. It's rare for free agents who are in hot demand to choose a bottom side, so the system now benefits sides already in finals contention. For example, when Hawthorn got Frawley, Melbourne was over-compensated and every other team standsby helplessly watching a quality key position defender stroll to Hawthorn. So whilst they might only have pick 19 or whatever, in addition they pick-up Frawley. How does that compare to the other clubs? I'm not criticising Hawthorn here. The free agency system is fundamentally flawed. In this scenario, an improvement would be if the panel which assesses Frawley as worth pick 2 to Melbourne, should have also assessed that Frawley was worth Hawthorn's 1st pick, i.e. pick 19. This pick should then be thrown back into the pot, so that whoever held pick 20 now holds pick 19, and each subsequent pick jumps up in the order by one. This would be much fairer.

The only flaw I've ever seen anyone cite repeatedly is the same one you trotted out, namely Frawley = 3, Franklin = 19. Maybe you could tweak it to have compensation picks drop it at the end of the draft round. That's probably the compromise solution to all of this. And as others have said, trading disgruntled players is basically trading a de facto free agent, the club the player is departing from always gets held over the trade table and usually winds up getting shafted. I have seen this happen to Brisbane over and over and over. So don't claim that trading players is a magic bullet, because it really isn't, not unless clubs are allowed to trade players to any club without players having any input. Then you could say trading is a fair option.

Players often get disgruntled when their agents get in their heads. It is in the interests of agents to bid up the contracts for their charges and the easiest way to do this is to get players to change clubs. Some players aren't smart enough to understand what is going on and don't realise that a club paying over the odds has reduced their chances of on field success. One of the problems with trading disgruntled players is almost the belief that they are de facto free agents with less offered in a trade than what should be. Perhaps clubs should be able to trade players regardless of the players wishes.

That's the problem though. Players have too much power. A club should be able to trade a player coming out of contract that they know they can't/won't re-sign. Its a great way from teams to rebuild and stockpile draft picks in our sports but not possible in the AFL because players get the say in any trade, if they don't want to go, they don't have to. This is the major missing part of free agency.