Many have voiced concern about the proposed changes put forward by the AFL Players Association that would widen free agency.
In particular, the proposal which would enable players with four years’ club service, whose salaries are either at or below the median salary, to qualify for free agency.
There is still a school of thought that free agency has ruined football. Young players are holding clubs to ransom, loyalty is dead and all that.
But the idea of free agency remains a good one that just needs refining, and the new collective bargaining agreement should enable that.
Let’s remember how the system is supposed to work. The two main equalisation measures of the AFL’s player movement system are the draft and the salary cap.
This is what works in the NFL in the USA, always the most appropriate comparison to our league mainly because of the number of players on a list or roster.
In the AFL, restricted free agency kicks in after eight years and unrestricted free agency after ten. And the draft has compensation picks for free agents (this happens at a low level in the NFL) and academy/father-son picks.
In the NFL, free agency comes earlier and rookie contracts are longer, and this is what should happen in the AFL.
While Brisbane struggle with a number two pick who doesn’t want to sign a contract after his initial mandated two-year rookie contract, it becomes clear that rookie contracts for top-end picks should be longer.
The AFL could also stop a lot of this movement by placing a ban on players being traded after their rookie deals. If a player is desperate to move under this plan, they should re-enter the draft.
Free agency should come sooner though. Players at the eight-year or ten-year mark are almost certainly thinking about their football mortality and are desperate to win a premiership. Think about the movement of James Frawley as an example of this.
If free agency came sooner, players may think more about earning potential and less about premierships, and this is what we want the system to achieve.
The problem with this logic is that under current arrangements the difference in salary between a successful club aiming at a flag and a lower club with oodles of cash may not be that much. The decision may be between yearly salaries of around $100,000 a year.
History shows that when the differences are significant, such as when Gary Ablett went to the Gold Coast and Tom Scully went to Greater Western Sydney, money talked. The difference between $500,000 a year and $1.5 million a year was simply too much to pass up, so premiership considerations were put to one side for the almighty dollar.
This is exactly what the salary cap is meant to do – be a pseudo talent cap. The salary cap just needs to be higher – much higher. We need our players to get paid significantly more money than they currently receive.
If a player after six years and 100 to 130 games of service for a club qualifies for free agency and simply takes the most attractive offer financially, the system will work more like it should work.
Couple it with longer rookie contracts and a possible prohibition on 20-year-olds naming their destinations in trade discussions by making them re-enter the draft, and the AFL may get closer to a truly equitable competition.
But they’ll probably never get there while we have academies, and the father-son selection, with its reliance on a former great’s ability to sire a son.
Andrew Lewis
Roar Rookie
This is a benefit of the college system for American sporting franchises - athletes have already left home for a year (at least) before they are drafted.
Scott
Guest
Agree with you Ian on your first comment. And on another note, I'm tired of hearing people saying the players should get paid more. They make plenty and if they don't piss it up against the wall, then they can be set up for the rest of their lives. It's the clubs that deserve extra money. I don't know if players demanding more salary had any efffect on the latest TV deal, but if it did, then screw the players. We aren't getting Eagles and dockers games live on free to air anymore in WA on this new deal so it's the fans that are missing out now. If the players association demands an increase in the salary cap, it should only apply to the players minimum wage and spread equally across every player in a team
Cat
Roar Guru
NBA players also don't get 'homesick' and are far more willing to go wherever the money is offered. AFL players are far more precious.
Andrew Lewis
Roar Rookie
Battier was one the NBA's best citizens - he's an outlier. NBA players repeatedly turn down offers for $20 million per so they can get $25 million per somewhere else, because $5 million is a lot of money. $100,000 per year for a footballer isn't really a lot of money. If we continue to bastardize the system, then we may just as well go back to recruiting, transfers and academies, but as a GWS supporter I understand why you would like that. The Giants were able to sign good players when they had no players but cap room. Imagine if all the poor clubs with no players had the extra cap room to do this. GWS have too much talent and should be losing it, but you'll keep trading it out for more early draft picks. I don't see a foreseeable future AFL where GWS aren't more than competitive.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Im a Giants supporter. What you're describing is exactly what we did when we had cap room but no players, and is exactly what is now happening while we have players and no cap room. Changing the ceiling on the cap for everyone does absolutely nothing when players are chasing rings - indeed, its the reverse, as the difference between Shane Battier signing for Miami on the mini-MLE as versus a three year deal somewhere else at his market value made absolutely no difference to his future lifestyle, as he was already rich from his NBA career.
Andrew Lewis
Roar Rookie
The current salaries don't provide enough incentive for players to move for purely financial reasons. So they take slightly less to do what Lebron and Kevin Durant did in the NBA. This means that the salary cap as a "talent cap" doesn't work. If you take the money to a level where it is head turning - like it was for Gary Ablett and Tom Scully - then the salary cap will act more like a talent cap. Gary Ablett went from a team that had dominated the league for four years to a team just starting. This is exactly what the salary cap is meant to do - act as a mechanism to prevent teams collecting a prohibitively noncompetitive amount ot talent and send it to the teams that don't have talent, but because of this, have room in their salary cap. But considering what Robbo tweeted yesterday, I appreciate the comparison.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
There is some Robbo-level dumb with this article. The core of the dumb is here ... "This is exactly what the salary cap is meant to do – be a pseudo talent cap. The salary cap just needs to be higher – much higher. We need our players to get paid significantly more money than they currently receive.' So. If the cap is higher, then the "successful club aiming at a flag" will have more money to spend on retaining its own players. If you want the pseudo talent cap, then you need to be offering clubs low on the ladder additional cap room, over and above what those playing finals get.
John
Guest
If players want free agency earlier then they should also be allowed to be traded by a club without their consent. Seems players want everything in there favour with the clubs left with no options.
Tricky
Guest
Send this to Gil!
Brendon the 1st
Guest
*don't need a trade veto
Bman
Guest
+1
Brendon the 1st
Guest
We need a trade Veto, and one club with the balls to sign a player that says he doesn't want to go there, sign them anyway. Imagine if Freo had of been able to nab Omeara, would have been a game changer even if he refused to play, no more holding clubs to ransom by choosing a destination. Would this be restriction of trade?
Bob
Guest
I agree Steve, no trading veto should be allowed full stop (forget how much they are earning). Let's go back to the old system (pre-Free Agency). It was better. Unions destroy everything they touch and the Players Union is no different.
steve
Guest
Agree with everything bar the last point.
Liam Salter
Roar Guru
That's a good system, Ryan. Could we be expecting an article on that...?
Birdman
Guest
don't mind that system, Ryan.
Ryan Buckland
Expert
Six years should absolutely be the service limit for restricted free agents. If I was designing the system from scratch: - Rookie contracts: 3+1 (club option) for first round picks, 2+1 (club option) for second round picks, 2 years thereafter - Players eligible for extensions after two years, and can be traded when off contract after two years - Restricted free agency after six years, clubs retain rights to match rival bids - Unrestricted free agency after eight years - Players hold free agency status for life (ie they can move where they choose after contracts are up) - Draft pick compensation for restricted free agents, no compensation for unrestricted free agents - Players hold no trade veto rights if they are earning above a certain threshold
Cat
Roar Guru
NFL is actually a poor comparison. Free agency works in the NFL because of non-guaranteed contracts. Players who fail to perform can be cut at any time. There is less risk to signing a player to a big money, long term contract when you can cut them at any point. Trades are also fairly rare in the NFL. A better comparison how FA should work is baseball, basketball or NHL. It works in all three because of the balancing mechanisms that are absent from the AFL. In those American sports FA is balanced by teams abilities to trade expiring contracts for prospects before the player is lost for nothing. Teams have an 'out' if they know/don't desire to re-sign a player. Players traded also get to experience life at another club for the remaining season, perhaps finding a new place to call home or eventually signing elsewhere.
Lord Dunsborough of the MCC
Guest
Should return things to the good old days of yesteryear, when money talked and it was the only voice that carried any weight. It is a deplorable situation when someone like Jesse Hogan can be enticed to defect from the MCC New Model Army because we are forced to tie one hand and four fingers of the other hand behind our back during negotiations and compete with the same pathetic $10 million as everyone else to pay 40 grown men. I wouldn’t bother even taking the call from my stockbroker to discuss an IPO valued at $10 million.