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On Monday, one of footy’s previously worst-kept secrets officially became official when Tom Lynch became a Tiger.
After three days of faux consideration, Lynch’s former club, Gold Coast, said they wouldn’t “match” Richmond’s reported seven-year deal and allowed their ex-skipper to join the 2019 premiership favourites – just as we all knew they would.
If the figures doing the rounds are to be believed, Lynch will make about $900,000 a year with the Tigers over seven years, which could be less than he was paid annually with the Suns the past few season.
Players want greater control over their movement, and that’s fine. Lynch has given the Suns eight seasons and 131 games and in that time sung their dreadful theme song just 37 times. It’s not his fault the club has been a disaster. If he wants to exercise his right to move on, that’s entirely reasonable.
Tom Lynch. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
But why would one of the worst teams in the league be so willing to let a 25-year-old key forward – who they can almost certainly afford to keep – leave the club?
It could be that they no longer consider him good enough to warrant being one of the league’s dozen-or-so highest-paid players – Lynch’s reputation has been somewhat diminished in the past two seasons after an exceptional 2016.
That might play a small part in the Suns’ motivations, but the real reason is that the AFL’s ‘restricted’ free agency is restricted in name only, and compensation picks are yet another compromise that is manipulating an already extremely compromised competition.
Under current rules, restricted free agents can sign an offer with any team and their club can either let them walk – and likely be compensated with a draft pick – or they match the offer. If they match, they can then work on a trade, keep the player if he chooses to stay, or, if he doesn’t want to stay, the player can enter the draft.
Of course, most of those scenarios mean little because since the AFL introduced free agency, no club has matched an offer on a restricted free agent. The closest we’ve had was the Crows threatening to do so with Patrick Dangerfield before working out a trade with the Cats.
Patrick Dangerfield during his last game with the Adelaide Crows (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Having finished the season 17th, Gold Coast knew that by letting Lynch go to the Tigers they would receive the third overall pick in the upcoming draft as compensation.
It’s time for that compensation to go, and for restricted free agency to live up to its name.
The fear of removing compensation is that it would cause too much pain to struggling clubs who lose good players, but that’s not necessarily the case.
Without compensation coming their way, the Suns would almost certainly have matched the Lynch offer and the Tigers would have been forced to negotiate a trade. Most likely that would have included Richmond’s 2018 and 2019 first-round selections and perhaps a player as well. That’s not as valuable as pick three, but at least it’s a real negotiation and a real transaction between the two teams that doesn’t further compromise the draft.
It may have even brought other teams into play. Perhaps the Magpies and Hawks would have gotten involved and – with Lynch happy to play for any one one of those clubs. The Suns would have been able to pit those three teams against each other and secure an even better deal – again, without compromising the draft.
There is the matter of whether you then expect players to honour the contract if their club matches and this is where the maturity of the league and its players would most be tested.
Players and their managers could get creative and introduce clauses that allow the player to determine whether their contract is extended after the first and/or second year of their new contract; perhaps they’d sign only two-year offers to get them through to unrestricted free agency.
Tom Lynch and Steven May of the Suns sing the club song. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
To satisfy players and the AFLPA, the league could bring restricted free agency forward. Rather than applying restricted status to only a club’s highest earners after their eighth season, it could apply to all players after six years, or five years, or – if you want true player movement – the first time they come out of contract.
You get the idea. Let’s not go any further down that rabbit hole here.
The current system isn’t working as intended. In effect, by conjuring an additional draft pick for the Suns – and every other team that gets a compensation pick – the entire league is paying a small price so the Tigers can obtain a gun player without giving up anything but salary cap space.
Why should the Saints or Lions be bumped down the draft order? It stinks.
It’s reasonable for players to want more control over where they play/work, but currently they are having their cake and eating it. For restricted free agency to work properly, there needs to be some actual restriction.