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SWANSBEST
1st July 2003, 07:49 AM
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PATRICK SMITH
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No need for the heavies to lose any hair over AFL's new rules

July 01, 2003
YOU knew the AFL would get this right.

The league has fussed over its new salary cap concessions rule more than Bert Newton does his hair. The only difference is that the AFL's new rule may survive a going-over with a fine tooth comb. We would fear for Bert's final strands.

League officials said yesterday that no paper had been as thoroughly explored and reviewed as the one delivered to club presidents yesterday afternoon. Three times it went to the AFL Commission and three times it came back. It has been six months in the making.

The rule ensures Brisbane and Sydney retain concessions that allow both clubs to pay above the set salary cap. It will not come into full force until 2006 to allow contracts already in place to be honoured.

Collingwood and Essendon have fought doggedly against these concessions. Their presidents, Eddie McGuire and Graeme McMahon, have threatened court action. The clubs' coaches, Mick Malthouse and Kevin Sheedy, have been stridently opposed to them as well. Recently they have been joined by Carlton president and Telstra Dome boss Ian Collins. He would have entered the debate earlier but he couldn't find the appropriate hat.

As the salary cap concession rule stands, this year Brisbane are allowed 10 per cent above the going rate and Sydney 15 per cent.

McGuire and McMahon say these figures are arbitrary to the point of being discriminatory although both clubs had representatives on the panel that set them.

The presidents' argument is not without merit. At the very least the figures are not transparent. They are based on no particular formula other than an acceptance that both developing clubs are disadvantaged and require assistance to prosper in states where the AFL is not the major and traditional code. As revealed in The Australian on April 9, the AFL always was going to retain the concessions but under new formulas no matter how mightily the Victorian heavies resisted.

The new rule is better because it applies to all 16 clubs if they qualify. The most Brisbane can ever be allowed to pay above the cap is $360,000, a significant clip from their present $600,000. If the formula applied now, Sydney's cap would be trimmed by about $200,000.

The concessions always were going to stay in some form because the AFL research showed a significant "go home" factor and that Sydney indisputedly had a higher cost of living than the other AFL states.

The lure of players to return to the state from which they were recruited is very real. It is at its most aggressive in the first five years a player is away from home and the new formula recognises this fact.

No club would be more aware of the "go home" factor than Collingwood themselves who have more than 20 players lured back from other clubs to Victoria.

The Sydney cost-of-living factor has been set at 7 per cent after the AFL said it consulted all the appropriate experts and studied all the necessary indicators. The other option, of course, was to live in Sydney for a day. Both techniques would have delivered the same result.

For all the angst of the Victorian clubs it should be noted that Carlton will have Anthony Koutoufides on the veterans list next year; Essendon will have James Hird and Collingwood Nathan Buckley.

Given that cash-challenged Sydney can afford to pay only around 102 per cent of their allowable cap and Brisbane's loading is trimmed from 10 per cent to 9 per cent pay, then the three Victorian clubs are likely to have bigger salary bills than the northern clubs anyway. Salary cap concessions has been an argument blurred to the point of blindness by self-interest. Brisbane's dominance over the past two years has driven the argument. In 1998 when they finished last nobody thought twice about their concessions ? draft or salary cap.

The AFL needs Brisbane and Sydney to be successful because that is the best way to attract fans from rival codes. Brisbane's success has seen their TV ratings jump 20 per cent. Assistance might be unfair, but it is the best protection the AFL can offer them and the rest of the competition. These new formulas are appropriate and well-researched.

They immediately assist the northern clubs in fighting the good fight and are available to all other clubs if they meet the criteria.

Looked at as protocols to protect the national league, nobody should lose any hair over these new rules. Except maybe Bert and that damned fine tooth comb.



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6679054%255E12270,00.html