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Thread: Buddy hypothetical

  1. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ruck'n'Roll View Post
    That is an astonishing revelation, and it seems a bit indiscreet.

    If true I'd love to know where the "dollar amount" came from. Was he leaking (or indicating the vicinity of) the Hawks offer, the Giants offer or simply stating Buddy's (or Pickers' own) aspiration?
    The topic came up because they were discussing a player that had signed a 5 year contract and whether large multi year contracts were a risk. Buddy's 9 year contract was brought up and that's what Pickering responded with. So the discussion was more about the length rather than the dollar amount.

  2. #50
    Ego alta, ergo ictus Ruck'n'Roll's Avatar
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    A Buddy Hypothetical – The Contract

    This post contains no judgement whatsoever on Buddy’s past or present performance, his value to the Swans, the overall success ROI of the contract or other similar subjects. This post is all about what machinations could have brought Buddy's ground breaking contract into exitance 8 years ago and that is all – history not currant events.

    I have always found the Buddy deal difficult for me to get my head around. However, a few bits of information have fallen into place recently and I think I’m getting closer to comprehending it now - and have decided to share.

    To start with, I’ll look at the $$$’s – I’ll address the duration of the contract a little later. The Giants' offer was for $7 mill, the Swans offer was $10 mill.

    Not even in the currently hyper-inflated Sydney real estate market does a bidder surpass the previous bid by more than 40% - to suggest the Swans did, is to suggest utter incompetence on their part.

    I’m not suggesting this.
    But I have always wondered how the Swans got to $10 mill?
    It’s been suggested that the Swans were given that number by Buddy’s agent, in which case did Pickering pluck that number out of the air? Or was a $10 mill payday already a possibility for Buddy. I believe so.

    So where did the extra $3 mill come from?
    I think there can be only one possibility, the AFL itself.
    Finding an extra $3 mill in your salary cap would be extremely difficult for a club, but not so for the AFL, who’ve invested $267 mill into GWS.
    Does a 7 year ambassadorial role for the most bankable star in the AFL to headline their push into the leagues heartland - $3 mill sound implausible to anyone here? It sounds like a bargain to me.

    At the time Andy Demetriou denied offering inducements to any player to leave their current club. He later acknowledged that the AFL “could” offer Buddy an ambassadorial role – so the money was available.
    Inducement? Ambassadorship? - You say tomarto, I say tomayto.

    The above suggestion is the only way I can see to reconcile the size of our Buddy’s offer with his frequently expressed and apparently sincere preference for the Swans. If the above is substantially correct then Buddy did not gouge the Swans for an extra $3 mill – Buddy effectively gave us last refusal by allowing us to match an existing offer.

    I believe the Swans actually managed to outbid the Giants and the AFL offer combined – an astonishingly bold move.

    The AFL under Demetriou has always had a completely self absorbed and almost biblical “Whoever is not with me, is against me” approach to conflict. Anyone who thwarts their desires, or even inadvertently damages their brand, will be punished.

    In the case of Buddy, he actually spurned their offer. Mike Fitzpatrick’s immediate reaction, a threatening and expletive riddled phone call to Richard Colless – is a textbook illustration of the narcissists (or narcissistic organisations) response to not getting their own way.

    It was followed by the scrapping of COLA - unfortunately this affected all the expansion teams, so the AFL added it’s ridiculous trade ban to remove all doubt as to who was in the naughty corner.

    Is that it? Maybe not quite. The AFL may have had a whack at Buddy too.
    With Buddy in the Sydney market you’d think the AFL marketing department would make saturation use of his unparalleled star power to promote the game wouldn’t you? Astonishingly this is not the case. It’s actually really hard to find much in the way of AFL-originated Buddy based marketing. Nor did Buddy get to enjoy the anticipated AFL ambassadorial role.

    Finally let’s turn back to the duration of the contract.
    Matching the Giants and AFL offer combined the Swans put considerable pressure on their salary cap. I suspect achieving the necessary $10 mill was only possible by amortizing the costs, with the use of a 9 year contract.
    Many in 2013 thought the idea of a 35 year old making a significant contributions to his team was preposterous, but Buddy’s proved them wrong.

    It was also reported that Buddy himself was shocked at the duration of the Swans contract. However, there's never been any suggestion that Buddy was unhappy/shocked with the $10 mill, so maybe he was less across some of the other details – in particular the duration of the contract. His decision to dismiss his manager immediately after he'd just negotiated the biggest contract in AFL history is very hard to convincingly explain otherwise.

    Sorry for the length of this post, and hope it won’t preclude it form receiving due consideration.
    Loose translation from the Latin is - I am tall, so I hit out.

  3. #51
    Thats quite a probable scenario "RucknRoll".

    Buddy wanted to move to Sydney. I dont think he really cared where he went (Swans or GWS), but Swans were more of a sure thing for finals as they'd just won a flag. GWS was riskier, but all pundits said finals was a sure thing anyway.

    GWS's bid of $7m must have been enough for Hawthorn not to match.
    And the Swans jump to $10m must have been driven by something such as other income incentives for going to GWS.

    The GWS's bid (as far as salary cap goes) sounds fair. The swans paid overs, and at the end of the day, thats the swans decision and only their decision.

    Would he have won a flag at either club... dont know. The odds were stacked against him, because the sides that win flags (like Hawthorn or Richmond) are the sides where everyone across the team was prepared to get paid less than open market value to stay together. He was getting paid at market at GWS, or above market at the swans.

    The swans really only had one crack at a Buddy flag... in 2016. His payments were still 'normal', and the 2012 premiership team was still largely together. In later years, Buddies contract loading of $1.4+m means other stars were forced out, or we couldnt get stars in. ie. We couldnt afford a team around him.

    So, in the harsh light of getting Buddy for a 9 year period, where we had a window of a flag only in the first 3-4 years, followed by mid-lower table placings, and then at the end of the 9 years, as rebuilding is kicking in, losing young stars like Dawson and Allir.. prolonging a the next shot at a flag to the 12 year mark...... was it worth it?

    I dont think so.

  4. #52
    I can understand the AFL anger at Swans getting Buddy ahead of GWS. The AFL has a history of moving players to outpost clubs to change their fortunes. And we have been the biggest beneficiaries of that with Plugger. In that case, Collingwood were ready to poach him, but got arm-twisted out of it for fairly tenuous public reasons.

    Killing COLA was a spiteful thing that has probably hurt GWS the most of all clubs.

  5. #53
    Some good points there, Barry. There are a couple of points you raise that I would like to query.

    1. Would he have won a flag at either club... dont know. The odds were stacked against him, because the sides that win flags (like Hawthorn or Richmond) are the sides where everyone across the team was prepared to get paid less than open market value to stay together. He was getting paid at market at GWS, or above market at the swans.

    I think that the often cited view that players at these clubs accept unders out of loyalty is a myth in most cases. I firmly believe that these big Clubs in Melbourne and Perth are able to offer inducements outside of the official cap that make the player's deal similar to others. This may be in the way of "marketing" side deals or opportunities post-career.

    2. The COLA was discontinued due to the Buddy deal.

    For at least 10 years prior to the Buddy deal, the bigger clubs lead by Eddie McGuire were lobbying the AFL hard to get rid of this concession. It was inevitable that it was going to be discontinued despite our arguments for. We were doing well on the field and the big Clubs did not like it. The view was that we no longer needed it. The Buddy deal simply speeded up this process of elimination.

    Just my thoughts.

  6. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by barry View Post
    I can understand the AFL anger at Swans getting Buddy ahead of GWS. The AFL has a history of moving players to outpost clubs to change their fortunes. And we have been the biggest beneficiaries of that with Plugger. In that case, Collingwood were ready to poach him, but got arm-twisted out of it for fairly tenuous public reasons.

    Killing COLA was a spiteful thing that has probably hurt GWS the most of all clubs.
    You might be able to understand the AFL's anger at the Swans, but in no way does anger justify the punitive measures that were invoked. It was pure petulance on their part. Their plans were thwarted, so what? It was and remains a travesty.

  7. #55
    pr. dim-melb; m not f
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    "Was it worth it?"

    Damn right it was worth it. The jump in crowd numbers, the excitement he brought to the game, the learning that has gone into other players, not to mention the possibility of father/son or in the new world father/daughter! And is he in line for a coaching role? I would think so - he has been doing that on ground for most of his time with us.
    He reminds him of the guys, close-set, slow, and never rattled, who were play-makers on the team. (John Updike, seeing Josh Kennedy in a crystal ball)

  8. #56
    At the risk of repeating myself, I would heartily recommend reading The Boys Club, which devotes pages to Buddygate and the AFL's vicious and unwarranted reaction... Mick Warner says that the removal of COLA was all in reaction to Buddy going to the Swans.

  9. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ruck'n'Roll View Post

    It was also reported that Buddy himself was shocked at the duration of the Swans contract. However, there's never been any suggestion that Buddy was unhappy/shocked with the $10 mill, so maybe he was less across some of the other details – in particular the duration of the contract. His decision to dismiss his manager immediately after he'd just negotiated the biggest contract in AFL history is very hard to convincingly explain otherwise.
    Buddy changed management because he wasn't going to need Pickering to negotiate another AFL contract. He now needed someone to negotiate off field deals not connected to footy. I think he moved to Jesinta's management.

  10. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by Markwebbos View Post
    At the risk of repeating myself, I would heartily recommend reading The Boys Club, which devotes pages to Buddygate and the AFL's vicious and unwarranted reaction... Mick Warner says that the removal of COLA was all in reaction to Buddy going to the Swans.
    There is no doubt that the Buddy deal pushed COLA over the edge. By his own admission, Fitzpatrick was one of the last left on the Commission who supported its retention till the Buddy deal. But it was going to disappear anyway. It was just a matter of time. The Eddie-led big Clubs were lobbying intensely behind the scenes to remove it. Moreover, as new Commission members joined who were more pro the Victorian Clubs its days were numbered. It was introduced when the Swans were a basket case in the early 1990s as they could not hang onto players at that time. This was far less so by 2013 when the Swans had won 2 flags in 8 years. Its just good that we managed to get Buddy in before it was dropped.

  11. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aprilbr View Post
    There is no doubt that the Buddy deal pushed COLA over the edge. By his own admission, Fitzpatrick was one of the last left on the Commission who supported its retention till the Buddy deal. But it was going to disappear anyway. It was just a matter of time. The Eddie-led big Clubs were lobbying intensely behind the scenes to remove it. Moreover, as new Commission members joined who were more pro the Victorian Clubs its days were numbered. It was introduced when the Swans were a basket case in the early 1990s as they could not hang onto players at that time. This was far less so by 2013 when the Swans had won 2 flags in 8 years. Its just good that we managed to get Buddy in before it was dropped.
    We (and Brisbane) used to have a retention allowance. Ours was higher than the Lions' (Bears') because it explicitly included a cost of living allowance. After the Lions won their threepeat, they lost their retention allowance and we had ours reduced, with just the cost of living element remaining.

    I'm not disputing that clubs were lobbying to get rid of it, but not for any "fair" reason. Indeed, when Ed had his brief spell in Sydney as Nine CEO, he came out publicly in defence of the allowance, observing how much more expensive it was to live in Sydney than in Melbourne. The academy is a tangible advantage (albeit justified, IMO, for reasons oft-discussed). The Cost of Living Allowance was never an advantage. Just a (maybe clumsy) way to offset an inherent disadvantage. I think referring to it as COLA clouds its very purpose. Cost of Living equalisation measure.

  12. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by dimelb View Post
    "Was it worth it?"

    Damn right it was worth it. The jump in crowd numbers, the excitement he brought to the game, the learning that has gone into other players, not to mention the possibility of father/son or in the new world father/daughter! And is he in line for a coaching role? I would think so - he has been doing that on ground for most of his time with us.
    The Swans have been losing substantial sums of money the past few years.

    I just think a less expensive player would have had a better outcome.

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