- Dec 16, 2013
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Treloar played 4 years
List Mgmt. The Official Cam McCarthy Superultramega Thread - Deal done!
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Brian Waldron on SEN intimated that likely neither Freo or WC would touch Cam next year unless he got himself sorted out. Said he thought WC didn't go near him due to their issues in the past. Pretty easy to see what he was suggesting.
- Jun 5, 2015
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Umm interesting, wait and see.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/30717635/giants-won-t-just-roll-over-on-mccarthy/
Might just get him for nothing....
- Aug 20, 2014
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“The key thing at the moment is to determine whether he has the appetite and whether he thinks a full-time professional career in the AFL suits him,” Matthews said. They just cant admit that he may want to play AFL footy, just not in Western Sydney.
Lots of commentary out there on Cam keeping to his contract, both informed and not-so-informed.
I'm not a lawyer, but IIRC the nature of all contracts ( at common law level) are built on common precepts, some of the key ones being:
1. A meeting of the minds,
2.Fair exchange for mutual benefit.
3. Parties can basically contact any terms they want so long as you don't breech any laws (you cannot contract for an illegal purpose, otherwise either the offending clause or the entire contract is voided)
The issue for me is the nature of Cam's contract and the way the contract was struck (and by extension, AFL contracts in general).
Long term contracts often have cooling off periods and more than sufficient provisions for changing circumstances (ideally these provisions should make an allowance for early termination too IMO)
Without such provisions it's hard to maintain a meeting of the minds over the entire term of the contract. Life circumstances change and people's needs change with them; I've always believed the best contracts make such provisions as fhey wish to operate from a position of mutual respect.
Contracts can also sometimes take on a coercive nature however, under the grounds of commercial necessity for one (or both) parties. The greater the coercive factors of a contract's terms, the greater the problems managing and enforcing the contract - this is why respective bargaining power is such a big issue (especially in Australian Consumer Law for example).
I know precious little about AFL contracts in general, or Cam's contract in particular... but some of the probable terms of both can be guessed at by viewing the behavior of parties to the contract(s).
An AFL contract seems to be a particularly onerous one on the whole, given the nature of the exchange.
The nature of the AFL competition can seeming necessitate from a player: having to work in an isolated workplace possibly away from family and friends, grueling travel, hard physical labour, guaranteed physical performance standards, specific standards of behaviour at ALL times - (including weekends, evenings and holidays - regardless of which territory you happen to be in at the time), communal housing, dietary and alcohol restrictions, dealing with media interactions and interactions with the public whist at work and in your private life, media consumption restrictions whist at work and in private, wearing team uniforms while at work and while on work-related travel, very high probability of minor injury, moderately high probability of major injury, a moderate risk of permanent injury, working unusual hours, working on weekends... it's a long and life-modifying list.
Mind you, that's just the requirements between player and club - there are also arrangements between clubs and the AFL that would affect players requirements equally.
Most onerous of all is the requirement for players to enter into multiple-year, fixed-term contracts with only limited exit clauses... in order to limit player movement between clubs and equalize the competition (that's ignoring the obvious questions of non-competition clauses and restraint of trade)
Given the requirements of the job, the youth and inexperience of its players, the relatively short length of a typical playing career, the massive imbalance in bargaining power and the massively restrictive nature of the contract - in my opinion clubs should be held to the highest standards when it comes to duty of care and the welfare of its players.
This duty of care to the player IMO should not be limited to the term of the contract - I believe there should be some sort of pre-contractual obligations from the club to ensure the player's welfare won't be adversely affected if they choose to enter the contract. Given the working conditions and the relatively short duration of a player's career, there's no excuses for lax oversight.
I also believe clubs need to be very careful about the circumstances in which they negotiate contract extensions with players. In the case of Cam - I'm given to understand GWS negotiated an extension before his first AFL game, while he was still living with the club and therefore isolated physically and socially, away from his parents and peers in Perth. I don't know if there was a cooling-off period after signing, but I'm making the assumption that there wasn't.
There's nothing illegal or immoral about this, but it does leave GWS open to claims of exerting undue influence, given that they were dealing with a young and inexperienced individual living in an isolated home and work environment, that is largely controlled by the club. For a young man, this is an inherently coercive environment in which to make life decisions in my view - and that goes for ANY club an ANY player, not just GWS and Cam.
If Cam was in a coercive environment when signing his extension, and did so without fully understanding the nature of the exchange (and he couldn't fully appreciate all the ramifications of his choice, as he'd never played an AFL game in his life)... then there was no meeting of the minds, and I believe there are grounds to terminate the contract.
Even putting the Contract legalities aside, there's a certain moral hazard in this whole thing to consider. The realities of the working environment between AFL clubs and Draftees have a few too many similarities for my liking to some of the concepts behind indentured servitude . Indentured servants have been illegal for a very looong time - I think GWS (or any other club for that matter) has to think very carefully about how they approach situations like Cam's current one – there’s a whole CRATE of Canned Worms just waiting to be opened here IMO.
I'm not a lawyer, but IIRC the nature of all contracts ( at common law level) are built on common precepts, some of the key ones being:
1. A meeting of the minds,
2.Fair exchange for mutual benefit.
3. Parties can basically contact any terms they want so long as you don't breech any laws (you cannot contract for an illegal purpose, otherwise either the offending clause or the entire contract is voided)
The issue for me is the nature of Cam's contract and the way the contract was struck (and by extension, AFL contracts in general).
Long term contracts often have cooling off periods and more than sufficient provisions for changing circumstances (ideally these provisions should make an allowance for early termination too IMO)
Without such provisions it's hard to maintain a meeting of the minds over the entire term of the contract. Life circumstances change and people's needs change with them; I've always believed the best contracts make such provisions as fhey wish to operate from a position of mutual respect.
Contracts can also sometimes take on a coercive nature however, under the grounds of commercial necessity for one (or both) parties. The greater the coercive factors of a contract's terms, the greater the problems managing and enforcing the contract - this is why respective bargaining power is such a big issue (especially in Australian Consumer Law for example).
I know precious little about AFL contracts in general, or Cam's contract in particular... but some of the probable terms of both can be guessed at by viewing the behavior of parties to the contract(s).
An AFL contract seems to be a particularly onerous one on the whole, given the nature of the exchange.
The nature of the AFL competition can seeming necessitate from a player: having to work in an isolated workplace possibly away from family and friends, grueling travel, hard physical labour, guaranteed physical performance standards, specific standards of behaviour at ALL times - (including weekends, evenings and holidays - regardless of which territory you happen to be in at the time), communal housing, dietary and alcohol restrictions, dealing with media interactions and interactions with the public whist at work and in your private life, media consumption restrictions whist at work and in private, wearing team uniforms while at work and while on work-related travel, very high probability of minor injury, moderately high probability of major injury, a moderate risk of permanent injury, working unusual hours, working on weekends... it's a long and life-modifying list.
Mind you, that's just the requirements between player and club - there are also arrangements between clubs and the AFL that would affect players requirements equally.
Most onerous of all is the requirement for players to enter into multiple-year, fixed-term contracts with only limited exit clauses... in order to limit player movement between clubs and equalize the competition (that's ignoring the obvious questions of non-competition clauses and restraint of trade)
Given the requirements of the job, the youth and inexperience of its players, the relatively short length of a typical playing career, the massive imbalance in bargaining power and the massively restrictive nature of the contract - in my opinion clubs should be held to the highest standards when it comes to duty of care and the welfare of its players.
This duty of care to the player IMO should not be limited to the term of the contract - I believe there should be some sort of pre-contractual obligations from the club to ensure the player's welfare won't be adversely affected if they choose to enter the contract. Given the working conditions and the relatively short duration of a player's career, there's no excuses for lax oversight.
I also believe clubs need to be very careful about the circumstances in which they negotiate contract extensions with players. In the case of Cam - I'm given to understand GWS negotiated an extension before his first AFL game, while he was still living with the club and therefore isolated physically and socially, away from his parents and peers in Perth. I don't know if there was a cooling-off period after signing, but I'm making the assumption that there wasn't.
There's nothing illegal or immoral about this, but it does leave GWS open to claims of exerting undue influence, given that they were dealing with a young and inexperienced individual living in an isolated home and work environment, that is largely controlled by the club. For a young man, this is an inherently coercive environment in which to make life decisions in my view - and that goes for ANY club an ANY player, not just GWS and Cam.
If Cam was in a coercive environment when signing his extension, and did so without fully understanding the nature of the exchange (and he couldn't fully appreciate all the ramifications of his choice, as he'd never played an AFL game in his life)... then there was no meeting of the minds, and I believe there are grounds to terminate the contract.
Even putting the Contract legalities aside, there's a certain moral hazard in this whole thing to consider. The realities of the working environment between AFL clubs and Draftees have a few too many similarities for my liking to some of the concepts behind indentured servitude . Indentured servants have been illegal for a very looong time - I think GWS (or any other club for that matter) has to think very carefully about how they approach situations like Cam's current one – there’s a whole CRATE of Canned Worms just waiting to be opened here IMO.
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- Nov 29, 2011
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I agree. The usual spin is, as usual, nauseating. If he had been traded he would be wearing purple, and training the house down with a smile on his face. To allude to anything else about some mental issues or other is just pure spin.
- Aug 20, 2014
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If he gets delisted but I think he'll play for Souths
Wizard
Brownlow Medallist
CAN yes, but IMO he shouldn't.
I think that's sending a poor message and I think if hes serious about playing he should spend a year effectively out of the system with South or another club.
I would expect that we as a club would offer support and additional resources to him during this time, however I don't think him being involved in the club that closely helps anyone.
- Apr 15, 2013
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I can't see him being allowed to play for a WAFL club. He will sit the year out in Perth and get traded at the end of the year. Personally, if a player wants to leave as badly as Cam McCarthy, then you trade them. People can make comparisons to Brown from WCE, but the situations were entirely different: Brown wanted more game time. The way to keep players is to make them enjoy being at the club, and to have good clubmen creating a good culture. Drawing lines in the sand is just a nonsense.
You write like a lawyer.
- Aug 27, 2007
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Yeah wanting to leave because of lack of game time is totally different to having a mental health issue. GWS have every right to hold a player to their contract, but when player welfare is involved or a player request to leave on compassionate grounds, its a whole different ball game imo and there should be far more give.
We live in a society where mental health issues are not as taboo as they were in years gone by. People are much more receptive to it for the most part and for a club to deny player movement even when there are obvious mental issues or they want to leave on compassionate grounds isn't right. Not a great look for the game
We live in a society where mental health issues are not as taboo as they were in years gone by. People are much more receptive to it for the most part and for a club to deny player movement even when there are obvious mental issues or they want to leave on compassionate grounds isn't right. Not a great look for the game
I would've thought Jeff White would be a better comparison.
- Nov 29, 2011
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that's harsh. deserves at least a day off mods.
- May 15, 2006
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I'm in a massive dispute with a ex-client who still owes me $350k... and i'm having to represent myself ...wwriting like that is becoming a habit.
I hate writing like a lawyer, i hate being in legal battles... but I hate injustice and being screwed over even more.
Wouldn't worry too much mate. Courts love giving free kicks to unrepresented litigants.
Christ I hope so Dockernut - we're really getting near the pointy end now. If you know any commercial / contract lawyers willing to do a little pro-bono work where most of the hard stuff is already done, let me know!
Christ I hope so Dockernut - we're really getting near the pointy end now. If you know any commercial / contract lawyers willing to do a little pro-bono work where most of the hard stuff is already done, let me know!
Unless you're some sort of charity or not-for-profit that can satisfy a CSR criteria on some young go-getter's performance plan, your chances are slim to none of getting someone to do pro-bono on a commercial dispute. Sorry mate.
Anyway, how's that Cam McCarthy eh??
Who pays our player's salaries the FFC or the AFL?
Just a rumour?
Or someone you know saw McCarthy at the grounds? If so what was he doing there?
Parking his car?
Individual sprint work?
Meeting with the club?
That statement is useless without context.
Okinakashi
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- Sep 18, 2013
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Well Peel do need a replacement for Jetta?
Jeezus.. It is what it is, you can take it or leave it.
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