salary cap

Remove this Banner Ad

The Fact

Club Legend
May 23, 2009
1,564
317
Wheelers Hill
AFL Club
Essendon
Been thinking about this for a while and IMO instead of looking at giving teams priority picks teams that finish in the bottom 4 more than 2 years in a row can pay less than the 95% salary cap down too 85% for 2 years.

This would mean the club isn't over paying players and if they do get inventive with contracts eg front loading they could have a real war chest to play around with and not just get 1 player but get up to 3 to 4 players without having to make major changes to an already struggling list.

Thoughts?
 

Shoei

Norm Smith Medallist
Sep 26, 2011
9,223
7,443
Perth
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Arsenal
Shoei

Believe you've had a similar argument.

If you want a system of equality then Salary cap minimum needs to be removed, or set at something like 50%. Free agency needs to be completely free and open to all players out of contract as well.

The fact that the team that finished as Premiers is spending the same amount on salary as the team that finished bottom is insulting.

People complain the more successful clubs draining players away from less successful. This is because there is no incentive at all to stay at the less successful clubs. If it is a difference of playing at Hawthorn for $400,000 or playing at Melbourne for $420,000; why would you chose Melbourne?

Dropping the minimum cap AND having complete free agency (none of this draft pick/ 8 years bullshit) would allow the less successful clubs to entice the bigger named players away from clubs, but more importantly, allow them to pick off quality depth players that may not be getting huge amounts of games at other clubs.

If it is a difference of playing at Hawthorn for $400,000 or playing at Melbourne for $420,000; why would you chose Melbourne?
If it is a difference of playing at Hawthorn for $400,000 or playing at Melbourne for $550,000; you are going to start seeing more players moving around the league.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

MistyAvalon

Premiership Player
Feb 13, 2011
4,502
1,812
Sydney
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Yankees , Roosters
how did I know Hawthorn was cop being the bad guy again?

It takes more than money to win premierships. I would counter why should any team have to pay more cos they win.............perhaps...( and i am not suggesting this.........) cutting the top teams spending capacity would even up the pool. I know this isn't popular, but anyone ever think that t here are just not enough top players to go around? and there are some players who want to win premierships or play for thier team they have supported since they were kids
 
We see players leaving for success over money so this isn't going to stop that. If you reduce salaries in a bottom side, there is perhaps more incentive for players to leave. I think it shouldn't be so stringent but this issue is a double edged sword I think.
 
how did I know Hawthorn was cop being the bad guy again?

It takes more than money to win premierships. I would counter why should any team have to pay more cos they win.............perhaps...( and i am not suggesting this.........) cutting the top teams spending capacity would even up the pool. I know this isn't popular, but anyone ever think that t here are just not enough top players to go around? and there are some players who want to win premierships or play for thier team they have supported since they were kids
I dont think you got the point at all.

What Shoei is stating is that it is bad for the league that carlton has to play 95% minimum of the cap and this means average players are getting paid while lower teams miss out on getting free agents because they cannot compete realisticaly with money.

the 95% floor is harming teams.
 
May 30, 2006
17,520
10,293
Canberra
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Its been brought up a lot. Its something many of us agree with.
Personally, I'd also remove the allowances for finals, etc. 100% of the cap should be the maximum regardless. And have a lower floor, maybe 75 or 80% so the teams that don't have the cattle have room to get free agents and to secure their best youngsters for long periods. They should have room as it is, as they should usually be delisting more players.
 
Aug 14, 2011
44,794
16,853
Trafalgar
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Mclaren Mercedes F1
Been thinking about this for a while and IMO instead of looking at giving teams priority picks teams that finish in the bottom 4 more than 2 years in a row can pay less than the 95% salary cap down too 85% for 2 years.

This would mean the club isn't over paying players and if they do get inventive with contracts eg front loading they could have a real war chest to play around with and not just get 1 player but get up to 3 to 4 players without having to make major changes to an already struggling list.

Thoughts?

Dismal management will deny the best of intentions - which club will be the first to fall on trading future picks, its going to happen ... good list management will win through & excuses will continue to be the currency of losers.
 

MistyAvalon

Premiership Player
Feb 13, 2011
4,502
1,812
Sydney
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Yankees , Roosters
I dont think you got the point at all.

What Shoei is stating is that it is bad for the league that carlton has to play 95% minimum of the cap and this means average players are getting paid while lower teams miss out on getting free agents because they cannot compete realisticaly with money.

the 95% floor is harming teams.
I do take your point... but I would counter that these lower placed teams get t he benefit of t he draft whereas top placed teams like hawthorn have to be brilliant at list building.. they have to be content with less than ideal players.. find that diamond in the rough....it is n easy task... and then fight for expensive free agents.

i agree something needs to change but I don't think making winning teams pay more for players is the anwer
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

In order to build up some salary cap space can't teams use the following methods already:
- front load / back load contracts
- after paying minimum of 95% in a given year. use/allocate the remaining 5% on next years wages (I'm unsure if ive made this up or read itsomewhere) essentially giving you an extra 5% the next year.

Just with these two methods clubs could free up a lot coin to throw around at players and it would be easier to do as a bottom side given many of your players are not deserving of a high wage.

The other point to note is that a drop in minimum player payments would see players at clubs get paid less than they are now (justifiably though given their worth) which I am sure the AFLPA would be against anything which would see a drop in wages.

On a side note does anyone know of a player who was getting paid well over the odds purely so the club could hit minimum requirements? Has anything like this ever come out?
 

Shoei

Norm Smith Medallist
Sep 26, 2011
9,223
7,443
Perth
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Arsenal
I do take your point... but I would counter that these lower placed teams get t he benefit of t he draft whereas top placed teams like hawthorn have to be brilliant at list building.. they have to be content with less than ideal players.. find that diamond in the rough....it is n easy task... and then fight for expensive free agents.

i agree something needs to change but I don't think making winning teams pay more for players is the anwer

What? How are winning teams paying more for players? If anything the less successful teams are paying more....you have the idea backwards.

Each team has exactly the same amount of Salary space. At the moment each team has to pay exactly the same amount of salary regardless of their players deserving it or not. This forces the less successful teams to inflate contracts just to meet the minimum amount needed.

If there was a 50% Salary cap floor......All teams would still be paying the same amount. The salary cap limit doesn't change. All it does is allow clubs the freedom to use that cap space as they see fit rather than being forced to spend it just because.

This is also why it needs to be in place alongside complete free agency.
 
The salary cap floor should be lowered, perhaps 50% I'm not sure. This though does give lower clubs huge room to poach players, this ther should them be an allowance for top clubs to go over the salary cap to retain their own players, clubs could go up to 115% of the cap if they are re-signing a player they have recruited and developed themselves.
 
Nov 8, 2000
33,295
21,790
South of the river
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
Peel Thunder
Can front-load contracts to pay far less than 95%.

So you can easily pay ~85% when you're crap if you're willing and able to pay ~110% when your list is better.

Yep. It's easy to take a $500k player and pay him $800k for year 1 and $200k for year 2. That gives you an extra $300k in next year's war chest.

If the cap is $10m and your list is worth $7m, then you don't overpay your players (at least not yet). You take $3m of next year's commitments and bring them forward to this year. So you have a massive fund ready for a free agency raid the following year. You can legitimately go out and make million dollar offers to anyone you like.
 

Vintage

Club Legend
Mar 5, 2006
2,614
3,377
Perth
AFL Club
Fremantle
Yep. It's easy to take a $500k player and pay him $800k for year 1 and $200k for year 2. That gives you an extra $300k in next year's war chest.

If the cap is $10m and your list is worth $7m, then you don't overpay your players (at least not yet). You take $3m of next year's commitments and bring them forward to this year. So you have a massive fund ready for a free agency raid the following year. You can legitimately go out and make million dollar offers to anyone you like.
That's how I thought it worked - maybe not quite to that extreme (yet), but along those lines.
 
I think the idea has merit - I've always found it ludicrous that a team like Carlton for example was paying the same amount of wages to its players as hawthorn was. It makes far more sense that they could develop a war chest for when a big name became available or at least to be even able dangle the line.
 

Topkent

Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Aug 29, 2010
61,054
84,968
Canada
AFL Club
Melbourne
Other Teams
Winnipeg Jets
In order to build up some salary cap space can't teams use the following methods already:
- front load / back load contracts
- after paying minimum of 95% in a given year. use/allocate the remaining 5% on next years wages (I'm unsure if ive made this up or read itsomewhere) essentially giving you an extra 5% the next year.

Just with these two methods clubs could free up a lot coin to throw around at players and it would be easier to do as a bottom side given many of your players are not deserving of a high wage.

The other point to note is that a drop in minimum player payments would see players at clubs get paid less than they are now (justifiably though given their worth) which I am sure the AFLPA would be against anything which would see a drop in wages.

On a side note does anyone know of a player who was getting paid well over the odds purely so the club could hit minimum requirements? Has anything like this ever come out?

Absoloutely no doubt Chris dawes was brought in an paid a fortune to help us reach the salary floor
When we were poxy in 08 or 09 I remember Aaron Davey was being paid over 700k per year as an outside midfielder
 
Apr 15, 2013
1,716
2,681
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Except they didn't, at all.
Strikes me they misunderstood the op.

I think the idea has merit, but as other posters have stated, you can front load contracts now.

I'm not sure how you plan ahead for poor ladder positioning with your contracts though. Take Hawthorn in 2007 we went from missing the finals confortably to the semi final very quickly. Had we had extra room in the salary based on expected finish position, the trajectory to the top would have been over exaggerated if more quality could have been brought in at that point.

I guess there would be rapid changes in ladder position at least, which the AFL wants.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
 
Aug 14, 2011
44,794
16,853
Trafalgar
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Mclaren Mercedes F1

MistyAvalon

Premiership Player
Feb 13, 2011
4,502
1,812
Sydney
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Yankees , Roosters
What? How are winning teams paying more for players? If anything the less successful teams are paying more....you have the idea backwards.



someone said somewhere that it is wrong for top teams to pay the same rate as lower placed teams and I thought this was odd... so i commented.. lol.... seems most of what I say ruffles feathers.
 
Aug 14, 2011
44,794
16,853
Trafalgar
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Mclaren Mercedes F1
Absoloutely no doubt Chris dawes was brought in an paid a fortune to help us reach the salary floor
When we were poxy in 08 or 09 I remember Aaron Davey was being paid over 700k per year as an outside midfielder

anyone still in management, on the board, from this ill-fated era ?
 
Back