The Haves And Have Nots.

[GhostofPP]

Closer than any club bar Port since Fitzroy.

One of the richest families in Australia is our number 1 fan,


You think they would let us go broke? hahahahahahaha'


Mate, you have no idea

 

[GhostofPP]

so anyway, which is it mate? are we overpaying Judd under the visy deal?

Or are we going broke?


LOL

 

[liam_13]

so anyway, which is it mate? are we overpaying Judd under the visy deal?

Or are we going broke?


LOL

You were going broke...saved by a criminal and Grug

 

[Cousin Jed]

Straying well off topic and a couple of you are venturing into card territory

 

[Topper Harley]

StKilda nearly won two flags
Hawthorn had to go to Launceston to survive.
Geelong nearly went belly up 5 years ago.
Sydney won a flag
Brisbane won three flags.
Port won a flag.
Essendon and Fremantle are wealthy clubs that have done nothing for 8 years. Crows too.
Richmond and Melbourne have been crap for 20+ years....them struggling is not a recent development due to financial conditions.
Carlton have been mia for ten years up until this year.
The Bulldogs were at the top for for quite a long time. It wasnt money that stopped them from going the next step.


Theres no evidence that wealthy clubs are going to dominate forever.. Its just part of a cycle and coincidentally a few of them happen to be up and about at the same time.

11 years ago, but point taken.

 

[Pnut]

brayshaw's propaganda machine must be firing on all cylinders at the moment.

so it sounds like the afl will force successful clubs to spend less money and lower the overall standard of the competition so that north melbourne can compete better.

or maybe they'll just allow the competition to follow it's current path and the remaining vic clubs will be stronger when a couple of clubs can't keep up anymore as the bar keeps raising. exactly like they did last time and the time before. and north will go the same way as south and fitzroy.

the tragedy in all of this is all the north supporters that'll be whistling this unfair stadium bullshit as their club goes under instead of taking responsibility for fixing their own problems. north needs a stynes.

 

[Falchoon]

Not sure I agree on that specific point but irrespective I dont see any good reason to bring free agency in.

Good for the players, at the expense of the fans.

 

[HyperAgressiveDonk]

Id love to see some sort of reference for that statement.

The early 2000s saw the AFL shift games from Princes Park to Etihad, just after a new grandstand was completed, but not paid for. Then the AFL handed down a somewhat deserved million dollar fine. All things considered, the Club was never in danger of folding at any point.

You were pretty close to folding, but the AFL bailed you out with a loan. I'm not saying you would have folded, we really don't know. But if the AFL didn't give you a loan and if the AFL then didn't grant you several extensions on that loan, then in my opinion, you would be on struggle street in a big way. Ian Collins is quoted in the article below, you couldn't afford to pay wages at one point and I was reading several articles saying you were 15 million in debt.

I suppose it just reiterates Kennets point about over half the clubs being fundamentally in administration. A cap on football department spending and scrapping free agency would help out struggling clubs big time.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...es-were-too-hard/story-e6frf9jf-1226093365695

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...-from-the-afl-for-15m-debt-20091124-j3wf.html

Several clubs are really in a bad way and it's just going to get worse. Richmond are rattling tins, Port Power are in administration, the Dogs are on struggle street. Rampant football department spending to keep up with the bigger clubs and free agency will only makes things worse for these struggling sides. In 5 years the AFL will be dominated by a few ruling elite, Collingwood, Geelong, Hawthorn, Essendon, West Coast and Adelaide if the AFL don't act immediately. Our game is turning into a farce and the rich, powerful clubs are just getting richer and more powerful, whilst the middle rung and poorer clubs are regressing both on and off the field.

 

[Jammer]

I have no problem with the footy department spending..... and admire the Pies for what they have done

The area that needs a massive clean up is third party deals i.e Judd and the buckets of cash he gets outside the cap.....
This is an area where the big power clubs with their connections have it over the others......
Would be an interesting to know some of the 'Outside of football incomes' for some of the player of Collingwood, Blues, West Coast ect...

No potting the Pies as i'm sure there are deals involving players at my club..even though we are shite..........however If they can keep that team together next year I'd be very surprised that a few players don't have some sort of bogus 'promotion' gig that pays six figures.

 

[Check-Raise !]

I don't think that's a realistic solution at all, a knee jerk reaction akin to the "interstate teams are dominating" crap a couple of years ago. Footy is cyclical and teams will catch up, teams will become stronger and more stable off the field.

However, I do think at the moment there needs to be more effort on behalf of the AFL to ensure there's a level playing field.

They can start with the fixture, every team deserves their fair share of prime time football matches and to get the exposure they need to flourish. Right now it is all about maximising profit, but it's simply making the big clubs bigger.

They also need to make sure the clubs get a good cut, it's very well pouring a shit tonne of cash into expanding the game but there's not a whole lot of point if the existing clubs are struggling, many of which are previous expansion clubs themselves.

Also, I'd like to see the end of the SANFL influence in the south australian clubs, every club should be self determining and not restricted in any way.

Jesus man, I haven't heard so much sense on here since I don't know when... kudos champ .

Fixturing does assist the bigger clubs and hurt the lesser ones, however it's understandable that they don't really want GC vs Port Adelaide and say GWS vs Brisbane on current form on a Friday and Saturday night prime time TV. Is that right and fair though, probably not!

Spot on re SANFL also.

 

[MaddAdam]

the tragedy in all of this is all the north supporters that'll be whistling this unfair stadium bullshit as their club goes under instead of taking responsibility for fixing their own problems. north needs a stynes.

You sure? Things aren't exactly super rosy down at Demonland right now.

 

[AndyLucimitis]

Several clubs are really in a bad way and it's just going to get worse. Richmond are rattling tins, Port Power are in administration, the Dogs are on struggle street. Rampant football department spending to keep up with the bigger clubs and free agency will only makes things worse for these struggling sides. In 5 years the AFL will be dominated by a few ruling elite, Collingwood, Geelong, Hawthorn, Essendon, West Coast and Adelaide if the AFL don't act immediately. Our game is turning into a farce.

I'm sure the AFL are concerned about Carlton.

They worry when one of the 'Big Three' are third on the Victorian membership table and only drawing four 75K-88K crowds.

 

[CoastersFlag No.5]

The reality is that the AFL has to be careful of legal issues such as restraint of trade. If someone who desperately wants to leave a side performing poorly i.e. Adam Selwood wanting to leave us in 08 if no suitable trade was organised they could take legal action against the clubs and AFL hence the 8 year rule for players in free agency. It's very important that more money is put into the smaller clubs football departments to match the big boys. No one wants English Premier League type imbalance in AFL.

 

[HyperAgressiveDonk]

I'm sure the AFL are concerned about Carlton.

They worry when one of the 'Big Three' are third on the Victorian membership table and only drawing four 75K-88K crowds.

Yes you are pulling decent crowds and have decent membership this year no doubt. But the Big Four is a redundant and completely irrelevant concept based around neighbourhood rivalries from 100 years ago. It's a national competition now and a big, big, big business.

If there were a national Big Three or Four, it would be something like this

Collingwood
West Coast
Adelaide

Then Hawthorn / Essendon / Geelong on the next tier just below. Then a huge gap down to the rest of the clubs.

That is taking into account, memberships, success in the AFL era & current wealth & power. There is a massive gap those six clubs have opened up on the rest of the comp, in terms of financial power and membership bases combined. Massively dangerous. It's only going one way as well.

A cap on football department spending and scrapping free agency is a MUST, so these clubs don't dominate for a sustained period of time.

 

[Dogs_r_barking]

I'm sure the AFL are concerned about Carlton.

They worry when one of the 'Big Three' are third on the Victorian membership table and only drawing four 75K-88K crowds.

I think that the AFL needs to be careful in balancing the big following clubs with prime fixture and TV rights, against killing off the smaller clubs with lack of exposure to grow their brand. If the small clubs go under, the supporters will walk to other sports - guaranteed, look at Fitzroy supporters so many I know never barracked for another club.

The big clubs might find this amusing, but take a look at the ratings in the weekend, the Collingwood/Port game was low in ratings and so was Carlton/Melbourne. We all want to watch a good game irrelevant to who is playing.

I

 

[HyperAgressiveDonk]

Mick Malthouse was quoted saying that when Free Agency comes in, top line players at less successful clubs are going to be lining up to come to the successful ones.

Here's the kind of situation that is going to arise if they introduce full scale free agency ( which they will soon enough ).

Say you were Jack Riewoldt for example and you had the choice between staying at Richmond or going to Collingwood.

It's like this, he can stay at Richmond and be surrounded by a poor list in a club with no success in the last three decades, who is rattling tins. Or he can go play for Collingwood, who can offer him a good chance of premierships & state of the art football facilities. All the meanwhile he is surrounded by stars and has Pendlebury, Swan, Thomas and co kicking the ball down his throat making him a 20 goal a year better player, in a successful side that wins flags and glory. What is he going to do seriously?

It's a no brainer, he's going to Collingwood. You would have a screw loose not too. Once free agency comes in, it's going to create a massive gap on and off the field between the haves and have nots. A much, much bigger gap than there already is. We will be seeing multiple 70 + point blowouts weekly, it's going to be ****ing diabolical.

I don't think some people in this thread have grasped fully what is going to happen to their club when full scale free agency comes in. It's going to be a ****ing disaster for the competition and most clubs are going to reduced to EPL style also rans.

 

[SHAKESPEARE]

The Working People's Republic of Football, here we come.

 

[AndyLucimitis]

Yes you are pulling decent crowds and have decent membership this year no doubt. But the Big Four is a redundant and completely irrelevant concept based around neighbourhood rivalries from 100 years ago.

Tell that to the players. When Free Agency comes in, where do you think the star players will want to play - West Coast on a Sunday afternoon in Perth, Adelaide on a wet Saturday night in front of 30,000 ??


...or playing for Collingwood, Essendon or Carlton in front of 70-80 thousand people at the MCG ??

 

[MaddAdam]

Tell that to the players. When Free Agency comes in, where do you think the star players will want to play - West Coast on a Sunday afternoon in Perth, Adelaide on a wet Saturday night in front of 30,000 ??


...or playing for Collingwood, Essendon or Carlton in front of 70-80 thousand people at the MCG ??

Carey could have gone to any club in the league yet stayed at North. More to it than just that.

 

[KissmeRobbo]

With all the talks of blowouts this year and a Top Four that consists of 4 of the 5 wealthiest clubs ( Collingwood, Geelong, Hawthorn & West Coast ). I am really of the firm belief now that Football Department spending needs to be capped.

If you have 18 even identical vanilla franchises what is the point of even playing each other?


Why is all the competition being taken out of a sporting competition?

 

[Stone in sock]

Mick Malthouse was quoted saying that when Free Agency comes in, top line players at less successful clubs are going to be lining up to come to the successful ones.

So only 3 years ago they would have been lining up for Port who had just made a grand final and only won a flag 3 years before that?

Or would it have been Sydney who had played off in the 2 grand finals before that, winning one?

Or 8 years ago they would have been lining to go up to the most successful club of the decade in Brisbane?

Thanks god we didn't have free agency then or those successful juggernauts would have been unstoppable.

 

[greennick]

Shirley you can't be serious?? Arizona is overblown, but Utah is okay? The two states share a common border!

It must be all those fine cross country skiers and biathletes in Utah that gives it the edge (although their relevance to AFL footy is a bit mysterious -but I'm sure Scotty knows what he's doing)

You have totally misunderstood his point.

His whole idea was Utah and Arizona are the same, however the reason North went to Utah was not for the altitude training, but for the bonding and learning experience. Whereas many others seem to think the main reason the Pies are any good now is they spend a heap of cash going to Arizona.

 

[HyperAgressiveDonk]

communist victorians?

Haha more like Socialists

 

[HyperAgressiveDonk]

So only 3 years ago they would have been lining up for Port who had just made a grand final and only won a flag 3 years before that?

Or would it have been Sydney who had played off in the 2 grand finals before that, winning one?

Or 8 years ago they would have been lining to go up to the most successful club of the decade in Brisbane?

Thanks god we didn't have free agency then or those successful juggernauts would have been unstoppable.

Moot point.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. The comeptition is a completely different beast now and is heading in one direction and one direction only.

 

[Blues_Man]

Hawthorn were an exception. It's almost impossible these days to go from the position we were in 1996 to being on our knees, having a handful of members and about to merge, to being one of the power clubs in the competition, with excpetional membership numbers, massive wealth and a rock solid future in the space of 12 years.

That's the exception not the norm. For every Hawthorn, who did it by themselves and stood on their own two feet. There are the Richmonds, North Melbournes, Carltons, Port Adelaides, Melbournes & Western Bulldogs of the world, many who wouldn't exist as we speak, if not for outside intervention and large loans form the AFL.

Kennett said today in the article below, basically over half the competition are fundamentally in administration. It's not a good look for the game and it's not good for the future of the compeition.

http://www.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/kennett-warns-afl-in-farewell-20110807-1ihpc.html

Yes selling most of your home games interstate and relying on state government money has been a huge benefit to the Tassie Hawks ....but the big 3 Victorian clubs will never need to go to such extremes.
A change of government and the Tassie Hawks could go back to the pack of strugglers.