Rumour 2024 Rumours and Speculation Part 3

[George CantStandYa]

You don't know for certain that we didn't have the space. We did when we retired Brown with a year to pay out. Reality is that after going public about wanting to play on, we were never going to delist a long serving player like Smith. We want it to be a retirement story, that's how we operate.

Yep can you imagine the fallout after Nicks goes on the record with Smith is a big part of our future only for us to cut him. He tied us into keeping Smith as we are all about PR.

 

[1970crow]

It's strange people either don't understand or disagree with this.

We obviously stacked our 2024 cap full of prepayments so that we maximized room in 2025 for new players - and that paid off with three new senior bodies who'll go straight into our best 22.

But the downside was we couldn't cut either Smith or Strachan early.

I don't think we know when Smith hit his trigger, and it's disappointing there wasn't a way to exit him. But there's always compromises with list builds, and I think the upside of the new players is worth it.

What is strange is that you and Vader continue to post as if you've seen our cap spend spreadsheet. Committing 100% is only one of the potential reasons that we didn't pay out and delist Smith. Just as likely is that LM see him as valuable backup in a finals phase or they wanted to honor the trigger or they think he's coaching material and we're at soft cap capacity.

The least likely is that we paid 100% of the cap which eliminates any end of season flexibility to pay out guys like him, which we were able to do with Brown just 2-3 years ago. And the unspent isn't lost, it's banked, so you can still use it going forward.

 

[AFC979810]

Yes - if you cut a contracted player, any future payments paid out need to be included in the current year's salary cap. We'd already filled that, through normal payments, plus money brought forward from future years - which cleared enough space in our future caps to make the offers to ANB/Cumming/Peatling.

So when is the cutoff?

Ie: when does one salary cap year end and the next begin?

It just doesn't make sense that if we cut Smith after the season ended we would have to apply his 2025 payment to the previous years season. What if we traded him? Surely after the Grand Final all of the 2024 salary cap payments are done and the new season begins.

No... because the money had already been paid.

The point was that they brought as much money forward, from the 2025 & 2026 salary caps into the 2024 salary cap. Thus, the 2024 cap was already full by the time they came to considering whether or not to payout Smith's 2025 contract. The money brought forward meant that we had more space available in 2025/26, which allowed us to make winning offers to ANB, Cumming & Peatling.

This makes it seem like you think we have already paid for Smiths 2025 Salary by bringing it forward and paying it in 2024?

What if we wanted to trade him? Surely that would have opened up his salary?

 

[AFC979810]

What is strange is that you and Vader continue to post as if you've seen our cap spend spreadsheet. Committing 100% is only one of the potential reasons that we didn't pay out and delist Smith.

This is just what I dont understand.

Hypothetically - if we had somehow magically moved Smiths 2025 salary into the 2024 cap - then its accounted for and all we would need to do is get him off the list since we wouldn't owe him anything in 2025. We would then just need to free up $95k to pay for a new draftee.

If we hadn't pulled forward Smiths contract to 2024 - then we owe him whatever we owe him for 2025. Its part of the 2025 cap. We could still get him to move on - and all we would have needed to do is create an extra 95k to bring in a rookie.

 

[Mostyn]

It's been done before!

Stop pretending it was an impossible task for Strachan.

Any examples of where a player has had a contract negotiated down to facilitate a contracted player being delisted?

I'd be surprised if that's ever happened.

 

[1970crow]

I'm sure they'd already negotiated with players like Dawson, saying "take $900k this year and $700k the next two years" (or whatever).

By October, Dawson has already been paid nearly all of that $900k though, and once it's hit the books then it's in the cap. You lose 2024 flexibility as the year goes on.

There was an article in early May saying he was nearing his trigger. If you don't think the List Management group is competent enough to set aside enough space with a 6 month lead time then you clearly have less respect for them than anyone here. Do you really believe they're that stupid?

 

[1970crow]

I think where 1970 is coming from about leadership is we never saw Sloane front the media in the hard times, was always left to Tex and others.
You could excuse him if he was the shy non media type.

When he fronted the media to protect the egos of Chapman, Pyke et al instead of standing up for some of the players he proved himself a terrible leader.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Any examples of where a player has had a contract negotiated down to facilitate a contracted player being delisted?

I'd be surprised if that's ever happened.

We renegotiated some contracts of young players during the year, where we have front loaded them.

With our current younger list, we have plenty of front loaded contracts.

Could have easily paid out Strachan if needed to.

 

[Mostyn]

So when is the cutoff?

Ie: when does one salary cap year end and the next begin?

It just doesn't make sense that if we cut Smith after the season ended we would have to apply his 2025 payment to the previous years season. What if we traded him? Surely after the Grand Final all of the 2024 salary cap payments are done and the new season begins.



This makes it seem like you think we have already paid for Smiths 2025 Salary by bringing it forward and paying it in 2024?

What if we wanted to trade him? Surely that would have opened up his salary?

If you want to delist a player early, you need to pay him the remainder of his contract in the year you're delisting him.

So - delist in 2024 means you also have to pay his 2025 contract within your 2024 cap.

Clubs almost NEVER do this. This is the main reason.

AFL list lodgement dates are publicly available online, so you can google that.

 

[dude316]

You should be really good at scrabble!

I did manage to once beat George Turner who use to edit the Australian version of the dictionary.

Well done!
I offer you my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.

 

[1970crow]

Sorry - we renegotiated quite a few contracts?

I'm sure none of them were "hey, can we renegotiate your client's contract and not pay them for the last third of the year, so we can get rid of one of their teammates?"

People were being renegotiated UP.

No one was being asked to take pay cuts to help facilitate firings. It's silly to imagine even suggesting that to a player agent - it's completely not in their business interest.

You really aren't smart, lucky you're in the arts industry. The agent gets paid based on the total value of the contract. Yes there's an argument around value of present money, but don't make out like backloading isn't a common occurrence in the AFL. All they'd have been asked is to reduce the degree of frontloading, which most would do unless they're financially stretched. Tex backloaded his last multi-year deal to help with cap challenges.

And again, if you genuinely don't think List Management is smart enough to have foreseen and planned for this, then that is among the greatest criticisms anyone has ever levelled at the club.

 

[Mostyn]

This is just what I dont understand.

Hypothetically - if we had somehow magically moved Smiths 2025 salary into the 2024 cap - then its accounted for and all we would need to do is get him off the list since we wouldn't owe him anything in 2025. We would then just need to free up $95k to pay for a new draftee.

If we hadn't pulled forward Smiths contract to 2024 - then we owe him whatever we owe him for 2025. Its part of the 2025 cap. We could still get him to move on - and all we would have needed to do is create an extra 95k to bring in a rookie.

If you're suggesting a scenario where Smith is in our 2025 cap but not on the list, it would need to be something similar to Bryce Gibbs, where Gibbs retired and was moved to the LTI list for his final contract year. That allowed us to get a SSP selection, but not a draft pick (though I guess we could have saved the spot til the MSD).

Maybe Smith retires midyear and we do a similar thing? It's possible, but unlikely.

 

[1970crow]

Tweedle dumb tweedle dee.

Neither of you know what we did, stop talking shit as fact.

We didn’t need to pay all our cap this year, we could roll it into next year and achieve the same purpose.

You don’t know thats not what we didn’t do and if we did what you said and left us no flexibility to create list spots in 2024 then we are morons either way.

In one breath Kristof says we were negotiating contracts UP to create room for new players and in the next hrs saying that they didn't know about Smith nearing a trigger or the amount because they spent the $ required to pay him out. And this is despite a media story in early May saying he's nearing his trigger and expects to play on. But none of Reid, Roo, Silvers, Nicks or Adam Kelly knew anything about it. It's mystifying that I knew from Mt Gambier and yet none of our heavy hitters had the faintest idea. And Kristof reckons it's us that is critical of the club.

 

[Mostyn]

We renegotiated some contracts of young players during the year, where we have front loaded them.

With our current younger list, we have plenty of front loaded contracts.

Could have easily paid out Strachan if needed to.

Well, we were front loading to make 2025 room.

I guess you're right - we could have paid out Strachan instead of front loading.

I just don't think they thought that was a priority. The club doesn't seem to think Strachan being the backup is as big an issue as this board does.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Well, we were front loading to make 2025 room.

I guess you're right - we could have paid out Strachan instead of front loading.

I just don't think they thought that was a priority. The club doesn't seem to think Strachan being the backup is as big an issue as this board does.

That is THE point... the club could have paid out Strachan, but didn't see it as a priority.

This decision has left us now with our biggest risk if ROB is out for any significant time.

 

[1970crow]

So when is the cutoff?

Ie: when does one salary cap year end and the next begin?

It just doesn't make sense that if we cut Smith after the season ended we would have to apply his 2025 payment to the previous years season. What if we traded him? Surely after the Grand Final all of the 2024 salary cap payments are done and the new season begins.



This makes it seem like you think we have already paid for Smiths 2025 Salary by bringing it forward and paying it in 2024?

What if we wanted to trade him? Surely that would have opened up his salary?

You can only pay a listed player, so if we cut him we'd have had to have paid out the remaining balance of his contract by the end of the contract period, which is end of October from memory. It's what we did with Brown but weren't able to do with Gibbs in the same year, so he stayed on the list despite playing for the Panthers. Happening with Brad Crouch now and Tippett was more than 1 year on Swans rookie list post retirement I reckon. If we traded him, we'd have to pick up the difference between base wage and his contract, but it would come from the cap in the year he's playing.

 

[1970crow]

Any examples of where a player has had a contract negotiated down to facilitate a contracted player being delisted?

I'd be surprised if that's ever happened.

It's not being negotiated down, stop lying. It's being negotiated to be less frontloaded but still the full amount and it's very common. What LM do with the freed up space in the year they need it is irrelevant to the player. They accept the club needs the space and oblige by pushing some of their contract value back. And in this case, it's only a couple of months as the pushed back amount can be recovered in the first payment of the new contract season.

It's not hard to understand and unlike you, I reckon LM would be pretty well on top of it and if they wanted Smith or Strachan off the list, they'd have made the decisions that allowed them to do it. I guess I just have that little bit more faith in some of the people employed by the club.

 

[1970crow]

If you're suggesting a scenario where Smith is in our 2025 cap but not on the list, it would need to be something similar to Bryce Gibbs, where Gibbs retired and was moved to the LTI list for his final contract year. That allowed us to get a SSP selection, but not a draft pick (though I guess we could have saved the spot til the MSD).

Maybe Smith retires midyear and we do a similar thing? It's possible, but unlikely.

If we wanted Smith off the list he could retire now and go on the inactive list. There's more than one way to have that spot freed up, the reason it isn't is staring you in the face. It's not rampant incompetence like you want to imply, it's simply that we wanted Smith on the list in 2025. If we didn't, we'd have been prepared for him to be snaffled in the PSD like Schoey and Strachan could have been.

 

[Vader]

So when is the cutoff?

Ie: when does one salary cap year end and the next begin?

It just doesn't make sense that if we cut Smith after the season ended we would have to apply his 2025 payment to the previous years season. What if we traded him? Surely after the Grand Final all of the 2024 salary cap payments are done and the new season begins.

This makes it seem like you think we have already paid for Smiths 2025 Salary by bringing it forward and paying it in 2024?

What if we wanted to trade him? Surely that would have opened up his salary?

This was all discussed ad infinitum in the various list management threads around draft/trade period.

Here are the relevant sections in the AFL Rules document and AFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement...

AFL Rules - Section 28.22

28.22 Lump Sum Payments on Termination of Contracts
Unless otherwise determined by the Investigations Manager, all lump sum payments to a Player on termination of his Contract of Service shall be deemed to be Football Payments to the Player in the year in which such contract was terminated.

AFL & AFLW Collective Bargaining Agreement - Schedule 4, Section 11

11. Termination Payment
(a) A Club will be entitled to apply to AFL to delete a Player’s name from its AFL List or AFLW List (as applicable) and, by written notice to the Player in accordance with the Player’s Standard Playing Contract and subject to this item 11, terminate the Player’s Standard Playing Contract upon the Player being delisted. In such case, the Player’s Standard Playing Contract will be at an end provided that the Club will pay the Player by way of compensation:
(ii) in respect of AFL Players:
(A) the balance of the base payment payable for the year in which the AFL Player was delisted;
(B) Match Payments in respect of the AFL Competition, calculated at the rate applicable to the relevant competition (AFL Senior or State Body equivalent) in which the AFL Player last played, for the balance of the year in which the AFL Player was delisted;
(C) where the AFL Player’s Standard Playing Contract had one or more further years to run, the base payment for each year following the year in which the AFL Player was delisted; and
(D) where the AFL Player’s Standard Playing Contract had one or more further years to run, a further number of Match Payments in respect of the AFL Competition calculated at the rate applicable to the relevant competition in which the AFL Player last played (in total not to exceed the total number of AFL Premiership Season Matches in the AFL Season immediately following the AFL Player’s delisting, being, 23 at the date of execution of this Agreement).
(b) The obligation on the Club to pay further base payments or Tier payments (as applicable) for the years following delisting will apply only in the case where a delisted Player had one or more years under their Standard Playing Contract to run. In all cases where a Player was delisted in the final year of their Standard Playing Contract, the Player will be entitled to the balance of the base payment or Tier payment (as applicable) for the year in which the Player was delisted together with, in respect of AFL Players only, Match Payments for Matches played for that year calculated at the rate applicable to the relevant competition (AFL or State Body) in which the AFL Player last played with the Club.
(c) The payments due to an AFL Player under items 11(a)(ii)(C) and 11(a)(ii)(D) or an AFLW Player under item 11(a)(i)(B) of this Schedule 4 will, unless otherwise agreed between the Player and the Club, be paid as follows:
(i) in respect of AFL Players only, a monthly instalment of the base payment on 30 November in the year the AFL Player was delisted;
(ii) in the event that the Player is not added to another Club’s List via any mechanism ahead of the AFL or AFLW Season (as applicable) immediately following the Player’s delisting:
(A) the balance of the base payment due to the AFL Player pursuant to item 11(a)(ii)(C) within seven (7) days of the end of the final AFL Player movement mechanism prior to the commencement AFL Season immediately following the delisting; and
(B) the amount (if any) due to the AFL Player under item 11(a)(ii)(D), within seven (7) days of end of the final AFL Player movement mechanism prior to the commencement AFL Season immediately following the delisting; or
(C) the balance of the Tier payment due to the AFLW Player pursuant to item 11(a)(i)(B) within seven (7) days of end of the final AFLW Player
movement mechanism prior to the commencement AFLW Season immediately following the delisting.
(d) Where a Player is drafted by another Club any outstanding payments due to an AFL Player under items 11(a)(ii)(C) and 11(a)(ii)(D) or an AFLW Player under item 11(a)(i)(B) of this Schedule 4 will be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of item 12 of this Schedule 4.
(e) Subject to item 12 of this Schedule 4, in the calculation of the payment of termination benefits set out above, no account will be taken of any further amount or amounts which the Player may receive as a consequence of re-employment by another Club.
(f) The provisions of this item 11 will not apply to a Player:
(i) who, by agreement, is involved in a trade between Clubs which results in a transfer and such Player being listed with the transferee Club;
(ii) who has retired;
(iii) whose contract was terminated as a result of serious or repeated misconduct by the Player; or
(iv) who has agreed in writing with their Club to otherwise terminate their contract.
Nothing in this item 11(f) will be construed as preventing a Player from negotiating and reaching agreement with a Club on a termination payment from the transferor Club.

** Some clauses relevant to AFLW were deleted by me, to try and shorten the quoted text.

Short version:
When a player's contract is terminated with more years to run, they are entitled to a lump sum termination payment, covering base & match payments for all future years remaining on their contract. The termination payment is included in the salary cap in the year in which the contract was terminated.

In the context of Strachan & Smith, both are/were contracted for 2025. Thus, the club would have had to pay them a lump sum termination payment, which would have meant including their 2025 salaries under the 2024 salary cap. For reasons previously discussed, this was not possible.

 

[beartoo]

... except that they couldn't.

The club blundered by selecting Smith for enough games to reach his contract trigger, which happened relatively early in the season. Once that happened, their hands were tied. They were contractually bound to extend his contract for 2025, and they couldn't afford to pay him out in the 2024 salary cap because they'd already filled it by bringing forward payments for future years. Bringing those payments forward allowed them to make winning offers to ANB, Peatling and Cumming.

There was no option to put him on our SANFL list once he achieved that contract trigger. It's pure speculation as to whether or not he would have agreed to that, even if it was a possibility - I guess we'll find out next year.

Didn't he say late last year that he was happy to play 1s or 2s? Not good if he's on big money, but he'll be a great mentor for the kids. I hope he does become SANFL captain next year.

On SM-A256E using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Mostyn]

That is THE point... the club could have paid out Strachan, but didn't see it as a priority.

This decision has left us now with our biggest risk if ROB is out for any significant time.

Yes, but they don't agree with you. They don't particularly seem to rate the ruck position and they seem to be fine with Strachan as a backup.

They've weighed things up, and decided to do other things rather than focus on replacing Strachan.

I would have rather they replaced Smith and Strachan too - but I'm happy with the off season and I don't worry too much about the ruck spot.

 

[Mostyn]

Didn't he say late last year that he was happy to play 1s or 2s? Not good if he's on big money, but he'll be a great mentor for the kids. I hope he does become SANFL captain next year.

On SM-A256E using BigFooty.com mobile app

Yeah, situations like this aren't ideal, but as long as he's providing good leadership then I think it's manageable.

 

[Vader]

Didn't he say late last year that he was happy to play 1s or 2s? Not good if he's on big money, but he'll be a great mentor for the kids. I hope he does become SANFL captain next year.

No doubt he'll be spending most of 2025 playing with and mentoring our younger players in the SANFL. It's not ideal having a highly paid player doing this, but such is life.

The question is what he decides to do in 2026, when he's no longer an AFL contracted player? Wright returned to the club as SANFL Captain, having spent a time playing with Carlton. Have we had any player(s) who has transitioned straight from our AFL list to our SANFL list? Most of our AFL players opt to either retire outright, play for one of the legacy SANFL teams (who can offer them more money than the AFC), or play for fun in a lower league (somewhere with their mates). I can't recall any player who has gone from Adelaide's AFL list to Adelaide's SANFL list - that's not to say that it hasn't happened, or won't happen in the future, but it does say that it's something which doesn't happen often.

 

[Eddie Murphy]

I think where 1970 is coming from about leadership is we never saw Sloane front the media in the hard times, was always left to Tex and others.
You could excuse him if he was the shy non media type.

Is he one of our all time great leaders? Of course not. He’s still a captain and was in the leadership group since he was 21. If we’re ranking Sloane and Laird as clubmen, it’s not even close.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Yes, but they don't agree with you. They don't particularly seem to rate the ruck position and they seem to be fine with Strachan as a backup.

They've weighed things up, and decided to do other things rather than focus on replacing Strachan.

I would have rather they replaced Smith and Strachan too - but I'm happy with the off season and I don't worry too much about the ruck spot.

Don't get me wrong, it's our best off season in some time... but most good obseevers knew after watching Strachan he could not run out at AFL game.

After then, the club should have been putting plans in place for a better backup ruck option.

Wouldn't you agree?

We looked primed to make finals this season, but our biggest risk if ROB is missing for any significant time.

Is that good management to be so reliant in 1 player in a squad?