A different way to recruit

[Asgardian]

Hi everyone

A number of people have mentioned that when clubs had zones they could build a stronger club loyalty.

To this end, what do people think of the following idea :-

Each club is able to provide a number of player sponsorships (say a max. of 10), to junior players (say 14 or 15 year olds) who are showing signs of talent. Each player that is sponsored by an individual club will then be placed in an appropriate junior system, and will be guided by the sponsoring AFL club throughout his development.

The trade off for each AFL club is that when the junior is ready to be drafted, the sponsoring club has first rights to any, or all of their sponsored juniors. This gives each AFL club incentive to put money into junior development, educates the juniors to be better players and people, builds club loyalty within these juniors, and lets them go to the club they are loyal to.

What does everyone think?

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Chris

 

[CJH]

AsGardian,

A few comments:

1. Thank you for posting a sensible topic. I was finding these ‘Dopey Bastard’ type topics tedious!
2. An advantage of your system is that there will be less instance of teenage kids being ripped out of their homes to play football on the other side of the country.
3. I do agree that this would be another logical step in the improvement of player development programs. As you say it gives “incentive to put money into junior development, educates the juniors to be better players and people, builds club loyalty within these juniors, and lets them go to the club they are loyal to”.
4. The system will have to have mechanisms built into to stop crafty buggers (ie., Sheedy
   
   ) from hiding and stacking players.
5. All up, I agree that it does have merit and would be worth exploring further.
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   This is a hallucination and these faces are in a dream. A computer generated environment; a fantasy island you can do anything and not have to face the consequences.
   
   [This message has been edited by CJH (edited 19 December 2000).]

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

Dammit Asgardian, you stole my idea. I bet you got it from "your say" on the AFL website.

But it's a great concept. Unfortunately for the poor teams like Geelong, Nth and St. Kilda it would be a great disadvantaged. A club would spend thousands of dollars finding these players, then thousands developing them, and chances are they wouldn't make it to AFL level anyway.



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Go Eagles!!!

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

Sorry guys - its a restraint of trade.

see you in court

cheers

 

[Carey_is_King]

Interesting. A couple of problems though.

What happens if a club is denied participation in the draft one year. Does that mean that the juniors who are tied to that club have to wait until the next year ? At what point does a club declare whether they have an interest in a junior or not ?

If you have ten juniors on the list, you need to remember that clubs rarely have that many picks in the draft. Perhaps 4-5 would be better.

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Trample the Weak,
Hurdle the Dead.

 

[The invisible mullet]

It is an interesting idea but it possibly raises more problems than it solves. Could clubs end sponsorships at any time or outbid each other to sponsor particular kids? Could get ugly.

I'm also not sure that it will help local leagues that much.

Nonetheless an interesting idea.

 

[Darky]

North's recruiting methods - Open a donut van at the ground and give away freebies. It's already nabbed us Cartman, Sav and nearly Rhino.

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Face me evil bastard, smell the hate of angels
Glory pride and bloodshed
Cowards and beholders, rapers of my wisdom mix of dust and bones
Go back to your abyss, Darky will not fall, but your heads will soon roll
Test the blade of heroes, fury of the thunder hit my golden shield

 

[Frodo]

A good idea. Each club would have local zones to recruit from. Maybe start off by drafting 3 under 16 year olds then 3 the next year and so on, giving 9 under 18's to each club in time. Up the draft age to 18. Sounds like a good feeder system.

 

[sandie]

I think it is an excellent idea, though I agree that 10 is too many.
There are a lot of issues that could cause problems as has been mentioned already.
Overall though I think anything that helps junior development & instills club loyalty into players can't be too far off the mark.
Cheers

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mantis

 

[Shinboners]

Originally posted by sandie:
Overall though I think anything that helps junior development & instills club loyalty into players can't be too far off the mark.

Loyalty runs both ways...how about a club's loyalty to a young player? Every year at every draft, we hear stories of young players who were promised that they'd be drafted, but come draft day, either they've gone to another club or their names haven't been called at all.

I don't agree with the idea of allowing clubs to select young players with the idea of specialised development for them. First and foremost, it would put too much pressure on the young player. Remember, these kids are still only 15 or 16. You could imagine a situation in a junior match where other players will try and take these kids down a notch or two. Secondly, they should be out there enjoying the game for the sake of it. Why put additional pressure on them by telling them that they could be at the start of their future career in sport? We have a hard enough time trying to pick out which of the 18/19/20 year olds will make senior players, what makes anyone think that we'd be any better with 15/16/17 year olds? Even in England where soccer clubs have an apprenticeship system, the turnover rate of young players is phenomenal. Thirdly, does it really inspire any loyalty to the club? Eddie McGuire once played for North U19s, and yet, his footballing passions lie with Collingwood. The ideal is right, but I don't think a form of zoning or picking junior players early will result in the ideal being attained.

 

[James2]

Hmm, interesting.

It is unlikely that a system, such as that proposed would get of the ground, basically for the reasons outlined by Shinboner.

BSA,

You say that this system is a restraint of trade. How so???

Do you consider junior football to be a trade?

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"Be not afraid of greatness."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night.

 

[kymhodgemansmo]

My only issue with it is that some areas are a better demographic for a start.

And Bloodstained Angel - boom, you are on the money.

But a great concept and one that, could it be fine tuned, would be wonderful for football at a local level, where the game needs an injection of something.

Only other question is what impact will it have on the Under 18 Competition????

 

[CrowsOK]

BSA - how restraint of trade? In what way is this idea significantly different from an apprenticeship? Assuming that the young player and the club agree over the sponsorship, how is it restraint of trade that that club (opposed to other clubs) gets first pick of those players it sponsors (not all players in a region, just the ones it offers sponsorship to) ?

Asgardian,
The problem here is, since Crows (and, not this year but others, to a lesser extent, Power) basically fund the SANFL, and the SANFL is junior development, does your scheme then imply that Crows and Power should have first choice amongst the SANFL players whose development they fund?

E.g. Crows $1.1 million to SANFL this year, $11 million overall.

 

[Asgardian]

Crowsok,

I was thinking along the lines that the sponsored players only would be held out of the draft for the sponsoring club to select, if the sponsored junior is not required he could go into the open draft.

Integral to my thinking was that the juniors would be placed together, so that their development was monitored and structured within 1 feeder club

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Chris

 

[Rooboy 96]

Originally posted by Darky:
North's recruiting methods - Open a donut van at the ground and give away freebies. It's already nabbed us Cartman, Sav and nearly Rhino.

Darky... very funny... loved it... what about Mark Roberts must have been recruiting that way for a while now... shit almost forgot Mick Nolan... there must be some credibility in your story...

 

[Carey_is_King]

The difference is the Fridge could play !

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Trample the Weak,
Hurdle the Dead.

 

[Asgardian]

I fail to see how offering a sponsorship to a kid is restraint of trade?

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Chris

 

[ptw]

I too like the idea.

I would modify it though to be like the father-son rule.

You keep the draft...and Port for example could take a kid pre draft for a 3rd round pick if they were from their zone. You could have 2 or 3 picks you could sacriice this way. All players not taken under this system would then go into the draft as per normal.

BSA - you have it arse about. The draft is a restraint of trade and the AFL is shit scared of it going to court. The draft says to Party A (the Player) you cannot do business with Party B (a club)...only with Party C - another club. Its like someone saying to you that you cannot work for CUB...only Australia Post.

With a zone the club would still have to do a deal with the player. If the player did not want to play for their club they would not sign a contract and go into the draft - free choice....no problems.


ptw

 

[Rooboy 96]

Originally posted by Carey_is_King:
The difference is the Fridge could play !

CIK... are you saying Mick coundn't???