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Carnthedockers

Carnthedockers

Premiership Player
Veteran
Aug 31, 2010
4,363
10,815
Perth
AFL Club
Fremantle
Can someone please clarify with me what the ruling is for backdoor/sponsorship deals for players? What are they allowed and not allowed to do? Obviously players have their sponsors and do their television commitments that earn them money on the side. Chris Judd was allowed to have his salary topped up by Visy, yet Tippet is not allowed to by Toyota. What are the restrictions? Say we wanted to recruit Buddy, what stops us going to our sponsor say 'Programmed' and telling them they want him to be their ambassador for whatever $$ figure per year? How does the Afl verify and control these things?
CTD
 
Part of it is it has to be a reasonable wage for the position I think.

So you could get one of Buddy's girlfriends over here and set her up as a secretary earning a secretary's wage, but you couldn't put her at the front desk of the Woodside building and pay her 300k a year to answer the phones.
 
Judd's Visy deal is very dodgy and only now is the AFL saying in future they will not allow that sort of thing.

My understanding is all income has to be declared to the AFL. Where it gets grey is family members - like Buddy's girlfriend and I think there was recently some questions about a job for Scullys Dad in Sydney but of course being the GWS golden child the AFL swept that under the blanket.

Can imagine all sorts of opportunities for this this sort of stuff for WC in years gone past.
 
estibador said:
Part of it is it has to be a reasonable wage for the position I think.

So you could get one of Buddy's girlfriends over here and set her up as a secretary earning a secretary's wage, but you couldn't put her at the front desk of the Woodside building and pay her 300k a year to answer the phones.
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Tax office would be very interested in that - income splitting - players have done that in past to reduce overall tax bill - depending on circumstances in some extreme cases could be construed as intentional attempt to defraud federal govt with no other motive than reducing what the tax office is validly due to be paid in income tax, and could result in jail time - there are many tax evaders sitting in prison.

Remember scully's dad's salary included in salary cap - its all about whether associates of the players are being paid what is reasonable/average for the type of role and hours - if its more then that is included in the salary cap according to AFL rules and 3rd party deals. Becomes quite subjective when its in relation to ambassador - ie time and $/hr versus public celebrity factor. Judd deal is no longer permissable under 3rd party rules, but AFL have granted "exemption" on that particular case til contract finishes. Of course there would be many "hidden" 3rd party arrangements that never become public - imagine if AFL somehow had right to inspect all players tax returns and players associates (impossible under law), what would come out.
 

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Freo Dr said:
Judd's Visy deal is very dodgy and only now is the AFL saying in future they will not allow that sort of thing.

My understanding is all income has to be declared to the AFL. Where it gets grey is family members - like Buddy's girlfriend and I think there was recently some questions about a job for Scullys Dad in Sydney but of course being the GWS golden child the AFL swept that under the blanket.

Can imagine all sorts of opportunities for this this sort of stuff for WC in years gone past.
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:thumbsu: sorry, didn't see this - must have been writing mine while you posted
 
I think the important consideration in these extra income deals is that it must be at arms length from the club.
They must not solicit or induce a third party to contract a player to retain his services.
The VISY deal with Juddy totally stunk because of Pratt's role within the club.
IIRC twiggy was presenting weather for a TV network on good coin, when she was clearly awful at it.
 
Players are allowed to earn extra income through ASA's.

Additional service agreements, these are agreements organised by clubs declared to the AFL and limited in size and extend to the player or any others deemed associates, family members, gf's etc.

Players are allowed to earn income from endorsements provided they do not clash with club sponsors, nor AFL protected sponsors.
 
Pavdawn said:
Players are allowed to earn extra income through ASA's.

Additional service agreements, these are agreements organised by clubs declared to the AFL and limited in size and extend to the player or any others deemed associates, family members, gf's etc.

Players are allowed to earn income from endorsements provided they do not clash with club sponsors, nor AFL protected sponsors.
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Yep, the AFL could never prevent a player from earning money elsewhere - that is definite restraint of trade. It does limit in relation to competing sponsors etc as you say, as any employer can. The heart of the matter though is the AFL rules to prevent a player from earning outside of the TPP Cap and ASA, circumventing the rules (the AFL relies on to maintain an appearance of evenness in the competition from associated parties and which derives the revenues (TV, supporters etc)) for the purpose of playing with that club. Circumventing the rules undermines the competition and potentially reduces the value of those AFL revenues through potential loss of supporters which would occur if a very biased competition became the image of the AFL. This is the fundamental reason sporting organisations (eg. AFL as collective of clubs and AFL itself) is treated differently under law in relation to some restraint of trade issues compared to other normal businesses - courts have stated this in several decisions over the years.
 
I've not read all the changes that came into effect under the Visy/Judd thing, but from what I gather, their has been a big tightening on what is considered and ASA and the moneys it can involve.

What I do know is that ANY role/job/endorsment etc. gained by the player that has come about whether directly arranged with the AFL Club or not should be declared to the AFL.

This is taken from the AFL rules on Players:

10.4.3 Notification of Player Arrangements With An Associate of a Club
Which Have No Connection With The Club Arrangement
In the event that an Associate of a Club makes or enters into any
contract, agreement, arrangement or understanding, whether formal
or informal, whether or not having any legal force or effect and
whether by way of variation of an existing arrangement or otherwise
which has no connection with the Club arrangement with the
Associate of the Club:-

(a) to make a payment to a Player or to any Associate of a Player;

(b) to give or provide any consideration, advantage or benefit to a
Player or any Associate of a Player; or
(c) to apply any payment, consideration, advantage or other
benefit for a Player or any Associate of a Player
in consideration of the Player providing or supplying Additional Services
to an Associate of a Club, the Player must:-

(a) submit all relevant details, as may reasonably be required, to the AFL
General Manager - Football Operations; and

(b) notify the AFL Club of the general nature of the proposed
arrangement,

prior to the date of the commencement of the commercial arrangement.
In the event that the AFL General Manager - Football Operations
approves such commercial arrangement under clause 16.7 of the CBA,
such approval shall apply for the term of that commercial arrangement.
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Now whether said arrangements are included in the TPP is determined after this, but no players is allowed to receive money on the side without it being considered as a "Football Payment" and thus part of salary cap restrictions. Further, I'm sure I read somewhere that if a palyer/club does not submit arrangements under the above rule and then is found out then IT NECESSARILY WILL BE CONSIDERED PART OF THE CAP and breaches will be punished accordingly.

I know going a way back when I was a bit more in the game with these things that it wasn't uncommon for the AFL to notify clubs that player x had to relinquish a position or not receive renumeration (or to that effect) due to it being considered part of a salary package, small breaches resulting in small fines have happened way more than most of us would think. Though there would be some interesting deals going around, the smart clubs make sure the AFL are in the know. Unless it's repeated, blatant and underhanded, the AFL would normally quietly but formally inform the club of where it stands and they can deal with it, when it's excessive and ongoing and, most of all, secretive is when the AFL really hit hard.
 
what is the situation with say barbellgello sponsoring a player with a new ferrari for arguments sake , or in his prime Rick Hart decking out a players entire house with electrical equipment or alike. re there any way to trace these payments
 
I'm sure I heard stories of West Coast owning and then selling property to the likes of Cousins for hundreds of grand below market value. We probably did similar with Pav.

I know Judd (Carlton version) was getting ridiculous 5-6 figure sums for being guest speaker at mining company luncheons/dinners. And it was declared to AFL and they said it was OK. This was when they said the Visy deal was OK, so they might not allow it anymore.

But how does the AFL police ALL of these sorts of things now? I reckon there would still be numerous ways of rotting the system.
 

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Alfonz said:
I'm sure I heard stories of West Coast owning and then selling property to the likes of Cousins for hundreds of grand below market value. We probably did similar with Pav.
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That's pretty hard to get away with. Selling property to an associate below market value would attract interest from the tax office for CGT/stamp duty cheating.

The way the salary cap rules are set up make it so difficult to get around that to do so would mean falling afoul of higher authorities than the AFL.
 
The Judd/Visy deal runs out next year, can't see anything like it being approved again.

And yeah, if a player was gifted a Ferrari, it would be raise eyebrows and the AFL could easily track the paper trail. And I would think that a gift of such value may be regarded as income for a player by the ATO as well?

There are probably means and ways of getting around all of this but really is it worth it in regards to the ramifications that it would have on the offending club? I can hear shredders working overtime in AFL clubs around Australia :D

Title of this thread is really off putting! Benny Elias anyone?!
 
No one will be able to give you a straight answer. The truth is it is flexible to the club and the situation. Chris Judd was allowed to go through because the AFL wanted him back in Victoria and was payback to Carlton for salary cap penalties that were viewed as too harsh. No one else has since been allowed to have a Chris Judd type deal.
 
Alfonz said:
But how does the AFL police ALL of these sorts of things now? I reckon there would still be numerous ways of rotting the system.
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they can't.

the way the clubs do it these days is they don't stitch up a dodgy Judd-style contact, they will just consistently provide mid-tier players with dodgy jobs outside of footy. Beau Waters was working as a consultant at a property group at one point. That way it doesn't get the same attention but the effect is the same.

Its like not like they can audit the sponsors. The sponsors would tell them to **** off.
 

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theGav56 said:
Payments in cash and kind are only one kind of income. The reality is that players earning high dollars would get access to some pretty shrewd business/tax opportunities engineered by the club and their associates.
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Depends what you mean by this, but any arrangement, formal, informal, implied, explicit or not is to be declared to the AFL who then make a call on whether it's to be included as part of the salary cap etc. If they don't, then they can get in trouble and (based on my experience in the industry admittedly from a few years back), some have, more than we know, it's just that the AFL are quiet about it, it usually involves relatively small breaches and little reprimand and the players/clubs nearly always comply.

On the other hand, the 'networking' availability afforded to wealthy AFL players and their club's wealthier supporters would be one of those intangibles that is certainly taken advantage of one way or another.

Related to this, back in the day (10+ years ago) I know that houses and cushy jobs set up for players as they were heading into their last years all off the books so to speak. I still think dodgy deals get done, but my guess is it's a lot less than it was. Maybe I'm just naive, but the rules are tighter and it's just a massive risk to take for all parties.
 
A question: If a player retires after long service, what's to stop a club giving them a dummy role at the end of their tenure at high pay?
 
PapaJ said:
On the other hand, the 'networking' availability afforded to wealthy AFL players and their club's wealthier supporters would be one of those intangibles that is certainly taken advantage of one way or another.
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That is exactly what I am talking about. Players can and do invest their earnings and it provides sponsors opportunities to support them.
 

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