Bring back retention allowance

[Maverick]

The AFL buckled to pressure applied by fat head Maquire on the Footy Show circa 2002-3 following the Lions beating his team back to back.

Every Thursday night the clown got on his soap box ranting and raving about the Lions retention allowance.

Once the AFL buckled, I knew this day would come.

Yeah Swans may have go home factor...BUT:
- they have had $1m retention allowance/additional cost of living/call it what you may.
- successful era (players much less likely to leave during such an error)
- most successful team in the league picking up mature players.

For an even playing field the following needs addressing:
i) reinstatement of retention allowance (albiet unlikely in near term...AFL too weak in fear of backlash from the majority)
ii) don't trade the 5 unless exceptional offer....let em try their luck in the draft if they really want out. Let Karnezis get picked up by a Melbourne, let Polec get picked up by the Bulldogs, Docherty to Port. Interesting how quickly Longer is reassessing his options now the Hawks have chosen McEvoy. In recent years, players are being able to get back to their home state too easily.

If we take a strong stance this year.....other draftees will think twice before requesting a trade in future years.

If we don't take a stance, we will become a basket case for the next 15 years.

 

[Full Wingspan]

I agree with your main point that it is unfair that the Swans are allowed a retention allowance (I wasn't aware of that until this thread) as well as a COLA. I don't agree with the COLA at all as there hasn't been substantial evidence to justify how Sydney living is 10% higher than that in the rest of the country, and I've heard, without researching it fully, that Adelaide and Perth are apparently just as expensive or that they're more expensive than Melbourne (something along those lines).

A retention allowance should most definitely be re-introduced for us. It is clear that we are on an uneven playing field on a number of fronts, with the availability of local talent being the root cause for our retention issues (as a result of operating in a rugby dominated state). However would this also mean Fremantle, West Coast, Adelaide and Port Adelaide, and later on Gold Coast and GWS, be eligible for such retention allowances? And if so, would this be allowed or endorsed by the Victorian clubs? Probably not.

However, the fact that we're situated in a non-footballing state and a club that relies so heavily on building a team from players outside of the state should mean we, along with Sydney, Gold Coast and GWS are eligible for some concessions - afterall, we are fighting the good fight against rugby league.

The next issue is putting a number or sum on the concession we get. What is fair? Fair can mean anything depending on who you ask.

This exodus of young talent has definitely had me thinking about the entire issue and why these players want to move. Initially I took the 'they're paid professionals and have made the decision to start an AFL career, harden up - it's what's expected from you' attitude. Upon further thinking I put myself in the player's shoes. Imagine leaving all your friends and family and moving to a completely different state. I began to realise it may be a lot more complicated than just to 'harden up'. I began to put myself in the player's shoes and realised that I too would probably do everything I could to get home, continue my AFL career and do it around my childhood friends and my family - life would be perfect. Some individuals adapt to the move better than others, however there will always be the problem of those players who simply view moving home as a luxury (that they can easily achieve by requesting a trade) rather than seeking a move because they are truly struggling with a foreign environment. That is why we must continue to invest in player welfare and continue to develop a welcoming culture that is accepting of everyone. (Not to be mistaken as a 'soft' or 'sooky' culture that promotes contest squibbing etc.)

I read on here that first year players had flights and accommodation paid for by the club (or the AFL), outside of the salary cap for family members when watching them play. The proposed concessions should include this, but for a further three or four years. This would definitely make the move much more bearable for those not coping, and there could even be allowances for mates and friendship groups to fly up during the weekend. This is spending that is allowed for a specific purpose, rather than an increased cap that can allow us to fit in star players (e.g. Tippett, Franklin).

As for the second part of your post, I do believe we need to make a stance that we aren't a pushover that will bow down to the demands of largely unproven, second and third year players. However, asking to only accept 'exceptional' offers will only further damage reputations/our future/future attempts at retaining players and I would much prefer us continue with our current approach, that is, we won't let our players walk out for nothing, and we will get fair compensation.

 

[cotter101]

I agree with your main point that it is unfair that the Swans are allowed a retention allowance (I wasn't aware of that until this thread) as well as a COLA. I don't agree with the COLA at all as there hasn't been substantial evidence to justify how Sydney living is 10% higher than that in the rest of the country, and I've heard, without researching it fully, that Adelaide and Perth are apparently just as expensive or that they're more expensive than Melbourne (something along those lines).

A retention allowance should most definitely be re-introduced for us. It is clear that we are on an uneven playing field on a number of fronts, with the availability of local talent being the root cause for our retention issues (as a result of operating in a rugby dominated state). However would this also mean Fremantle, West Coast, Adelaide and Port Adelaide, and later on Gold Coast and GWS, be eligible for such retention allowances?.

I don't think that the Swans get both a retention allowance and a COLA allowance.

We've got the academy to help with balancing our list between home grown talent and interstate talent,but the talent in QLD is nothing compared to the talent in SA, WA and VIC.

The SA and WA teams will be fine. There's always some good talent in those states.

It is bizarre how Collingwood has more QLD players on it's senior list than we do.

Gold Coast also had the right to guys like Zac Smith, Charlie Dixon and Rory Thompson who are all QLD'ers and looking like having successful careers.

We need a retention allowance for a couple of years until we are back on track.

 

[Mr Ripper]

Hey, Mav.

 

[_Gin]

How can we argue for a retention allowance when we aren't spending the full cap?

 

[adey115]

Pretty simple.

Legitimate immediate family travel expenses, for those players moving from their home state, with receipts etc etc, up to $X per player, up to the age of 24. Make it for all clubs.

By 25, you've given at least 5 years or so to your new club and you know whether or not you're happy where you are, you're more settled and more mature and worldly than an 18 year old.

Big difference between an 18 year old from Melbourne living at home with Mum and Dad and playing AFL in Melbourne, versus an 18 year old from Melbourne in Brisbane without the family network - so make that family network travel, subject to the usually AFL auditing process and limitations, outside of the salary cap until they are old enough to be comfortable in their surroundings.

The AFL is there to stop there rorting - so its legitimate travel costs and not buying Mum and Dad an apartment on the quiet, or anything untoward. Just regularly being able to get close family up with a youngster.

Even do it in stages - $X for players 17-22, a little less for 23-24, then scrapped for that individual player.

Fairly simple. That removes the COLA issue, and makes it across the board. So whether Collingwood drafts a kid from Cooparoo or Brisbane drafts a kid from Balwyn....

 

[Fenway]

How can we argue for a retention allowance when we aren't spending the full cap?

........That's actually a really good point.

 

[lukiuslion]

As I always say, IMO none of this matters to much, as mentioned, we dont even use all of our cap space. IMO we need to build a sucsessful winning culure if we want to become desirable again. Lets see if Leppa can do that over the enxt 2-3 years, the blueprint is there. We finish top 8 a few years in a row, even top 4 and things change imediantly, winning builds relationships and pride in the jumper - the longer we go floating around 11th or 12th, with a list that is hard to break into (even without sucsess) kids are going to leave, no one is going to want to be traded to us, simple as that. I think we should try boosting out footy Dept, using all of our cap, and winning some games before we go back asking for hand outs.

 

[JasRulz63]

I guess it could means we could systematically overpay players to a certain amount (say 10% on top of their contract). I assume by only spending 95% of the cap and where our list is at the moment, Kerr is quite reluctant to overpay players more than they are worth. As our list progresses over time and gets better, naturally the value of players is going to rise and we need to start paying them more. But if we pay 100% of our cap now, we'd probably be overpaying players, and it doesn't give us much of a leeway for increases in contracts. Gubby Allan has already shown us what could potentially happen if you do overpay players more than they are worth to get them to stay.

An allowance would mean we could pay players slightly more than we deem them to be worth but not decreasing our future ability to increase their contracts. Say Yeo at the moment is worth $300k of a $9mil (or 3.3% of the cap), if we needed to pay him $330k to convince him to stay (because he could get $300k playing at home), under the current cap we'd be paying him 3.7% of the cap. This either reduces another contract by 0.4% or takes away from our 5% leeway. But with a retention allowance we have another 10% in the cap (for example), and we'd still be paying him 3.3%.

That being said it won't happen, especially given Sydney's antics of late. Their COLA was designed to work similar to how I outlined above, it'd give their players at extra 9.8% on top of their current contracts. But given their success (and other factors), they haven't been having problems keeping players on-board at their value without needed a COLA on top, hence they've had the extra money to splash about.

The TPP is always going to be unfair to interstate sides, especially with that travel allowance being in the cap. Collingwood have a large majority of their list from Victoria, so those families can go watch 18 of the games without Collingwood or their families have to fork out for flights. Brisbane have 90% of their list from interstate, so to support their parents watching more than 1 (if from SA/WA) or 5 matches (from Victoria), we'd have to pay it out of our cap.

I don't think extra salary cap is our biggest problem though, much more important is our lack of ability to spend in our football department. I was listening to Jay Clark on SEN this morning (so unsure about the credibility), and he mentioned that apparently young players in Brisbane were for example wanting to go out for a kick on the GABBA with development coaches, but were told they couldn't, or that the development coaches weren't there or were busy. They also apparently struggled to have enough coaches to go over match vision with the younger players (probably those not in the first 22) to see what to improve.

 

[Paulborracho]

Pretty simple.

Legitimate immediate family travel expenses, for those players moving from their home state, with receipts etc etc, up to $X per player, up to the age of 24. Make it for all clubs.

By 25, you've given at least 5 years or so to your new club and you know whether or not you're happy where you are, you're more settled and more mature and worldly than an 18 year old.

Big difference between an 18 year old from Melbourne living at home with Mum and Dad and playing AFL in Melbourne, versus an 18 year old from Melbourne in Brisbane without the family network - so make that family network travel, subject to the usually AFL auditing process and limitations, outside of the salary cap until they are old enough to be comfortable in their surroundings.

The AFL is there to stop there rorting - so its legitimate travel costs and not buying Mum and Dad an apartment on the quiet, or anything untoward. Just regularly being able to get close family up with a youngster.

Even do it in stages - $X for players 17-22, a little less for 23-24, then scrapped for that individual player.

Fairly simple. That removes the COLA issue, and makes it across the board. So whether Collingwood drafts a kid from Cooparoo or Brisbane drafts a kid from Balwyn....

Two thumbs up for me. Great thinking.
If the cash is spent legitimately in flights for families to watch their loved ones play this goes a long way to keeping players happier interstate etc.

This also stops the rorting ie. Buddy and Tippett deal.
LOVE IT !!!!!

 

[Maverick]

Hey, Mav.

Hey Rip

You must be wondering why these players want to return to cold miserable Melbourne hey.

 

[Maverick]

The other thing that really annoys me is the club saying they aren't going to trade these players cheaply.

Rumour in the Herald Sun was that the club was close to trading Docherty to Carlton for pick 28.

Hardly a good outcome for us, given we used pick 12 on him, a pick we got for Mitch Clarke who was a top 10 pick.

 

[Mr Ripper]

Hey Rip

You must be wondering why these players want to return to cold miserable Melbourne hey.

They're disgruntled.

 

[Skoob]

They're disgruntled.

Where the hell did you read that?

 

[Mr Ripper]

Read?

 

[John]

Read?

We need more of it

 

[Maverick]

They're disgruntled.

Hey Rip

You're pretty close to what is going on up there.

What are they disgruntled about??

As a guess I would say:
- Karnezis - hardly any game time, after starring in the NAB cup, and picking up 30-40 possessions a game in the reserves. I gotta say I got very frustrated with the club with respect to how little game time he got. I personally thought he was in our best 18.

- Longer - has ability. Again, lack of game time I understand. I thought it was really dumb recruiting him when he already had a gun ruckman.

- Yeo, Docherty, Polec - I don't get it with these 3. Yeo and Docherty played most the year, and Polec has been injurred for lengthy periods. So I am not sure what their problem is.

Can you shed some more light on this? (send me a message if you're not comfortable publishing on the board...but I reckon the others on the board would be interested too if you don't mind saying what's led to 5 players wanting out).

 

[Sherrinator]

Karnezis should have got more gametime. In the end he must have had a severe attitude issue if Polkinghorne was getting the odd game in front of him.

Anyway I don't want that allowance* back. I would prefer some sort of way we can lure good QLDers home. It's a crying shame that our top players (Beams, Riewoldt, Tippett etc) are playing elsewhere when it was our local system/leagues that got them recruited. I would love top see some sort of "Local Retention Benefit" where on top of an offered salary, local players can get some sort of ambassadorial benefit. Kind of like Folau got for being a Polynesian.

 

[troppo]

I watched Karnezis live once this year (I think it was against Melbourne) he was lazy, failed to chase and missed easy set shots. I thought he was was worth persevering with but if he wants to leave I won't be losing any sleep over it. The only thing that will stop young players from wanting go home is the Lions having so much success on field that they will be concerned about missing out on a premiership.

 

[Last of the Roys]

........That's actually a really good point.

While that seems like a reasonable point - a retention allowance would / should be paid directly by the AFL just as the AFL directly pay the COLA for Sydney and GWS.

IMHO, the Lions, GWS and Gold Coast should get a retention allowance going forward until their onfield form and financial postion mean it is no longer warranted (it doesn't really mean as much to Gold Coast and GWS at the moment because the AFL are ensuring they can pay their full cap which is greater than the normal cap anyway). Us three and the poor Melbourne Clubs should also receive a special marketing allowance paid for by the AFL to enable us to compete with the off-field deals that can be put together by the rich clubs.

I won't be holding my breath for any of this happening though.

 

[HowYouDoin]

The AFL should really be re-considering this again, if we were to lose aish.

Surely they must know they we have the biggest disadvantage in the AFL?

 

[Dom PC]

I'd prefer no retention allowance (than the way it's currently structured anyway) and make it a mandatory 3 year contract for at least 1st rd draft picks, with my preference it being top 30 draft picks.

Maybe give more off field perks/funding for expansion state clubs, but I actually think the salary cap should have a uniform rule for all clubs.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Allowance or otherwise, something has to be done. Eddie's idea of "equalisation" seems to be "apply the same rules across the board and completely ignore the geographic/market/systemic disadvantages affecting some clubs (that conveniently his club benefits from)".

The discussion needs to be about "equity" and not "equality".





(The Lion's Roar)

 

[AFLQLD]

That graphic from the Lions Roar is so telling that it makes me angry every time I see it.

 

[Chezzalenko Reborn]

Never going to happene. Not now, not ever.

My argument is based on two beliefs:

- The Victorian/South Australian/Western Australian will never allow anything to threaten to 'Natural Advantage' that they have in the code.

- We have had close to 13 years of the Victorian Elite (Collongwood, Hawthorn, Carlton, Essendon) essentially get involved in demanding an uncompromised salary cap and draft and after 13 years they are about to succeed in that. Only difference is now is they have increased their advantaged with free agency.

If anything, the Expansion Block should be targeting the clubs best benefitting from free agency in their raids on the struggling clubs and get vocal about it. For the first time (perhaps ever) we have a CEO who can actually take the fight because he knows the Victorian arguments and he can offer counter arguments to them,

TL;DR version, the AFL will never allow it. Give up any hope. Everyone have babies and get them playing local footy and grow the game from grass roots = More Queensland talent.