Cats make loyalty pledge

[FoxC]

From today's Herald Sun http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,23456054-19742,00.html

Heard on Triple M yesterday too.

Cats make loyalty pledge

GEELONG has drawn a commitment from its players not to chase offers, and is hopeful a dozen stars will re-sign by mid-season.
The Cats have an extraordinary 22 players coming out of contract at the end of the season, half of them premiership players.
Geelong could not hope to come close to paying them the market rate, but chief executive Brian Cook revealed yesterday the club had already drawn guarantees from the players and leadership group that they would not request massive ambit claims.
"We think it's our biggest challenge at the footy club from a human point of view," Cook said.
"We have 22 coming out of contract and five or six of them are All-Australians. (Football manager) Neil Balme has met with the players and the player leadership group in separate meetings and they have committed to trying to stay together as a close-knit group and they have committed to limiting their demands.
"Balmey has seen every player manager as well, so he has spent half his time over the past two or three months in dealing with them individually and collectively and meeting with managers.
"I am hoping within a period of eight weeks we will be able to say we have got about a dozen players over the line."
Cook told Triple M the club was very aware of the player concessions likely to be given to any new franchises and was determined not to have uncontracted stars liable to be lured by big dollars.
"You really need to (sign players) at the start of the year because you don't want to have heavy negotiations with players in the finals so you really have a cut-off with players of about June or July in terms of this stuff," he said.
"But also with the 17th and 18th clubs, there is definitely, in my opinion, an ability for these sides to pick up uncontracted players. How many from each club, who knows? Hopefully one per club is the maximum."
Geelong was mystified by the decision to play yesterday's game against Essendon at Telstra Dome, with the prospect of a blockbuster crowd had it been played at the MCG.
"If we played at the MCG and got a crowd of about 80,000 and that's a big if, I suppose, but if we did we would make about $700,000, whereas a sellout with 50,000 at Telstra Dome would make us about $300,000. So it's around $400,000 difference in terms of here and the MCG."
Geelong makes $650,000 per match from selling out its home games at Skilled Stadium.
Cook said the club made an average of $25-26 from every supporter at Skilled Stadium but only $8 per spectator at Telstra Dome clashes.
"What we tried to do in our fixture requests for this year is to play three home games at the MCG and we wanted to play Collingwood and Essendon as our home games at the MCG, but unfortunately the AFL didn't fixture us that way," he said.
"I think out of the eight or nine (fixturing requests) we got two or three, and they were numbers six, seven and eight in priority order."

Fantastic to know the players are committed to the club for more collective glories instead of chasing individual ones. Let's hope all will be sewn up and we will not lose a single player to other clubs.

Well done GFC.

 

[Hood007]

Great to see. Things like that build a winning culture...
I think if players want to leave for more money over winning, then let them leave...

 

[CF]

with 22 contracts up this year you would have to think we wont be able to hold them all, but if we can keep a core of our top players then that would be a great win for the club. I am sure all the other clubs are hoping that what happened to Essendon after 2000, is what will happen to us.

 

[bingle]

i'm pretty confident that most of our required players will stay loyal. after all it's all about the premierships..........surely

i still get majorly p!$$ed off when the fixture is discussed though

 

[Copernicus]

Well, at the moment they are only words, but it's great to see that the players aren't yet considering chasing the money over playing for their team at the moment. Just goes to show the sort of culture we are building down at the footy club.

Of course, I wont take anything as gospel until contracts are signed!

 

[thejester]

Well, at the moment they are only words, but it's great to see that the players aren't yet considering chasing the money over playing for their team at the moment. Just goes to show the sort of culture we are building down at the footy club.

Of course, I wont take anything as gospel until contracts are signed!

Yeah, exactly.

Who exactly is out of contract?

 

[mxett]

I remember Essendons great team of 2000 just lost to the Lions in 2001. They couldn't keep everyone under the salary cap so they let 4 go at the end of the year. One was Blake Caracella - to the Lions, the team that had just beaten them . That really hurt, damn cap concessions

Geelong have a big challenge ahead to keep this team together. I hope they succeed.

 

[Dasher39]

after all it's all about the premierships..........surely

I remember reading after the GF, a few of the players mentioned that no amount of money is better than the feeling of winning a Premiership.

We will lose some fringe players along the way, that is inevitable, but I reckon we will keep the core of the team together

 

[Ari]

Unfortunately all this does is prove there's a problem. It's one thing to make a pact arm in arm when you're drinking a beer, another to say no to an extra 100k.... especially when there's women involved!!

I think it's naive of Geelong to expect they'll keep them all. It's about damage control. That said, good on them for recognising the problem and getting the players onboard early.

 

[Ari]

I remember reading after the GF, a few of the players mentioned that no amount of money is better than the feeling of winning a Premiership.

I would DEFINITELY think that for a first premiership, but I reckon you could argue the 2nd and 3rd ones.

 

[winty]

I think one great benefit Geelong have is that the core of our team, Bartel, Ablett, SJ, Kelly, etc, were all drafted around the same time, so they will have such a strong bond already, which is only strengthened by being part of a premiership side. I would like to think the lure of playing alongside your mates would be more persuasive than an extra 0 on the end of a contract.

 

[candiehappy]

I guess the players have the benefit of seeing what happened to Essendon, and then looking at Brisbane and what you can achieve when you hold the team list together. Put's some reality around it. Anyway, I'm just going to enjoy it while we can!

 

[FoxC]

I would DEFINITELY think that for a first premiership, but I reckon you could argue the 2nd and 3rd ones.

I agree. A lot will depend on what happens this year and 2009. If Geelong win more flags, some of the older guys like Corey or Enright may want to move back to their home state and get more money, and the ones whose spots in the team have hot competition like Kelly may move on to other teams too. If we don't win back to back this year, it would be an underachievement and I would think the group would want to stay together for more flags.

Having said that I remember too well what happened to Essendon when they let go of Heffernan, Blumfield, Caracella and someone else I can't remember. I don't want to lose a single player on our current list.

 

[rocker_oz33]

lets hope the club can keep the core group together, it will be hard to keep alot of players due to other clubs offering them big $$$ and with the new teams like gold coast will be looking at getting sum good players aswell it sure will be hard we;ll soon know who wants to stay and who wants the $$$$

 

[Dont you hate pants?]

I think one great benefit Geelong have is that the core of our team, Bartel, Ablett, SJ, Kelly, etc, were all drafted around the same time, so they will have such a strong bond already, which is only strengthened by being part of a premiership side. I would like to think the lure of playing alongside your mates would be more persuasive than an extra 0 on the end of a contract.

It also helps when there are a couple of the boys are born and bred geelong boys are have family links to the club (Ablett(s), Bartel, Ling, Hawkins etc)

 

[Crancon]

It's wonderful news and I hope we are able to pull it off!

It also helps when there are a couple of the boys are born and bred geelong boys are have family links to the club

Obviously this will be the key and we seem to have a fantastic opportunity because of this fact.

 

[Dont you hate pants?]

It's wonderful news and I hope we are able to pull it off!



Obviously this will be the key and we seem to have a fantastic opportunity because of this fact.

For sure. You wouldn't expect the guys I listed previously to hold out for bigger dollars, and would be happy to stay put for a little less cash than what they can get elsewhere. This will free up abit more room in the salary cap to retain players who don't have these links to Geelong. In theory of course.....Balmie and Co have a big job ahead of them! I'm confident we should be able to hold our 'A' list together. Its guys that cannot get the opportunities to have a crack in the seniors that may look elsewhere however (Prismal for example) despite what money gets thrown at them.

 

[forrrestGump]

all good

except it was blake that tried to screw the club for money last year

 

[bossco]

The problem that Essendon went through in 2001 -2003 was not the players chasing big money more the club needing to move players on to keep them under the salary cap. Unfortunately when you have such an excellent list like you do loyalty only counts for so much. I don't know all who are coming out of contract but for example you may have to offload an Enright or Mackie to accomodate for the obvious massive payrise Selwood would get. Good luck to you and if you can keep this list together Balmey should be knighted.

 

[haywood jablome]

It's time to go.. Byrnes

 

[scottydeewah]

I think most teams learnt from the Dons in 2000 and list management has come a long way. They were the first team to really experience that massive across the board quality team and weren't prepared to deal with it. Around the late 90s early 00s there was often talk about a trade because of the Cap, not as much any more.

I posted this on the main board and I think the Veterans cap is going to go a long way to saving us.

The club will use back loaded (and front loaded) contracts, in conjunction with a couple of pay cuts and the veterans list to try and squeeze everyone in.

• Milburn should be on the veterans list this year and have a front loaded contract to compensate (say he was on 400 last year, put him on 800 this year as only half goes into the cap). Then from next year he can start to take a pay cut, say down to 500 (250 in cap), then 400 (200 in cap).
• Scarlo is available for veterans next year. He should therefor be able to take a large pay decrease in Salary cap terms. We can pay him around 700k and he would be down probably around 100-150 on what he is getting now.

We should increase the media work of the players who are interested. Ling, Harley and Ablett all currently do some work. Ling is one I believe will always be in the public eye as he is a cult figure and a likable bloke.

Work on the younger guys like Hawkins, Selwood, Stokes and let them know their time will come. Especially with the likes of Corey, Chapman, Ling, Enright being eligible for the veterans list in a few years time after the days of Milburn, Scarlo and co. Would be very surprised if any of these boys left.

I think people are dreaming if they think Selwood will get much more than 250k the next contract and I dont think a bloke like him would hold out for more. I know other clubs with shit lists would offer him more but I dont think he is going to leave.

Veterns list may save us. We can wipe close to 4-500k off our TPP next year. Players like Chapman, Kelly and Ling, Bartel and Ablett are all pretty much on the ceiling of their pay now so if we could get them to just take a pay cut in the way of no massive pay rise we should be fine.

 

[lamaros]

The Dons in 2000-01 also lost a few to retirement/injury. You guys wont suffer from that as much as we did. Hopefully.

Having said that, just wait and see how easy it is to hold the team together if you're not doing quite so well later in the year as you are now. All it will take is not winning the premiership this year and players will reconsider if it's so great to take a big paycut on a small career when you're not assured of winning the thing every time.

Look at West Coast. All it takes is one or two players out of the team (be it from injury, wanting to leave, etc) and all of a sudden things can look much less rosy.

 

[stevie20]

It's time to go.. Byrnes

I don't think his contract is up though

 

[bossco]

Veterns list may save us. We can wipe close to 4-500k off our TPP next year. Players like Chapman, Kelly and Ling, Bartel and Ablett are all pretty much on the ceiling of their pay now so if we could get them to just take a pay cut in the way of no massive pay rise we should be fine.

I would think that these 3 players would all be due a payrise for their next contract. Not sure whether they are coming out of previously a 2 or 3 year contract but regardless in that period of time they have gone from good players to superstars. Don't see them taking a pay cut at all, in fact quite the opposite.

 

[forrrestGump]

I would think that these 3 players would all be due a payrise for their next contract. Not sure whether they are coming out of previously a 2 or 3 year contract but regardless in that period of time they have gone from good players to superstars. Don't see them taking a pay cut at all, in fact quite the opposite.

the wce pay manual states that at times like these the players in question will open a fruit stand at victoria market. the produce will be supplied at market rate (one tonne for 1 c) by costa, and the stand will be looked after by a very cheap part time employee (who also is paid fulltime by costa

geez salary cap is now fixed

clubs are creative, and players leave clubs when they are selfish in these situations, in most cases players want opportunities