If 18 year old kids don't want to move to the Gold Coast to be a professional footballer, you're hardly going to get them to move to Hobart.
Tasi kids will play for Tasmania. That's the whole point. A Tasmanian football club.
No it can't. You don't have to enter the draft!
To be an AFL footballer - and all the privileges and opportunities that come with it - you have to enter a national draft. The NFL and NBA, where "franchises" have almost universal private ownership, operate under the same system.
If you're good enough restricted free agency kicks in after 7 years. In practice, players nearly always have their "go home" wishes facilitated after their initial contract is up.
Your use of terms "Kremlin" and "fundamentalist" to describe equalisation measures does you no favours, btw. It just highlights you can't prosecute a cogent argument without resorting to glib and over the top rhetoric
Your a piece of work. Magpies, who would have thought. Mirror maybe?
Anyway, only an authoritarian could condone the forced relocation of a person from his home if he wants to play footy. If you cant see the that this is not right, then I cant help you. It is a classic socialist mindset, that is, a persons freedom and independence must be sacrificed for the greater good. Many wars have been fought on this policy.
You have not ready your history books. The opposing force to authoritarians always wins. Freedom always wins, and the AFL will be no different. So enjoy your controlled league and socialised corporate system while it lasts, because the next global financial crisis is going to wreak havoc on revenue, and seriously challenge the viability of GC.
If you did a bit of research, you would understand the ebbs and flows of our economy. We have had unprecedented prosperity over the last 25 years, true, but in times of economic hardship, one of the first luxuries to be cut from the personal budget is club membership. A close second would be cable TV (but we have not witnessed a recession since cable came into effect, so its just speculation). During recessions and even a depression, you would expect TV advertising revenue to collapse, reducing the broadcast rights for distribution to the clubs.
The AFL office are administrators only. The game belongs to the people, and en masse, the people did not ask for the crap that the AFL is serving up.
There has been a whole series of major errors:
- Waverley? Not even Hawthorn wants to train there.
- Rule changes, ie, 4 on the bench. This has resulted in the demise of the big bodied full forward who kicks 12 goals a game. This is rule related.
- The loss of Fitzroy is a disaster, due to the 1 division system.
- The introduction of the draft which denies the right of players to play for the team of their choice.
- The destruction of suburban football and leagues like SANFL and WAFL. Had a divisional system been introduced, several old historical WAFL and SANFL clubs may have chosen to enter the AFL (as did Port Adelaide), and try to take on the Melbourne clubs head on. This is consistent with organic free market policies.
- Creating Brisbane and playing them at Carrara. This was a disaster for many years. If it wasnt for Matthews and Fitzroy, who knows where Brisbane would have been? Again, this was a very risky strategy that the AFL orchestrated, instead of letting the Queensland football community work things out and enter our system slowly via a Div2 or 3 capacity.
- Gold Coast may not be viable.
- The Draft compromises basic human rights. It is absolutely authoritarian and has ruined many a footballer.
- The AFL entering political agenda like the equality movement. Dear God, they have no right to speak on behalf of the football community politically.
- The destruction of club development programs, ie the U19s.
- the creation of the U18 TAC competition, which is souless, and rips young guns from their local clubs. Ive had a personal experience of this via Eastern Rangers. It was horrible to be torn away from East Burwood as the only way to make the draft. What a destructive policy which teaches kids that personal success is far more important than team success. The TAC cup should be scrapped, and good young kids should be winning premierships for the local clubs with their mates and families. Again, this is an Authoritarian Corporate Socials Policy. It opposes decency.
- The restrictive policy of not giving access to other clubs, cities and states to enter our national competition. Imagine a Darwin or Alice Springs (mostly aboriginal side). It would be mind blowing. And it might just be sponsored by Ziggy Forrester or another wealthy mining tycoon. Who knows? But we will never know with the current restrictive AFL policy.
- The legislatitve policy of forcing clubs to wear away strips. This exposes the shallow corporate policies of the AFL. Why interfere? Also why legislate against woolen jumpers? It worked for 100 years, and help sustain a local agricultural and textiles industry.
- Exploration of the Chinese market. Well, another highlight of the ruthless expansionist policies.
- Removing the reserves competition. It was great to spend a day at the footy, watching at least 2 quarters of the reserves before the big game. But we cant have that anymore, although it worked for 100 years before?
- Over regulation of the game via umpiring. We used to have 1 umpire. Now they want 4 + 1 on the bench? Isnt the grand final great, when the umpires just put their whistles away. Thats how it should be. Why did 1 umpire work for 100 years? Is the game over regulated now?
- Television decisions. Progressive policy like equality. We are made to believe we need it, but we didnt have it for 100 years and things worked out fine.
- No more state of origin. Lets go to Ireland instead. Another aggressive expansionist policy.
I have a vision where Australian Football is regulated by a salary cap, but apart from that, is free, open, democratic and tribal.
I think soccer is boring, but it seems the EPL structure, is kicking arse over the NFL.
I think the AFL has been blindsided by American sports culture and will likely suffer the same fate.