Player managers: discuss.

[Vicky Park]

Player managers seem to have a much higher profile these days, and maybe with that comes an increased sphere of influence and active involvement in the whole trade thing. 10-15 years ago, I doubt I would have known of, or heard of, many of them, but maybe that's just me. Maybe I clued up after seeing Jerry Maguire.

As players' salaries have increased, there is obviously a bigger bucket of money to be tapped into by the managers, hence there appear to be more of them around and some make a louder splash than others.

 

[Robroy22]

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/were-lucky-stevie-j-didnt-become-a-giant-20141016-1179zc.html

If you haven't already read Jake Niall's piece, so much of it is how I've been thinking. Here are a couple of pieces:

"The attempted pick-up of Stevie was a measure of how out of hand and strange the trading marketplace became. The notion of Johnson becoming a Giant on the last day is jarring, and would have shaken football's foundations further; GWS, it seems, is prepared to live and die by the recruiting raid.

If Stevie J could be traded, who couldn't?"

and:

"But the clear-cut winners from these two weeks of mayhem are abundantly clear – Boyd's manager, Liam Pickering, and Connors, who successfully landed Beams and Ryder at their preferred destinations, with an honourable mention and joint place on the podium for the Brisbane Lions and ESP's Justin Reid, who shepherded Griffen to GWS."

And finally:
"These past two weeks have been manna from heaven for the managers, and not too shabby for the footy media, either. Whether it works for the fans will hinge, as ever, on how their new favourites fare. For the game's sake, though, it's nice that Stevie stayed."

So here's a journo that has identified the same stuff as I've been worried about and has even admitted that the trade period is designed to give the media some cheap trash to write about, I'm one of those fans he's described that it DOESN"T WORK FOR.

 

[Seedsfan]

They are the ones who **** the game over and are the ones who try and get the players to move for money because all they care about it how much 10% of the contract is

 

[jonbe54]

Look guys we all agree player managers are something you scrape off your boot heels and try to breath shallowly whilst doing so - lest you get a whiff.

BUT.

ALL of us - supporters, club staff and administration, players and the league clubs as a whole are paying a pretty penny - and forgoing some rights and priveleges - in the bigger interest of the game for the AFL to oversee and enrich the game.

This ISN'T happening.

If a club has a duty of care for their players then the AFL has a duty of care for it's member clubs and even more importantly for the game itself.

I've been following the game since the mid 60's and at no stage during this time has the AFL (VFL) EVER been in front of the curve. In sad fact it's never even been at parity.

Always and forever they are content to react to situations that they have been too derelict in duty to either foresee or forstall even whilst watching it develop.

Direct your anger and suspicion where it's merited guys - at the lazy and incompetent b@stards allowing the game to slip into a simple grab for cash.

 

[Robroy22]

Look guys we all agree player managers are something you scrape off your boot heels and try to breath shallowly whilst doing so - lest you get a whiff.

BUT.

ALL of us - supporters, club staff and administration, players and the league clubs as a whole are paying a pretty penny - and forgoing some rights and priveleges - in the bigger interest of the game for the AFL to oversee and enrich the game.

This ISN'T happening.

If a club has a duty of care for their players then the AFL has a duty of care for it's member clubs and even more importantly for the game itself.

I've been following the game since the mid 60's and at no stage during this time has the AFL (VFL) EVER been in front of the curve. In sad fact it's never even been at parity.

Always and forever they are content to react to situations that they have been too derelict in duty to either foresee or forstall even whilst watching it develop.

Direct your anger and suspicion where it's merited guys - at the lazy and incompetent b@stards allowing the game to slip into a simple grab for cash.

I agree entirely with this...and after next year is the time for them to do something about it....
next year is our year to feed on free agents (or the not so free ones that we like)

 

[76woodenspooners]

"But the clear-cut winners from these two weeks of mayhem are abundantly clear – Boyd's manager, Liam Pickering, and Connors, who successfully landed Beams and Ryder at their preferred destinations, with an honourable mention and joint place on the podium for the Brisbane Lions and ESP's Justin Reid, who shepherded Griffen to GWS."

And finally:
"These past two weeks have been manna from heaven for the managers, ...

The salary cap means the player managers are effectively fighting each other over the slice size of a fixed size pie.

The extra commission Conners will get paid for Beams' payrise will be offset to some extent by the players in his stable who retired, were delisted, or negotiated a lower contract in 2014. That side of player management never gets any airtime.

 

[76woodenspooners]

Look guys we all agree player managers are something you scrape off your boot heels and try to breath shallowly whilst doing so - lest you get a whiff.

Hmmm, I don't see them that way at all.

I think they serve a necessary function. A 24 year old footy player not unreasonably should have some help in managing their affairs.

Maybe some folks blame Conners for Beams leaving Collingwood? Maybe some folks think Conners badgered Beams to go there so Conners could get a bigger commission? I don't believe that at all.

Personally I believe the reason Beams is at Brisbane is because it all started and finished with Beams sitting down with Conners and saying "Look, I don't want to play for Collingwood anymore ... I'd prefer to go back home to Queensland, what can you do?" And Conners made it happen. He's employed to represent the best interests of his client. What's wrong with that?

BUT.

ALL of us - supporters, club staff and administration, players and the league clubs as a whole are paying a pretty penny - and forgoing some rights and priveleges - in the bigger interest of the game for the AFL to oversee and enrich the game.

This ISN'T happening.

If a club has a duty of care for their players then the AFL has a duty of care for it's member clubs and even more importantly for the game itself.

I've been following the game since the mid 60's and at no stage during this time has the AFL (VFL) EVER been in front of the curve. In sad fact it's never even been at parity.

Always and forever they are content to react to situations that they have been too derelict in duty to either foresee or forstall even whilst watching it develop.

Direct your anger and suspicion where it's merited guys - at the lazy and incompetent b@stards allowing the game to slip into a simple grab for cash.

Did you say that in your answers to the CFC membership survey?

 

[jonbe54]

Hmmm, I don't see them that way at all.

I think they serve a necessary function. A 24 year old footy player not unreasonably should have some help in managing their affairs.

Maybe some folks blame Conners for Beams leaving Collingwood? Maybe some folks think Conners badgered Beams to go there so Conners could get a bigger commission? I don't believe that at all.

Personally I believe the reason Beams is at Brisbane is because it all started and finished with Beams sitting down with Conners and saying "Look, I don't want to play for Collingwood anymore ... I'd prefer to go back home to Queensland, what can you do?" And Conners made it happen. He's employed to represent the best interests of his client. What's wrong with that?



Did you say that in your answers to the CFC membership survey?

I NEVER respond to surveys 76 - not ever, ever, ever.

As for player managers I have no problem with them, like used car and life insurance salesmen they are an embedded and inescapble weft in our social fabric, as you may have gathered I don't feel the same about the AFL

 

[CFC2010]

Connors is a gun manager. If I had any ability to kick a footy then I would love him as my manager.

He got us Ball......he screwed us with Beam$ (yes he was my favourite player) and he got Rhyder to Port.
He does what he is employed to do! The quote that still resonates with me is what he told Clayton from Gold Coast about Beam$........"He is not for you!" Sure he f......d us hard but that's his job.

Just in case you guys didn't know he is a Pies supporter also.........not that you would know after the Beams deal!

Don't blame him for Beam$ because he did his job well, but that ex player on the other hand!?!?

 

[Robroy22]

If player managers are a necessary evil...and I'm still not convinced they are, the idea that 24 yo men need help looking after their financial affairs (heck...68 year old men do too!!) yet we're allowed to vote, go to war and drive a car at 18?
How about this then: Each club employs a financial advisor (manager) to assist their players with their financial affairs and we then offer players who use our advisor 10% more on their contracts. I wonder how many more developed players we'd keep then?

The current crop of managers are just lining their pockets. And don't give me the stuff that "Connors is a Pies supporter"....he used the exact same tactics with Paddy Ryder as he did with Beamer. In the system I outlined above, players have to front the club and ask for a clearance not go on holidays and let their manager play with the media.

 

[Robroy22]

Even Robbo's picking up on it now!!
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...l-afl-identities/story-fnp04d70-1227096528902

So footy clubs need to "fear" player managers now?

Pickers seems to have established a pattern now. He sets his prey up early (Buddy to the Swans, Boyd to anywhere in Melbourne) and he waits till late in negotiation periods (trade week) to show his hand. By that stage HE holds all the power and the clubs have to fold to his demands or else appear to be losing out on an opportunity. Who will he sell off next year?

Conners has used the "compassionate grounds" to advantage this year, but one wonders where his morals lie. Robbo says that his players will love his results, I wonder if that's true in twenty years time. The player will still be remembered as a mercenary whilst the manager has moved on to be a major player in the stock market, or a property developer.

Why do you need to fear leeches? Just pick em off and squash em.

 

[eddiebankbalance]

Look guys we all agree player managers are something you scrape off your boot heels and try to breath shallowly whilst doing so - lest you get a whiff.

BUT.

They make a shit load and couldn't give a brass razoo about what we think.

 

[Robroy22]

They make a shit load and couldn't give a brass razoo about what we think.

so did a bloke named "adolph".....something or other

 

[eddiebankbalance]

so did a bloke named "adolph".....something or other

But Adolf and allegedly had to pay back the bank he borrowed it from to make a shit load.

 

[jonbe54]

so did a bloke named "adolph".....something or other

Not to mention Luois and his Marie or Nicholas and his Alexandra

 

[domin8tors]

Player Managers are there to get the best deal for their client. it is the Football managers of the Clubs to get the best deal for the club. I don't understand the point of this discussion what is the issue here ?