News Salary Dumps Now Approved

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LordLucifer

LordLucifer

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www.theage.com.au

Clubs allowed to ‘salary dump’ in a major change to AFL trade rules

A major policy change, allowing clubs to more easily dump the salaries of big-money players, could ignite next month’s AFL trade period.
www.theage.com.au www.theage.com.au

The AFL has made a major shift in player trading this year, officially allowing clubs to “salary dump”, or trade out players on big contracts for minimal draft return.

Such deals would previously have been blocked by the AFL. The change will allow clubs to more easily get a player’s contract off their books to ease the strain on their salary caps.
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To be brutally honest, I thought this was already an accepted practice given the way SOS recently used it when turning over Carlton's list.
 
Suma Magic said:
Crazy to think that they were ever not allowed.

Why did the afl think they knew better than clubs when it came to doing deals in their own self-interest?
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Think it likely all dates back to the Veale deal done by the Dogs and Hawks where the Dogs traded pick 6 for Lachlan Veale (Box Hill player who otherwise would have been delisted) on the agreement that the Hawks not trade Rawlings, letting him fall into the PSD where the Dogs had first pick.

I'm not sure whether the AFL was furious in that instance because the outlay did not match the quality of player or because it circumvented player choice in fostering an outcome that Rawlings did not want to occur.

That at least is my take on why it has taken so long to get here.

On the salary cap dump approval I think it's a step back in the direction of equalisation. I still don't think this move is going to be as effective as it should be unless they remove the salary cap floor. It seems counter intuitive to me that teams like North still have to pay their list 95% of what a team like Melbourne, Sydney, Geelong, Brisbane or Collingwood do. Really advantages the teams with existing talent and leads to mediocre players who should be moved on being hard to move on due to their extremely generous existing deals.

The final step they should take is negotiating out player choice in the next CBA unless specifically contracted (i.e. a no-trade clause). It's a professional competition and I'm of the view there's too much power in the hands of the players with respect to leaving clubs like GWS and GC. If they, and Tas if they come in, are ever going to be successful they need to be able to keep and move on players to the team offering the best deal, not this 'he nominated Richmond/Geelong etc but they only have picks x'.
 

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It's a hypocritical viewpoint where you think that removing the lower cap to allow bottom clubs to pay less salary, so the top clubs have a salary advantage on one hand. But then on the other hand will fight against COLA because it's unfair for other clubs to have a salary advantage.
 
longdonkey said:
It's a hypocritical viewpoint where you think that removing the lower cap to allow bottom clubs to pay less salary, so the top clubs have a salary advantage on one hand. But then on the other hand will fight against COLA because it's unfair for other clubs to have a salary advantage.
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Cola is a set advantage ove true whole competition. Allowing a lower floor for bottom clubs allows them to build bigger war chests to target elite players from top teams. At the moment all they can do is front load contracts which still leaves them susceptible to lose players as those contracts near an end


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
 
Who is the most overpaid player on an AFL list requiring a salary dump at the moment? Brad Hill, Jared Polec, Jaidyn Stephenson, Brodie Grundy?
 
Simche said:
Think it likely all dates back to the Veale deal done by the Dogs and Hawks where the Dogs traded pick 6 for Lachlan Veale (Box Hill player who otherwise would have been delisted) on the agreement that the Hawks not trade Rawlings, letting him fall into the PSD where the Dogs had first pick.

I'm not sure whether the AFL was furious in that instance because the outlay did not match the quality of player or because it circumvented player choice in fostering an outcome that Rawlings did not want to occur.

That at least is my take on why it has taken so long to get here.

On the salary cap dump approval I think it's a step back in the direction of equalisation. I still don't think this move is going to be as effective as it should be unless they remove the salary cap floor. It seems counter intuitive to me that teams like North still have to pay their list 95% of what a team like Melbourne, Sydney, Geelong, Brisbane or Collingwood do. Really advantages the teams with existing talent and leads to mediocre players who should be moved on being hard to move on due to their extremely generous existing deals.

The final step they should take is negotiating out player choice in the next CBA unless specifically contracted (i.e. a no-trade clause). It's a professional competition and I'm of the view there's too much power in the hands of the players with respect to leaving clubs like GWS and GC. If they, and Tas if they come in, are ever going to be successful they need to be able to keep and move on players to the team offering the best deal, not this 'he nominated Richmond/Geelong etc but they only have picks x'.
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I think a reduction to 90% makes sense.

But I like this decision. All it does is prevent the AFL from stopping equitable trades that both clubs want to do. The veale deal was addressed by making sure that illegal side agreements weren’t allowed.

In terms of player approval of trade, I’m of the view that players should be able to opt into that in their contracts. Eg a player can sign a deal where he doesn’t get a say in where he is traded to so long as his contract is paid. Presumably the club pays a premium to get the player to give up the right to choose where they agree to go.
 
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M Malice said:
Who is the most overpaid player on an AFL list requiring a salary dump at the moment? Brad Hill, Jared Polec, Jaidyn Stephenson, Brodie Grundy?
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Stephenson is only on 500k and we want to keep him. Martin, Gaff, Darling and O'Meara are all on 750k+ but don't play like it.
 
Again, gone half assed.

Why not fully endorse cash for picks trading?

Why do players need to be involved? It should just be like pick for pick trading.

I.e North trade $800k in salary cap space to GC for Pick 7.

No players required.


It would completely change Free Agency.

They are trying to emulate the NBA and NFL systems, so just ******* do it as it currently functions there.
 
rabidcrow said:
Cola is a set advantage ove true whole competition. Allowing a lower floor for bottom clubs allows them to build bigger war chests to target elite players from top teams. At the moment all they can do is front load contracts which still leaves them susceptible to lose players as those contracts near an end


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
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Yep.

Salary cap is 13 million, well 13.54 million.

I don't mind the salary cap minimum goes down to 90 %. That means $1,300,000 of spare room to move around. Even if it is 92.5% just like back in 2010 or 2011, that's still 1 million dollars to wriggle around
 
Simche said:
It seems counter intuitive to me that teams like North still have to pay their list 95% of what a team like Melbourne, Sydney, Geelong, Brisbane or Collingwood do. Really advantages the teams with existing talent and leads to mediocre players who should be moved on being hard to move on due to their extremely generous existing deals.
Click to expand...
Yep, as much as you think a player realised he's being overpaid on a previous due to the salary floor, that's not how it works in real life. Club X plays Player A 350K when he's only worth 250K. He improves to being a 350K player, but now he wants 450K to reflect that improvement. It just leads to a cycle of some players getting overpaid their entire careers.

I'm all for a salary cap floor but 95% is crazy. It should be 80%, maybe 85% at the maximum. It was 90% for a long time and even then it was too high - I was shocked when they increased it.

I know players get additional match payments for finals but I assume that is included in the salary cap. There is prizemoney for the premier and Grand Finalists - is this included in the salary cap? And do the other finalists get prizemoney? Surely prizemoney is outside the salary cap otherwise how would clubs budget for it...
 
Sphynx said:
Again, gone half assed.

Why not fully endorse cash for picks trading?

Why do players need to be involved? It should just be like pick for pick trading.

I.e North trade $800k in salary cap space to GC for Pick 7.

No players required.


It would completely change Free Agency.

They are trying to emulate the NBA and NFL systems, so just ******* do it as it currently functions there.
Click to expand...
There’s no mechanism in the rules that allows for salary to be traded.

The way a salary dump actually works is that
  • the contracted player has his contract terminated and paid out by the old club under the old club’s salary cap.
  • The player is traded, with approval from the AFL to ensure that the trade is fair and complies with the rules.
  • The new club pays them a new salary on a new contract, entirely unrelated to the previous contract with the other club, and that salary comes out of the new club’s salary cap.
  • The termination pay-out from the first club is then reduced by the value of the new salary. It comes under no unjust enrichment.

All the clubs have been doing is tinkering with the new contract in order to adjust the connected value of the pay-out the old club would have on their books, and then negotiating a trade accordingly.


All that seems to have changed is that the AFL now officially takes into account the salary dump as part of determining whether a trade is fair, which is a bogus statement anyway as clubs have been using this sort of loophole for years before now.


But whereas trades connected with player contracts have predefined limits, trading salary space in a pick-only trade is a completely separate concept which would require a wholesale rewriting of the rules around both exchange of players and the TPP, to prevent rorting, and would probably require AFLPA involvement and a team of lawyers to ensure it works as they intend it to.

I’m guessing that will come eventually but probably not in the short amount of time Gill has left as CEO.
 

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