What can we actually use all our dollarbucks for?

[Scotland]

WC have lots of money, this isn't news. I keep hearing about how WC don't need a priority pick because of all the resources we have available. Which would be great if we were Manchester City. Or Geelong.

So what can we actually use our Scrooge McDuck vault for to improve the team?

We can't go over the salary cap, nor can we spread it out over 50 players instead of 40.

The soft cap is $7.7m. Still about $2m lower than what it was pre covid.

As I understand it if we spend an extra $500k we pay a 200% tax, so would be handing $1m to the AFL.

Is it worth it? If we bring in 2 or 3 more assistant coaches or development staff or whoever will it make a big impact? Is there any area other than the playing list that there is a glaring weakness that can be improved just by throwing money at it?

 

[Donkers]

WC have lots of money, this isn't news. I keep hearing about how WC don't need a priority pick because of all the resources we have available. Which would be great if we were Manchester City. Or Geelong.

So what can we actually use our Scrooge McDuck vault for to improve the team?

We can't go over the salary cap, nor can we spread it out over 50 players instead of 40.

The soft cap is $7.7m. Still about $2m lower than what it was pre covid.

As I understand it if we spend an extra $500k we pay a 200% tax, so would be handing $1m to the AFL.

Is it worth it? If we bring in 2 or 3 more assistant coaches or development staff or whoever will it make a big impact? Is there any area other than the playing list that there is a glaring weakness that can be improved just by throwing money at it?

500k would provide 2 full time well credentialled experienced recruiters / youth development / talent identifier and 1 part time well credentialled experienced recruiter / talent identifier / youth development

So in total 1.5 million for maybe a marginal difference that we may or may see overall in about 3-4 years time. Or say it's 4 years that's 6 million dollars before you potentially see any benefit.

That is why the club can't overspend on the soft cap. The tax is a joke when the club gets the lowest distribution from the AFL to begin with.

Now if we were allowed to spend over the soft cap from our minimum distribution up to the median distribution from the AFL without being taxed that could make a significant difference.

The club is getting ****ed by the AFL at both ends and the WAFC is completely incompetent, pays its staff ridiculous amounts and provides stuff all to WAFL clubs and talent pathways.

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

Improved facilities. I keep hearing how this or that club have the best facilities in the AFL, rarely are we mentioned. With our wealth, our facilities should always be the best.

One-off/short term staffing expanditure to address needs. The soft cap penalty only really hurts if you exceed it for consecutive years. But if we went and blew the soft cap to bring in short term consultants to figure out what we're doing wrong, that'd be worth it.

Medical costs is another big one. Start sending players to the worlds best surgeons, and not whoever is available locally in Perth.

 

[oak79]

Improved facilities. I keep hearing how this or that club have the best facilities in the AFL, rarely are we mentioned. With our wealth, our facilities should always be the best.

One-off/short term staffing expanditure to address needs. The soft cap penalty only really hurts if you exceed it for consecutive years. But if we went and blew the soft cap to bring in short term consultants to figure out what we're doing wrong, that'd be worth it.

Medical costs is another big one. Start sending players to the worlds best surgeons, and not whoever is available locally in Perth.

Do facilities / equipment etc count towards soft cap ? Or is it just staff ?

 

[Ochre]

The tax for breaking the soft cap is huge and exorbitant and over the top and something we could still easily afford. That's our advantage. We should be going a mile over it every year, no other club could match that.

 

[ioppolo]

I assume our CEO, president, and whoever else is in the Eagles penthouse, are the best paid in the AFL bar maybe Collingwood. That's where the money goes.

And Cambodia.

 

[Bender_]

Sure as **** not spending in ripping up MRP's turf.

 

[kane249]

Medical costs is another big one. Start sending players to the worlds best surgeons, and not whoever is available locally in Perth.

We've been doing that with players being sent to Dubai for advice on injury rehab

 

[WCErevival]

Gepp isn't getting paid peanuts.

 

[Monsterdarlz]

Soft cap goes up this year and we are off the hook for Simmos chunk. Invest in coaches and see if we can get soft cap cola allowance stupid that we don't get this option get Fremantle on board as well

 

[RanaNaved]

Improved facilities. I keep hearing how this or that club have the best facilities in the AFL, rarely are we mentioned. With our wealth, our facilities should always be the best.

One-off/short term staffing expanditure to address needs. The soft cap penalty only really hurts if you exceed it for consecutive years. But if we went and blew the soft cap to bring in short term consultants to figure out what we're doing wrong, that'd be worth it.

Medical costs is another big one. Start sending players to the worlds best surgeons, and not whoever is available locally in Perth.

I doubt we'd be lacking anything regarding facilities tbh

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

I doubt we'd be lacking anything regarding facilities tbh

I suspect if we start looking at what some of the super clubs of world sports are doing, we'd have a long list of improvements we could make.

I've heard of hydro and cryotherapy pools, altitude champers, dedicated studios for biomechanics analysis. Probably more things I haven't heard of.

 

[The_Reaper]

I don't think it's a coincidence that we dropped off a lot after the softcap was introduced.

 

[RanaNaved]

I suspect if we start looking at what some of the super clubs of world sports are doing, we'd have a long list of improvements we could make.

I've heard of hydro and cryotherapy pools, altitude champers, dedicated studios for biomechanics analysis. Probably more things I haven't heard of.

We have some of those things you mentioned

 

[Deplorable trumpster]

The luxury or soft cap tax or whatever they call it is set at such a ridiculous level that no club will ever be able to afford going over it. They might aswell just scrap calling it a tax and say you can't go over the limit. If they made it 40% and all funds raised from it go into a pool that gets redistributed to pay for the facility upgrades that the AFL currently just gives hand out's to struggling clubs for that would be more reasonable. It would put some kind of limit on how much extra you can spend whilst still incentivising clubs to make money so they can re - invest in themselves. And the pauper clubs would have a reason to support it because that will become the fund they rely on for their hand out's.

I think that the bringing in of the soft cap has been one of the reasons for our demise. We have had to all of a sudden learn to do more with less and it has taken a long time to adjust to that.

 

[Scotland]

As I suspected it sounds like having money in the bank just buys time and not much else. We don't need to be competitive every year to stay in the black or keep fans engaged but having 100,000 members and more money than the Catholic Church isn't the competitive advantage some make it out to be.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

More fireworks. I don’t think the smoke that envelops the top tier before the first bounce is quite choking enough.

 

[TY24]

Improved facilities. I keep hearing how this or that club have the best facilities in the AFL, rarely are we mentioned. With our wealth, our facilities should always be the best.

You don’t hear it because we’re in Perth.

MRP is state of the art and cost around $60 million for the entire project (granted not all of that was spent of club specific facilities)

 

[Scotland]

I don't think it's a coincidence that we dropped off a lot after the softcap was introduced.

Certainly feels like in recent years we don't really have an edge.

Jake Waterman was a late F/S pick in 2016. McGovern was a rookie list pick in 2011. And sat on the rookie list eating pies for several years. Not many big success stories since then. We had a good 2017 draft, but other than that the best result since is probably 2022 which people still criticise.

Tim Kelly went to Geelong. Nic Martin went to Essendon. Chad Warner, Shai Bolton, Sam Taylor were all mid draft picks. These are the sort of players we used to identify. If you look at the 06 flag side we had Cox, Fletcher, Lynch, Brett Jones from the rookie list, Hunter, Embley, RoJo who we found locally with later picks. 2018 we had a mix of players from good trades and drafting to go with top 10 picks. Yeo, TB, Darling, LeCras were huge for what they cost.

There aren't too many players on the current list that are really success stories of list management. We held our nerve with HR but he was a consensus pick 1. Maric is OK and McCarthy looks good but they did fall in our lap via being at the bottom when the MSD was on. Hough and Shanahan are probably the best value players we have based on draft position but mostly it's players who are OK for where they were picked/what they were traded for, or worse. Genuinely don't know if this is a function of others getting better, us worse or both. How are Geelong finding a Humphries playing for Swanny D's ressies and we aren't? Do we need to go back to the good old days of hiding talented PSA footballers so scouts don't see then playing WAFL colts?

 

[Donkers]

Certainly feels like in recent years we don't really have an edge.

Jake Waterman was a late F/S pick in 2016. McGovern was a rookie list pick in 2011. And sat on the rookie list eating pies for several years. Not many big success stories since then. We had a good 2017 draft, but other than that the best result since is probably 2022 which people still criticise.

Tim Kelly went to Geelong. Nic Martin went to Essendon. Chad Warner, Shai Bolton, Sam Taylor were all mid draft picks. These are the sort of players we used to identify. If you look at the 06 flag side we had Cox, Fletcher, Lynch, Brett Jones from the rookie list, Hunter, Embley, RoJo who we found locally with later picks. 2018 we had a mix of players from good trades and drafting to go with top 10 picks. Yeo, TB, Darling, LeCras were huge for what they cost.

There aren't too many players on the current list that are really success stories of list management. We held our nerve with HR but he was a consensus pick 1. Maric is OK and McCarthy looks good but they did fall in our lap via being at the bottom when the MSD was on. Hough and Shanahan are probably the best value players we have based on draft position but mostly it's players who are OK for where they were picked/what they were traded for, or worse. Genuinely don't know if this is a function of others getting better, us worse or both. How are Geelong finding a Humphries playing for Swanny D's ressies and we aren't? Do we need to go back to the good old days of hiding talented PSA footballers so scouts don't see then playing WAFL colts?

Scouts now go to PSA matches and clubs get lots more info than they used too. The last time the club tried to really hide a player was Powell and GC still got him before our second round pick.

 

[BSD]

Gepp isn't getting paid peanuts.

How much is that geriatric on ?

 

[jdisc]

Triple the Big Coast Energy budget

 

[Mr Eagle]

NFTs seem the obvious choice.

 

[RustyShacklefordFalcon]

Gepp isn't getting paid peanuts.

We're paying him in Jeppcoin™

 

[Bender_]

You don’t hear it because we’re in Perth.

MRP is state of the art and cost around $60 million for the entire project (granted not all of that was spent of club specific facilities)

A pretty big chunk of that was spent on a special oxygen tent for Don Pyke to sleep in which he believes gives him sexual powers.