Ok, this is going to be a long comment, but I think its worth saying (note, someone else wrote this, I just really agree with it): Sydney has exactly the same salary cap and exactly the same access to Additional Service Agreements (ASAs) as every other club (except GWS and the Gold Coast which have larger caps during their developmental stages). Sydney is also subject to exactly the same rule in the use of these two capped amounts – that they must pay a minimum of 95% and a maximum of 100% of these combined amounts to their list of players. Sydney’s COLA is a separate amount of money funded by the AFL and distributed through a standard clause (written by the AFL) in every player’s contract. It is simply not possible to take the COLA fund and give it to one player as salary. Some commentators here are arguing that the Swans have effectively cut the salary component in most contracts and used COLA to provide players with a total payment equal to the amount they would have been paid elsewhere, thereby ‘saving’ salary to pay Tippett and Franklin. Firstly it is not possible to do this for draftees and rookies as their minimum salaries are set by law through the collective agreement with the AFL players association. Secondly it seems most unlikely that every player would accede to such an arrangement, particularly as the players concerned are the ones with the most bargaining power and they use agents to negotiate their contracts. And finally many contracts were already in place before Tippett and then Franklin were recruited and had been drawn up in the context of the requirement that the club pay out a set minimum of the total salary cap, thereby constraining the possible alleged ‘savings’. The salary cap rose from $8.787m in 2012 to $9.139m in 2013 to $9.632m in 2014, and the total ASA amount rose from $613,000 in 2012 to $852,000 in 2013 to $963,000 in 2014 (see p.62aflplayers.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CBA-2012-2016-FINAL.pdf). These increases in themselves provided the Swans (and every other club) with a total additional amount of $591,000 which could be paid to players in 2013 (when Tippett was recruited) and a further total amount of $604,000 in 2014 (when Franklin was recruited). As well the Swans cleared salary cap space by reducing their senior list to 38 players and for 2013 letting go six players (Seaby, Spangher, Dennis-Lane, Moore, Meredith, Gordon) while apart from Tippett, recruiting four lower paid draftees (the highest at pick 22) and upgrading a rookie. For 2014 they had two big retirements (Bolton and Mattner) and let go five other players (Mumford, White, Everitt, Armstrong, Lamb). Their ‘ins’ this year as well as Franklin were four draftees (the highest at pick 15) and two de-listed free agents, none of whom would be highly paid. The Swans’ list management has also included tactical use of timing and length of contracts, additional service agreements (particularly for Franklin), and veteran listings which allow any club with players who qualify to pay a fixed amount outside the cap. It has been legitimate in the past to debate whether Sydney or any other club should have had access to a COLA but this debate is now largely redundant as it is being phased out. It is not legitimate to continue to assert that Sydney has used COLA to recruit one or two super stars. The Swans have used COLA as the AFL intended it to be used and is now phasing it out as the AFL has directed. There is no justification for this arbitrary ban on the Swans access to the trade period on the same terms as every other club.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 08:09:19 +0000
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