By RUSSELL BENNETT
THE early reaction to AFL Victoria’s player points and salary cap system is mixed, with one local official referring to it as a “two-headed beast”.
Ellinbank and District Football League manager and secretary Ken Moore welcomed the concept, but added: “In theory it looks great, but there’s a difference between the real world and the theoretical world.
“If they pull this off it’ll be a massive effort, but they’ll get a lot of critics.”
The Community Club Sustainability Program (CCSP) was announced at a press conference on Thursday morning, where AFL Victoria laid out two major changes set to have a huge impact on local footy in combating club spending – the trial of both a player points system and salary cap from next year.
But the most important question still remains: can a salary cap realistically be implemented in most community footy leagues, which are run predominantly by volunteers?
All teams would need to abide by the cap, which would assume that all player payments would be accurately documented and subject to auditing. Some observers view that as a huge assumption.
Yet according to AFL Victoria’s presentation “clubs will be audited – not all will every year, but just like the tax office, when your time comes, you will need to demonstrate full compliance”.
The idea is that a salary cap audit would be done by an AFL Victoria-accredited integrity officer, engaged by either the local league or region commission.
Interviews with club administrators, coaches, players and volunteers would be part of the process.
Club fines, relegation, loss of premiership points, and player suspensions would all be possibilities if a salary cap was breached.
Moore said the combination of the points system and the salary cap was a “two-headed beast”, adding that he wasn’t convinced a salary cap was a necessity on top of a points system.
The Ellinbank league was one of eight that AFL Victoria did research on in drafting its new player points system.
“The guiding principles are good, and interestingly some of them regarding player loyalty, the retention of players, the evenness of competitions, and the pathways from juniors to seniors were all ideas that we used to build the points system we already have,” Moore said.
“But creating the rules for the player points system is the easy part.
“The conjecture will be how you allocate the total points allowed per team.
“How many points do you give Cora Lynn, for example? How many points do you give Nilma Darnum?”
Moore said the concept had plenty of loose ends that had to be sorted out by 2016, and that could be a “hard sell”.
“A lot of clubs will come back and ask a lot of questions, and they’ll identify a lot of flaws,” he said.
“What happens if a club wins the next two flags but they don’t happen to be audited?
“We could have a Melbourne Storm situation where a premiership is stripped.
“I think, realistically, if you’ve got a good, functioning player points system you probably don’t need a salary cap.
“If you go out and buy a string of ex-AFL, VFL and high-quality local players to try and win you a flag you’re not going to be under the points system anyway.”
One of Moore’s other misgivings about the concept, from an EDFL standpoint, was the CCSP running as well as the AFL Gippsland football review.
“Our player points system is based around 15 clubs,” he said.
“But we could have 10 or 12 clubs in 2017 – we just don’t know.
“There are so many different scenarios – a one size fits all approach to this across the state won’t work.
“This will help even up the competition but creative clubs will always find a way to thrive.
“It’s a practical concept in the long-term but it’s going to have to be tinkered with over a number of years before you get anywhere near the optimal model – and that may never exist.”
PLAYER POINTS SYSTEM – HOW IT WORKS…
6 points – An AFL player (a player who has played a minimum of one AFL game in the previous three seasons.
5 points – State League Tier 1 – VFL, WAFL, SANFL (a player who has played a minimum of five senior games in the current, or previous three seasons)
4 points – TAC Cup; State League Tier 2 [NEAFL and TASFL]; Premium Community Player (a player who has finished in the top five of a club B&F, top 10 in a competition B&F, or club-leading goal kicker with a minimum of 40 goals) in the previous three seasons. NOTE: VAFA senior representative team players also fall under this category.
3 points – Senior community player (played the same or more senior games than reserves games in any of the previous three seasons); transferred junior (player recruited from an under-19s or younger competition, and does not meet the home club definition).
2 points – Development community player (played more reserves than senior games in the previous season).
1 point – Home player (played 40 or more games at the aligned junior club up to and including under-17 competitions or younger; or a player who has only played at that club).
