AFL PLAYERS' Association chief executive Brendon Gale discusses free agency, competitive balance, player salaries and the League's continued expansion.

FREE AGENCY

Very simply, what is free agency?
People view free agency with all these negative connotations and that it’s evil and sinister but it’s simply a right that most employees in most workforces enjoy. And that is a right to go and take your labour somewhere else in the terms and conditions that you think are appropriate.

Why are we seemingly moving towards it here in the AFL?
We’re in the environment of professional sports. I think sports are different and I guess we understand that, particularly in the AFL, [that] this notion of competitive balance is really important and that clubs have the ability to compete on a level playing field. We understand that it’s really important and we support that.

Therefore we support a number of the restraints and measures that have been put in place to ensure clubs continue to compete on a level playing field.

But in the AFL, the only way players can move clubs is to be traded or to subject themselves to the lottery of the pre-season draft.

We just feel that that is incredibly rigid, and unnecessarily rigid, to the extent that it works against the players and prejudices the interests of those players who have got every expectation of continuing their career as a good professional. They can’t at one club, they haven’t been offered a contract which is every club’s prerogative or whatever, but they can’t get to a club where they might be valued.

Where are negotiations at with the League in regards to possibly introducing free agency into the AFL? Is it definitely coming in?
I think there’s work to be done. We’ve got a constructive working party that’s genuinely committed and looking at the options … but our job is to come up with a joint recommendation for the consideration of the [AFL] Commission, to give it the green light or the red light. So we’re still coming up with the joint recommendation part of it.

If it does come in, we hear it’s likely to not be until after the Gold Coast and western Sydney teams enter the AFL competition in 2012. Correct?
If it is introduced, it definitely will not be until after the introduction of the two new teams; which makes sense because with those two new clubs coming into the system, having rights to get uncontracted players, there’s an element of free agency in the next couple of years anyway.

And if you introduced free agency at the same time, it would really undermine their efforts to get up and be competitive.

If free agency does come in, is it most going to benefit the players?
Well, yes because it provides players with a right which we consider is fundamental. That is the right to have some determination of their own career at a point in their career. So we think that’s a fundamental right, without sounding too sanctimonious, and it’s a right that our players currently don’t have.

But secondly, we think it’s important for the industry because the industry requires and needs some flexibility in the labour market. It’s healthy to have some player movement [and] some liquidity and we think in actual fact that if clubs are in the business of selling hope, this can help clubs sell hope.

So it’s not all about players.

Now not all players would be eligible to become ‘free agents’. They would have to have played at their club for a set amount of time. Is that seven years?
We’re still debating that, yeah.

Why has that figure been thrown up and is the AFLPA supporting the seven-year term?
We think for free agency to be meaningful, for it to have any meaningful impact, [it has] got to be set for the years of the average career.

Isn’t that about four years?
Well, we’ve always gone on the assumption that it was about four years but what’s happened is the length of the career has grown due to better recruiting and those sorts of things. Now the AFL would say the average career is up around eight years, based on the average career of those who retired last year. Look, we interpret the information a little differently.

We’ve seen names of guys this year who, should free agency be introduced, would be eligible to leave clubs this year and their clubs wouldn’t receive anything in return.
I’m convinced, based on overseas experience, that free agency doesn’t lead to a mass exodus of players. It just doesn’t.

There does seem to be a bit of a fear factor with it, doesn’t there?
Yeah. What it does is it probably makes clubs a little bit more accountable. If they’re confident in their environment … with extremely capable and committed staff [then they shouldn’t be worried about losing players].

You think about how many players have left clubs in the last few years. The rules don’t probably help them but there hasn’t been a lot. What I’m saying is if clubs back themselves in and say, 'We can provide a quality environment where we can provide this player with every opportunity to achieve his potential on and off the field', then I don’t think it’s going to lead to a mass exodus of players.

What about the clubs on the bottom of the ladder? Will guys who can’t see a premiership or finals in sight be more tempted to up and leave?
I’m not sure how convinced I am of that because things turn around pretty quickly. Hawthorn won a premiership last year. It wasn’t that long ago they were [almost] stone motherless [last].

Is free agency simply about players wanting more cash?
No it’s not. There’s only so much to go around because we have a salary cap and players have to work under that salary cap.

It’s about self-determination and guys continuing their careers and their livelihoods.

I think those top players with the market power and the leverage will always be able to come to satisfactory arrangements.

What is the big sticking point in this whole debate?
The sticking point is that there are people in the AFL industry, clubs in particular and stakeholders, who are steadfastly opposed to any notion of free agency.

Set aside the threshold of number of years, they’re just absolutely opposed to it. Their view is the players are going to leave clubs and the AFL vulnerable and competitive balance will be undermined.

The other point that might be worth making is that clubs in the AFL often come back with, 'Look, this will compromise competitive balance'. I guess our response to that is we understand and acknowledge that’s really important for the success of our comp, but at the moment it’s the players that bear the burden of competitive balance because players are told how much they can earn.

Their salaries are capped, it’s not a free market, and players are told where they can work.

So what’s a solution to this?
What a lot of people don’t understand is there’s a lot of different ways that competitive balance is maintained and protected around the world.

The top four spending clubs in the AFL spend nearly $17 million a year on football operations. That’s conditioning, recruiting and all that stuff. The bottom four clubs spend about $12 million. So I’ll go out on a limb and say I reckon that spend or lack of spend has a bit to do with whether a club can be competitive or not. In fact I’ll go more than that and say there is actually a demonstrable correlation … the AFL’s figures tell us.

So while there’s all these caps on players, the rest of the AFL environment is completely unregulated, and the spend on footy ops is just going mad. So while it’s a separate matter, I do get a little frustrated for the players, and as a representative body, when the onus is, 'Oh you’ll stuff this, you’ll stuff that' [by bringing in free agency]. It’s like, 'Hang on a minute, there’s other parts of the industry that need addressing'.

Do you think clubs should be regulated or capped on their footy department spending?
If we are serious about competitive balance, and given that there is a correlation between your spending power and your likelihood of success, I think we’ve got no choice but to look at it.

Would free agency create a more even competition or will it have little impact in that regard?
We don’t think it will have any impact at all because we really support this notion of competitive balance. But we think the principal measures that maintain or provide competitive balance are the salary cap and the national draft … not all the rich and powerful clubs will get all the free agents because there’s a salary cap which is strictly enforced and there’s only so much to go around.

Would introducing free agency make the policing of the salary cap even more important?
Yeah, well it will. And I think the integrity of the salary cap is fundamental to the effectiveness of our system.

I guess the skeptics would argue you’ll get half a dozen blokes over in Perth or up at the Gold Coast saying, 'Gee, I wouldn’t mind being back home in Melbourne' or 'I’d love to be able to use the facilities at the Lexus Centre every day' and therefore seek a trade.
I understand what you’re saying, but there’s only so many opportunities. You’ve got limited list sizes, you’ve got a salary cap and I think the facilities argument is largely redundant.

I think all the clubs are embarking on these massive capital investment programs. It was only two years ago the Western Bulldogs were laughed at. Their facilities now are just incredible. So I think a player will go to a club where he thinks he has an opportunity of continuing his career as a professional in a successful way.

Is there a type of player that you think free agency is best going to suit? Is it more likely to give a player a second lease of life? Is that who you’re thinking this might most benefit?
I think so. There’s been a few players in the last few years who have given their clubs great service and because of a set of circumstances there’s an opportunity to go to another club. I guess the Ryan O’Keefe one is a classic example … he’s got his own absolutely justifiable circumstances by wanting to come back to Melbourne, but for that to take place it relied on a trade during trade week and a trade couldn’t be done.

Now that’s okay, Ryan’s professional enough and he’s back playing great footy and that’s great. But there’s a lot of guys whose opportunities at their clubs are limited and are told – whether it be because of a particular policy, like a youth policy – but those clubs still haven’t been able to facilitate a trade.

Has free agency been brought forward on the agenda because of the lack of trades being done during trade week?
Well, I think so. I think that was the impetus. A couple of years ago we said, 'Let’s have some liquidity in the player market, in the internal player market'.

Did the unsuccessful Ryan O’Keefe trade give the free agency movement further impetus? Was the AFLPA disappointed that a trade couldn’t be done?
It didn’t add greater impetus. I think this has been building a long time and there’s a number of players who have fallen into this category.

You mentioned youth policies earlier. You get to certain stages of a season and there must be certain players on lists, particularly older guys, who must feel like they’re beating their heads against a brick wall. They’d be playing great footy at lower levels but can’t get a game. Is there anything the AFLPA can do in situations like that because these guys are being deprived of their full earning potential?
That’s one of the ways we think we can sort of address this. Trade week doesn’t work because clubs have to give something up to trade a player and that involves subjective considerations about player worth, so nothing happens.

At the end of the day clubs think it’s simpler and easier and perhaps politically expedient to just go back to the draft, to get the kids. And having a pathway and an opportunity to get the kids, to breathe life into our game, is really important. But I think there’s equally an important role for our seasoned players who can set the standard how to go about things and prepare professionally and deal with this suffocating environment that is AFL footy.

Have careers died because players have just been kicking away in the twos and not got a second chance? And if so, would a mid-season draft be a solution?
I haven’t really thought long and hard about a mid-season draft. I know the sort of players you’re talking about but I think the measures and proposals we’re talking about in some way address those.

But I’ve got absolutely no doubt that players have had their careers ended prematurely because of the way the system has worked and I think that’s where you need to have some player movement.

If there’s a player who has some real genuine belief that his career will continue subjectively, but objectively – by reference to [best and fairest] finishes or whether he’s really making a contribution – [and] it all of a sudden ends and he’s then limited in his ability to actually continue that profession, then that’s when you start to get into some difficult legal questions. That’s why you need to have some flexibility.

PLAYER SALARIES

Do players get paid enough for how much income they generate?
It’s a really good question. I mean so much depends on broadcasting … are they paid enough?

Look, I think the game’s never been better. I think the athleticism of the players is incredible, breathtaking. I think the players add a tremendous amount of value to the game by virtue of that alone.

I think increasingly they do an incredible amount of work for promoting and developing the code and some terrific community work.

What about the demands on their time?
Having a regard to that, and how we regard our players participating at an elite professional sporting code in Australia, I think players as a collective probably could be paid more, but that so much depends on the value of the next broadcasting rights deal.

What is the average wage for an AFL footballer?
The average I think is about $240,000, which I know for a lot of people out there sounds like a lot of money and, don’t get me wrong, it is a lot of money. But I guess the guys that have been in the system a long time tend to inflate that figure as well.

The next broadcasting deal will be negotiated in the next 12 months. Most seem to feel it will at least stay around the same figure if not rise. One would assume therefore that the AFLPA would push for a hefty hike in player wages.
Once again our job is to ensure that on behalf of the players we make sure they’re recognised for the value they create. That’s our primary responsibility really. If we can we’ll be giving the AFL every encouragement to do the best deal they can.

I know our players work really hard to make themselves accessible in supporting the media and rights holders. But it’s up to the AFL and it’s not just about the players either. A real feature of our game, as distinct from others, is this spectator phenomenon with these incredible numbers. And that might have a lot to do with the fact that a game’s quite affordable.

THE AFL’S EXPANSION

The Gold Coast and western Sydney teams coming in obviously creates more opportunity for players.
We really support it. While it’s a national game really it probably doesn’t have a true national footprint. But clearly there’s some really strong arguments, really strong business rational arguments for why you’d want to take the competition to those two areas … I just think that the game has to continue to keep growing.

I think we have to have a truly national footprint as players have a strong vested interest in the continued growth of the game and therefore we support it. There’ll be 80 new jobs and to their credit, it’s one the AFL thought long and hard about. It’s not just a knee-jerk decision.

But having said that it’s going to be really, really tough. It’s going to be a long, hard grind and it’s going to be a fight. But it’s going to be a fight worth having I think.

And as a Tasmanian?
As a Tasmanian I absolutely believe that they have – if anyone has a legitimate [right] – a legitimate right and expectation to participate in this comp, in the AFL.

Do you think Tassie could sustain a team?
I haven’t seen the business case the government put together but reports are the government is very bullish about it.

We’ve talked about the national footprint and I guess the commercial, business-type arguments. But if a national footprint is about sort of the integrity of your national comp, well you’ve got to have Tassie. Maybe the business reasons might not be as compelling.

But I really support the path they’re [the AFL] are taking and I think our players do as well but I think somewhere down the track – I’m not sure how long – Tasmania has to be part of it. And I think the AFL, to their credit, are much more open about the prospect, particularly after receiving the submission from the state government which by all accounts was a very impressive one.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.