THE SOFT cap on football department spending will not be increased in 2017 despite an unprecedented number of experienced coaches being squeezed out of the game.
After a two-year transition period, the League confirmed on Thursday that the soft cap limit of $9.5m from 2016 would remain next year following a review led by the AFL's chief financial officer Ray Gunston.
There had been some minor tweaks to the AFL's formula but the cap would not be increased in line with inflation as it had been in 2016.
The League would not provide a breakdown of any elements that would be excluded from the cap after lobbying from some clubs to have welfare costs removed.
While the spending cap has the strong support of club CEOs, it has earned the ire of some senior coaches and football managers as equalisation takes hold.
Assistant coaches are feeling the pinch most as a result of the spending cap.
Well-credentialled coaches including Brett Montgomery, Ben Hart and Ross Smith were unable to re-enter the system after their contracts expired and premiership coach Mark Williams left the elite level.
"For the first year of the soft cap the spending hovered, but now we're seeing clubs really tighten up on their coaching and not renewing the odd contract to get numbers down," one assistant told AFL.com.au.
"Coaches are being asked to do more than one role or another half a role … because it (the spending) couldn't keep going up the way it was.
"Coaching is still a priority, but there's a lot of understanding that other areas like sports science need to be covered off for a successful program."
Richmond underwent the biggest football department overhaul at the end of the season after a review of its operations with the help of specialists Ernst and Young.
The big-ticket item was the appointment of the experienced Neil Balme as football manager, but extensive changes took place at assistant coaching level.
The club eventually cut Damien Hardwick's coaching support staff down from 11 in 2016 (including two part-time staff) to seven.
Clubs are given a "de-identified" breakdown of football department spending by the AFL, which this year revealed only "one or two" clubs had spent in excess of the $9.5m cap.
"Keeping up with the Joneses is not an acceptable way to run a football program," one head of football said.
"I don't look at our program and think about how much better off we'd be with an extra $500,000."
The Bulldogs, he said, had shown clubs what was possible without consistently pushing the limits of football department spend.
