COACHES at all levels within the AFL system are being exposed to challenging workplace conditions which have reached a "critical stage" and need instant fixing, says the AFL Coaches Association.
Mental health among coaches has reached a worrying level as clubs find it increasingly easier to either sack them, or not renew their contracts, due to the softening of employment safety nets.
AFLCA CEO Alistair Nicholson said coaches had been "badly left behind" post-COVID compared with other facets of the industry.
"Coaching needs to be taken more seriously by everyone, from the AFL through to the clubs, as certainly it is now at a critical stage," Nicholson told AFL.com.au.
Nicholson will soon present to the AFL a range of documents which he says highlight several areas of major concern relating to mental health and desire to remain in the football industry.
The recent ugly sacking of senior coaches Ben Rutten and Brett Ratten, respectively, at Essendon and St Kilda were the most recent examples of poorly run clubs being able to make scapegoats of coaches without any significant financial ramifications.
Asked if it had become too easy for clubs to sack coaches, Nicholson said: "It is hard not to think that with some recent examples.
"Now, St Kilda has got their own reasons, and they have talked about that, but it does show with the short termination clause, that those decisions can be made very easily by all clubs. There is pressure in coaching, but there are people and families greatly impacted. The situation with Brett happened very quickly, but there had been pressure for a long time as well.
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"If you've got a coach who signed a contract and then 100 days later that ends for Brett Ratten, and for Ben Rutten, who thought he would be coaching next year, it ended very quickly for him too, and that really showed the vulnerability and highlighted the need to work through the structures, like termination clauses.
"Termination clauses can be longer, particularly around development and assistant coaches, who only have one- or three-month termination clauses. One month, for some, and for more than 70 per cent, it is three months or less. For our senior coaches, around 50 per cent of them have six months or less (termination clauses).
"There is not a big safety net there, and that is where our concern is. People and families are impacted greatly.
"Of course, clubs need termination clauses, and obviously they need to make their own decisions, but the industry needs to better support and buffer the coaches. The game does it really well for players when they exit the game and I think there is great scope for the game to properly look after coaches in ways that currently doesn't happen."
Significant focus in the documentation Nicholson will submit to the AFL is on coaches' deteriorating mental health levels.
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"We do annual tracking on mental health, and we have again found this year that some of those levels have again declined," Nicholson said.
"There needs to be a reactive support to that, with counselling and expertise, but also we are trying to be proactive in identifying the issues at play.
"The industry can turn the focus to helping the profession to support the coaches in better ways, be that an increase in the soft cap but also other things like a transition fund, termination clauses, just so that the volatility and the pressure in the industry has got better support buffering around it."
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020 when all aspects of the industry faced shocking financial cutbacks, each club's soft cap, from which coaches are paid, was reduced from a maximum $9.7 million a year to $6.2 million.
In July, the AFL announced the 2023 soft cap for each club would be increased to $6.95 million, and in 2024 to $7.2 million.
Each club will have minimum expenditure requirements on medical and mental health and wellbeing resources which cannot be reallocated to other facets of football departments.
AFL executive general manager clubs, finance and broadcasting Travis Auld said changes to amounts and structures of soft cap expenditure allowed for the prioritising of mental health and wellbeing.
"And should a club spend above the minimum amount in this space they can spend further on eligible resources/programs and this additional spend is fully deductible or excluded from the cap," Auld said.
Nicholson conceded there had been some financial "inefficiency" when the soft cap was $9.7 million.
"But with a 37 per cent cut, and only a slight increase back since, there are a lot of football programs very stretched," Nicholson said.
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"Coaches get paid out of the soft cap, and a lot of them are still a very long way behind from where they were, and it is a source of frustration. We have lost people, we will lose more if we don't fix things.
"We need as an industry to really look at the profession of coaching profession, and the data we compile which looks at mental health, the volatility and vulnerability around the contracts and structures, not just for the people in it at the moment, but those who will be in the future, it is critical that, led by the AFL, we get better support for the coaches in the game.
"It is important for the next leader of the code to embrace the senior coaches as a key stakeholder group because of the impact they have over all the players and prioritising their health, their wellbeing. Listening will be really important. Our hope is that it gets prioritised. It needs to get prioritised."
