Show Us More Cash, Clubs Tell Commission
The Age
Friday August 18, 2006
THE short version of what happened late yesterday when the AFL sat down with the 16 club presidents and offered them an extra $1 million a year over five years is that most clubs examined the fine print and didn't like what they saw.
The longer version is that what is being waged between the AFL and its clubs is a fight between the present and the future. All parties accepted that good organisations must look after both, but surely the AFL Commission yesterday understood that the balancing act it presented was uneven and heavily weighted towards the future.The truth is that the AFL still doesn't seem to quite get it. Half the Victorian clubs are labouring to service multimillion-dollar debts. More than a quarter of the clubs in the competition will register losses of well over $1 million this year and the clubs are what this game is all about.The game will receive an extra $50 million a year from the new channels Seven and Ten agreement and must learn to trust the clubs to work wisely with a greater proportion of the extra money.It is true the AFL is working harder to help its clubs, but it is also true that a worrying number of clubs continue to precariously survive and most of them struggle while the AFL does not. The AFL is rich. Half the clubs are poor. The AFL works and travels in style. Many clubs do not. When will the game's administration face up to the fact that the on-field game can get better only if the clubs grow stronger?The competition's so-called "future fund", money put aside from the broadcast rights bounty - to place in various investments - to secure the AFL's long-term prospects, under yesterday's formula presented to the clubs was to the tune of almost $100 million.In the words of Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett - one who led the so-called "robust" discussion: "You can't recognise the future if you are too mean or tight to look after the present. Without the clubs, you have no future."While the clubs were offered about $1 million a year - all except Sydney pushed for double that amount - the truth was that the true figure was closer to $650,000 a year a club given increasing costs of running the new total player payments agreement and extra marketing money afforded the players.Not to mention that the annual $250,000 a year most clubs now reap from the AFL's internet agreement was to be included in that amount. Which is a bit rich when you consider the competition will in weeks announce a $60 million five-year new media agreement with Telstra.The AFL also plans to increase the special distribution to struggling clubs from $5.5 million to about $8 million and include clubs such as Richmond, Port Adelaide and Hawthorn, which have inferior stadium agreements, in that total.Commission chairman Ron Evans conceded about half the clubs felt yesterday's offer was not good enough. Six presidents contacted by The Age placed that estimate at conservative.At least nine clubs spoke strongly for a net amount of at least $1 million. Carlton, Hawthorn, Port, the Bulldogs, Fremantle, St Kilda, Geelong, Melbourne and Adelaide pushed for significantly more money.
© 2006 The Age