Afl To Consider Players' Proposal To Relax Rules Over Movement Between Clubs
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday July 11, 2007
SENIOR AFL players want more ability to change clubs outside the draft system - despite the chaos such transfers have created in the NRL.
The proposal is likely to become reality within two years. AFL players are pushing the league to allow them to avoid the increasingly redundant trade period and instead do their own deals to move between clubs in a push which they claim will avoid costly legal battles in the future.Brendon Gale, the AFL Players' Association chief executive, last week presented the AFL with a 70-page submission outlining the players' free agency proposal and an AFL working party headed by football executive Adrian Anderson will meet next week to consider the proposition. "It won't affect this year's draft," Anderson said. "I agree the players' trades have been declining, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is true, however, you do want players to have the ability to move clubs."Gale, who said the NRL system had "some merit", said it was no longer acceptable for clubs to delist footballers on the eve of the October 31 deadline, rendering them incapable of being drafted.Gale told the Herald: "It's a restraint of trade and the more rigid the rules, the more likely the threat of litigation. It comes up more and more in calls I receive from players and their agents."The time is right. The game is in good shape and by the length of the Flemington straight, the AFL has the most rigid player rules in world sport. Not only is flexibility good for players, but it is good for the clubs and the fans and the whole competition." Under the players' proposal, the AFL would introduce both restricted and unrestricted free agency. An example of the system's restricted form would see an out-of-contract player of four years' service nominate a new club but would be forced to remain at his original club if it was prepared to match a new offer.Unrestricted free agency would be allowed after - for example - a period of between six to eight years' service. Unlike the NRL model, the AFL model would not allow mid-season transfers. Amon Buchanan is worthy of senior selection in the Swans team to play Carlton this week - the only problem will be fitting him in, says coach Paul Roos.Roos met his medical team yesterday and received confirmation that all members of the team which overcame Fremantle last weekend had come through the game unscathed and are available to take the field at the SCG on Sunday."We want to get him back in the side," Roos said of Buchanan. "It's hard to get into a winning team so you expect limited changes, but whether there is none or one, we'll have to wait and see."Amon was a bit like what Schneids [Adam Schneider in the reserves] did the week before. You send them back [to the seconds] to get into some good form, but ... we lost when Schneids was in the seconds and we won when Amon was - so it makes it a little bit harder for Amon."Roos said medical staff were happy with the way Barry Hall came through the game against the Dockers, and the big forward will play against the Blues.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald