Collingwood fans revolt as fallout grows over club’s behaviour during AFL trade period
Fan anger over Collingwood’s list management is palpable, more than 1000 signing up to a petition that will be delivered to the club, deriding its trade period decisions.
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Despite some clarity over the Collingwood trade stuff-up from the CEO and coach, a petition from angry Magpie fans is still being sent to the club.
Collingwood members were urged to sign up to force the club to hold a general meeting where supporters could seek some answers.
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The anger has been evident on social media and while they only needed 100 signatures to present the petition, by Monday more than 1100 members were signed up.
While Collingwood CEO Mark Anderson sent a letter to members, the petition will still be presented to the club on Tuesday “so that the board doesn‘t underestimate how the supporter base is feeling”.
“I encourage the President and Board to continue to monitor the feeling and not take members and supporters for granted. We will still seek what we have signed this petition for,” the updated petition said.
The Magpie army have been outraged by their beloved club’s decision to offload star midfielder Adam Treloar, former rising star Jaidyn Stephenson, winger Tom Phillips and youngster Atu Bosenavulagi.
Magpie fans voiced their anger across multiple media outlets on Friday, with some seemingly close to tears.
The members’ petition said the trade period has been a “dark day” in the history of the club and had been “destructive and soul destroying” for members.
“Our club is spiralling into shocking territory,” it said.
“Bad press, salary cap issues. From the top the president and board must answer serious questions. They have treated members and supporters with no respect.”
Anderson made no apologies for the decision to offload three key players during a tense trade period, but conceded the club could have sold the message better to its agitated supporter base.
Anderson admitted pressure on the club’s salary cap played a role in the departure of contracted players Treloar, Stephenson and Phillips, but suggested the moves were a part of a broader list strategy.
A small group of diehard Magpies fans arrived at the Holden Centre Friday night waving banners in support of Treloar and Stephenson.
Members Kerse Black and Dave O’Toole were critical of the way the club had handled the trades.
“They gave them away for nothing, basically, that’s what’s so disappointing,” Ms Black said.
“I’m upset but I’m not giving up my membership, that’s for sure. I’ve got three frickin Collingwood tattoos on my body.”
The pair held signs that said ‘The weet bix kid Stevo our No. 1 rising star’ and ‘I roar for Treloar’.
Mr O’Toole said there was not enough explanation from the club of what transpired during the trade period.
“It’s pretty poor from Collingwood the way it’s all unfolded,” he said.
“It just hasn’t been handled well. You can expect a lot of fans will not be too impressed. But we’ll stick by the club.”
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There was an outpouring of emotion on social media with comedian and rusted on Pies fan Peter Helliar calling on the Collingwood hierarchy to explain their decisions.
“Love my footy club and maybe there is a master plan that will unfold ahead of us but even with that said … I have never felt this flat as a Pies supporter than right now,” Helliar tweeted.
“At some point the members will need all this explained.”
Following decisions that could impact the club’s membership base next year, Magpie fans rated the trade decisions 1.5 out of 10 on a heraldsun.com.au poll.
Many Pies fans called for heads to roll over the saga.
Addressing the supporter backlash, Anderson admitted there was “certainly frustration out there”.
“One of the things we did over the trade period — rightly or wrongly — was to not comment as the process unfolded,” Anderson said on 3AW.
“That was with respect to the people involved, so whether that was the right thing or the wrong thing, history will be the judge of that.
“Our members therefore have not had that communication as the trade period has unfolded. You get to the last day and these decisions come and you want to understand that. Our members (are) appropriately in that spot and it is very appropriate that we give them answers.”
Anderson said the club “clearly” had salary cap issues, but said there were other reasons as well.
During the COVID crisis club president Eddie McGuire said he feared a run on memberships would be disastrous for all AFL clubs and pleaded for loyalty.
“If we don’t have enough people putting their hand their pocket, there will be no club it’s as simple as that,” he said in April.
On Friday McGuire defended the Magpies’ trade purge in the wake of fan outrage.
He said the club had “hit the wall” at the end of this year’s finals campaign and needed to strengthen its list for the future.
“You have to look at the entire list, the demographic of that list, you had to look at the salary cap going forward,” McGuire told Triple M.
“The list numbers are going to come back and we are not getting a whole lot of information from the AFL, but at one stage it was going to go to 35 players this year and I think that it might end up heading that way and the salary cap is coming down by 10-15 per cent.
“It is an imprecise science but we hope that we have got ourselves set up with a really good list and a good team and I am still very excited where we are at as a club to go forward and bring (in) new players and get ourselves set for the next few years.
“Unfortunately it is a finite list and a finite salary cap.”
Premiership captain Tony Shaw tried to temper the anger at coach Nathan Buckley, saying the coach wasn’t an “accountant” and didn’t deal with player contracts.
“Let’s not kid ourselves,” Shaw told 3AW. “They’ve got problems with the salary cap and they make decisions based on what might happen in two years’ time.
“Somebody has stuffed up with the numbers.”
Collingwood cheer squad legend Jeff “Joffa” Corfe urged Pies fans to rally behind the club despite the disappointing trade period.
“It was probably not a great PR exercise,” he said. “We have to support the club, PR wise it was a disaster but we all get behind the club.
“The people who were upset last night, they will be back there for the first game next year cheering the Pies on, that’s how it goes.
“I’m always a positive person, with these issues we’ve just got to let the club do what the club does. Ultimately the club will be held responsible if it all goes wrong.”
Corfe has a close link on a personal level to the trade frenzy given Bosenavulagi is his great-nephew.
“The family has spoken to Atu and as a family all we can do, it’s not about us, it’s about Atu,” he said.
“If Atu thinks he has better chances at North Melbourne well that is Atu’s decision and we support that.”
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INSIDE THE CONTRACTS THAT SPARKED PIES’ FIRE SALE
Every cent of the $6 million the Dogs were prepared to pay Tom Boyd was worth it for the drought-breaking premiership victory.
At Collingwood, few would be quibbling about the club’s suffocating salary cap squeeze if Dom Sheed’s fateful shot at goal had drifted left or right.
Clubs in premiership contention have tight caps.
They back-end deals to stay in the premiership window and, like Essendon and Brisbane in the early 2000s, are often prepared to risk that fallout because of the importance of winning flags.
The issue for Collingwood and list manager Ned Guy is that the Pies didn’t win the flag in what was their premium window – 2018-20 – but are a long way from wanting to rebuild.
So what comes now is Guy’s best juggling act, trying to move on overpriced contracts and prioritise the players who are actually earning their fat deals.
On his SEN radio show on Tuesday, Garry Lyon asked this question: “I don’t know who is to blame at Collingwood – will someone get the sack for this?”
Guy, who has been at the Pies now for three years, is the solution rather than the problem.
He has spent that time having to straighten out the club’s cap from a former regime that brought in the likes of Levi Greenwood, Daniel Wells and Chris Mayne on overpriced deals.
Everyone at the Pies will have to own the acquisition of Dayne Beams at the end of 2018 — including Guy.
Collingwood’s issue is it isn’t receiving a discount on many of the areas of the list that it might have hoped to have money in.
They are paying full tote odds for all their high draft picks in Darcy Moore, Jordan De Goey and Jaidyn Stephenson.
They have built a list that in the second 2020 final had nine of 22 players from rival clubs (without Jeremy Howe and Beams in that side), and those players often cost big bucks to acquire.
And, unlike Geelong down the highway, they aren’t able to access a built-in discount for a laid-back country lifestyle.
Too many player managers have seen dollar signs in their eyes when they rock up to negotiations when in the past they might have accepted less for the benefit of making their player a Magpie, with all the post-career advantages that affords them.
It’s why Collingwood is in this position of having to offload the likes of Adam Treloar and potentially Mason Cox, Tom Phillips and Stephenson.
Here are the 10 contracts that have got the Pies into this position.
ADAM TRELOAR
The Pies signed him from GWS in late 2015 amid much fanfare on a massive deal and huge expectations.
In some ways he was his own worst enemy by accepting the Pies’ overtures to push back some of his contract multiple times when Dayne Beams and Daniel Wells arrived.
Last year he agreed to a five-year extension through to 2025 which would give the club breathing space to effectively repay him, but at an average of $900,000 per year over that deal.
Can you blame him for wanting every dollar of that deal when he sacrificed for the club to keep them in the window?
DAYNE BEAMS
Collingwood and his management are waiting for AFL approval on a settlement that would see the Pies move on from Beams, saving them money in the next two years of the cap after agreeing in late 2018 to a four-year deal of around $2 million.
In hindsight it was a disastrous move — which forced multiple players to push back money in their contracts — but after the Pies were a single kick away from the 2018 premiership, at the time the majority of Collingwood fans believed he would be the missing link.
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TOM PHILLIPS
This year at Collingwood Phillips has been pushed to half-forward in a role he isn’t equipped to play.
But when the Pies recontracted him through to 2021 he was a dashing wingman coming off 664 possessions and 15 goals in 2018.
He agreed to a deal in early 2019 which had heavy incentive-based clauses which he met, playing every game in the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
A deal that could earn him nearly $600,000 a season is why the Pies tried to move him to Geelong last year and are struggling to find takers for him this year as the Hawks lose interest.
MASON COX
Cox’s signature on a three-year deal with a fourth-year trigger was seen to be a triumph when the Pies secured him despite massive interest from Brisbane and other rivals at the end of the 2017 season.
He vindicated the signing with his 2018 preliminary final performance, when a deal of up to $550,000 was well worth the money.
There were genuine fears in some quarters the Pies weren’t playing him early this year for fear of activating that games-based trigger, but he forced his way back into the side and now is looking at an extension which would smooth out the wage of that final 2021 year.
BRODIE GRUNDY
Collingwood just couldn’t countenance a situation where Grundy left the club, despite former recruiter Matt Rendell saying this week he begged the Pies to let him go if he didn’t accept a five-year deal.
Grundy hasn’t even started that contract yet – it kicks in next year – and battled in hub life, unable to get back to his playing weight as he struggled to escape the demands of such a unique season.
Those close to him believe he will come out and brain the competition next year as he gets his life back to normal but he would need to, given the $7 million he is owed up until 2027.
TOM LANGDON
Collingwood was forced to ward off massive interest from rivals including Sydney when Langdon signed his three-year deal late in 2018 while hiking in Tanzania.
He has barely played since because of knee issues that are putting his career in jeopardy, meaning the Pies have badly missed his role as that third tall/interceptor despite paying his healthy salary.
He is another example of someone they paid when he was at the top of his game without getting bang for buck since.
JAIDYN STEPHENSON
The Pies paid up for Stephenson only weeks into his AFL career, with his manager adding another two seasons on his contract to effectively hand him an initial four-season deal.
Then he won the Rising Star which came with financial triggers, and then last year he won another two-year extension through to 2023.
Since then he has copped an AFL suspension for gambling, had glandular fever and barely fired a shot.
No one begrudges one of the rising stars of the game earning over $500,000 a season but the output isn’t there, which is why he is gettable.
CHRIS MAYNE
He signed a four-year contract worth around $2 million that caused conjecture about who approved that deal within Collingwood.
To his absolute credit he fought through his early issues to be a valuable team member but that $2 million of cap space forced other deals to be back-ended.
He is now on a more modest deal, but the decisions made in previous years have had a knock-on effect.
DANIEL WELLS
Collingwood fell in love with Wells, who signed a three-year deal that could have earned him $1.5 million-$1.8 million with the Pies.
He eventually agreed to sacrifice some of that money in the final year of his deal, although there is conjecture about how much money the Pies eventually saved.
Wells played only 15 games at the Pies across three seasons.
JORDAN DE GOEY
The Pies signed him to a two-season deal that was seen to be a bargain on around $800,000 for 2019 and 2020 after North Melbourne’s massive offer to jump ship.
It’s marquee money but in those seasons, after 34 goals last year, he was hamstring in the qualifying final against Geelong after two possessions, then played 10 games after being restricted by a finger tendon injury this year.
He kicked two massive goals in epic finals win over West Coast then had 14 possessions and a behind in the loss to Geelong. He’s about to sign a similar two-year deal after clubs baulked at his $1 million-per-season request.
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