AFL putting finishing touches on compressed fixture plan
There is hope coming for clubs and players looking to sign new contracts. The deals won’t be simple but they do have a big impact on the fixture. Jon Ralph explains.
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Players signing long-term deals in coming months will need to have multiple clauses reflecting potential wage changes after a breakthrough on the AFL’s contract freeze.
The AFL and player union will agree to allow clubs and managers to again begin signing contracts to give players security under the upcoming fixture squeeze.
The agreement on contracts paved the way for the AFLPA agreeing to four-day breaks for the Round 9-12 fixture, set to be released by the AFL as soon as Tuesday.
But the uncertainty over pay involves not only next year’s salary cap but from 2023 onwards when a new collective bargaining agreement will have to be struck.
Forecasting whether the AFL’s salary cap will again rise in what is likely to be a deep recession will be near on impossible for the AFL let alone list managers and player agents.
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Those contract clauses, which are commonly used for players, mean their salaries rise or fall in line with the salary cap.
The current collective bargaining agreement has only two seasons to run — 2021-22 — and talks will soon start on whether players are forced into altering that deal given the coronavirus that is ravaging football.
The AFL and player union will also have to negotiate a CBA from 2023 onwards in coming years with doubt on those figures after so many seasons of relentless pay growth.
If a player in coming weeks signed a new three-year contract it might include a clause that reflected potential pay cuts for 2021 but also the size of the salary cap from 2023 onwards.
When the AFL last brokered a pay deal in 2017 many players automatically secured 20 per cent pay rises due to clauses in their contracts that factored in a potential rise in the CBA.
Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett said on Saturday he did not believe current long-term deals, like Brodie Grundy’s seven-season contract starting in 2021, could be forcibly altered.
But he said clubs would have to work with players and coaches on any alterations to those contracts.
Greater Western Sydney’s Jeremy Cameron said last week he was keen to sign a new deal once the freeze was removed, with that ban put in place because of uncertainty about wages in the AFL.
Unlocking the wage freeze would also allow the Giants to announce a new contract for Leon Cameron, with club and coach waiting to announce a deal that is effectively done.
At Carlton the irrepressible Levi Casboult is in that boat, as are Marc Murphy, Matthew Kreuzer and Kade Simpson.
Collingwood has Jordan Roughead and Brody Mihocek clamouring for new deals, Geelong has Zach Tuohy and Tom Hawkins.
WHAT NEXT FOR THE FIXTURE?
- Glenn McFarlane
The AFL will release the next part of its complex 2020 fixture puzzle early next week with Travis Auld and league officials dealing with the 18 clubs, its players and conditioning experts about how best to compress the schedule in the coming weeks.
Auld told the Sunday Herald Sun he was still working through the issues of how tight the competition could be compressed.
He also indicated he was working closely with the Tasmanian Government in an effort to have Hawthorn and North Melbourne play a few matches there, as well as the prospect of games in the Northern Territory.
“If we are going to go into a more compressed format, we need to give our clubs advance notice of their games, so they can manage their list and the conditioning of their players … to deal with the compression,” Auld said.
“We need to make it work for our clubs and players and we are going through that process now of demonstrating how it might look and how we might deal with some of their concerns.”
The AFL has already revealed its Round 8 fixture, which runs through to Monday July 27.
If the league sticks to its plan of compression, the next block of games from Round 9 could then kick off a few days later and run over a long stretch of consecutive days.
“If you do it in a true compression, you would have football on most nights of the week (with potentially two games on some nights) and you can do various forms of compression,” he said.
“We will work with the players and the clubs to a reasonable balance.”
Auld said negotiations with government and health officials from all states and territories were ongoing, and he was hopeful to include Tasmania and the Northern Territory in future fixture plans.
“Both Hawthorn and North Melbourne are really keen to get to Tasmania,” he said.
“They have been great partners and we are trying to find a way to accommodate that. I can see us playing games down there.”
He said it would have been ideal if the Hawks could return to Queensland via a short stay in Tasmania following their upcoming Perth trip, but would be guided by the Tasmanian Government.
The postponed Melbourne-Essendon match – which was not played due to Conor McKenna‘s positive COVID-19 test – would be slotted into the fixture.
Each of the 18 clubs are likely to have a bye, meaning there will almost certainly be 18 rounds.
AFL GF PLAN STILL UNCERTAIN
AFL fixturing boss Travis Auld says the Queensland Government’s bold bid to host the 2020 AFL Grand Final shows how much the game has advanced in the northern states.
But he insisted a final decision on the venue – and indeed the date – of this year’s premiership playoff won’t be made for at least another month, or more.
Auld reiterated AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan’s comments that the Grand Final remains contractually locked into the MCG, but a final decision would come back to whether it was possible to play matches in Victoria in the coming months, due to the current health crisis in that state.
“The takeaway for me is that the Queensland Government, and Queenslanders more broadly, have expressed interest in the AFL Grand Final and that says a lot about the work that has been done by a lot of people in building the game (in that state),” Auld told the Sunday Herald Sun.
“We know there is a lot of water to go under the bridge before you can say where the Grand Final is going to be played.
“But it is a huge positive that those conversations are taking place.”
Auld said the long-range plan was to play the Grand Final on October 17 – which is Caulfield Cup day – but he stressed that he fully expected that timeline to change.
A number of states, including Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales, have eyed off the prospect of hosting the Grand Final if the MCG is ruled out for health reasons.
“There are a whole range of things that need to be considered,” Auld said.
“We will be led by health and border restrictions. We have got to think about what is right for fans and what is right for the competition.”
But Auld said the AFL community would forever be thankful for the Queensland Government, and for Queenslanders in general, for helping to keep the competition alive and for hosting clubs who were evacuated from Victoria due to the recent spike in COVID-19 cases.
“Our growth strategies have been in the northern states, we have invested a lot of time and money there through the four clubs, and in the community,” he said.
“There has been strong growth in participation, both male and female, in both states (Queensland and New South Wales), even prior to this unexpected situation.
“Now we have most of our competition in the northern states and for the foreseeable future we are going to have Victorian teams based in Queensland.
“This is an enormous opportunity to promote the game in these markets.”
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Originally published as AFL putting finishing touches on compressed fixture plan