The Southern Football Netball League has cut the Division 1 salary cap by $50,000

The points cap stays the same but the Southern Football Netball League has slashed the salary caps in all four divisions.

The Southern Football Netball League has taken the axe to its salary caps, lopping 25 per cent off the player-payments ceiling in Division 1.

From next year clubs in the top grade will be limited to paying $150,000, down from $200,000.

The new cap for Division 2 has been set at $110,000, Division 3 is $75,000 and Division 4 is $50,000.

But across all four tiers the points cap will remain at 47.

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New SFNL chief executive officer Lee Hartman said the changes were made after feedback from clubs.

“It’s about trying to drive the player payments down,’’ Hartman said.

“The clubs are telling us they’re not spending anywhere near the upper limits, and the upper limits were originally set to compete with the other metro leagues.

“But if you’re having such high limits and no one is spending that money, it’s pretty pointless having the policy in place.

“We want to make sure clubs are sustainable and the best way to do that is to limit their ability to spend money on players and make sure they’re paying all their other debts as well.’’

Hartman said Southern would also be working to reduce its points cap.

It remains one of the highest in suburban ranks, reflecting the fact that not all clubs are affiliated with a junior body and have less “home grown’’ one-point players.

“We do have to bring it down. It is hard when they (clubs) don’t have the links to juniors, which is what we’ll try to get in place before we do bring it down.

“We’re going to work hard on pathways. It will be a focus for us throughout next year with

the AFL Victoria football development managers.’’

New Southern CEO Lee Hartman.

Hartman said the “club sustainability’’ measures introduced by AFL Victoria were “great’’ for community football.

He said the points cap had prompted clubs to invest more time and energy into their juniors or, if they didn’t have juniors, to create links and capitalise on one-point players.

“It’s definitely stopped clubs from recruiting every Tom, Dick and Harry … they’ve actually got to have a strategy around it,’’ Hartman said.

He said the salary cap “was good if it’s policed properly … the reporting of the budgets, the reporting of the actuals, making sure it matches up with what they’re reporting to their members and doing some audits to make sure clubs are doing the right thing’’.

“If you’re actually following the policies properly, they are great for footy, because we’ve seen year in, year out where clubs can’t pay their bills and the problem is they recruit players and the players have been dictating the market for too long and the clubs have got to get control back.

“They’re both very good policies.’’

AFL Victoria has 24 integrity officers to review clubs’ payments.

AFL Vic club sustainability manager Darryl Collings said up to 50 clubs would be audited this year.

He said about 20 audits had been finished and each club had operated within the salary cap.