Imagine if the AFL tried to cut SA and WA players out of collective bargaining today | Graham Cornes

If you’ve got a talented son lucky enough to be picked up in the AFL draft, here’s the staggering deal he’ll be looking at, writes Graham Cornes.

In season 2025, the average wage of an AFL player will pass $500,000.

That’s the average, and while it was once inconceivable, the wage of the highest paid players is now well over $1 million.

If your son is talented (and lucky) enough to be drafted in the first round of the national draft next month, his base contract in 2025 will be $140,000.

If he is selected in the senior team, he will be paid $4,000 a match. But there is more. If he plays five games in his first year he will get a bonus of $20,000.

If he manages to play 18 or more games that bonus escalates to $60,000.

Footballer Peter Carey (c) with Graham Cornes and Stephen Kernahan after Peter's 350th match 1985.

It’s fair to say the AFL Players Association has done a pretty good job of representing the modern AFL and AFLW players.

But it does much more than to advocate for salaries.

The simple but expensive things that the average supporter or club footballer has to budget for is laid on for an AFL footballer.

Things like tickets, car parking, accommodation and meals, annual leave, days off, committed hours of employment and breaks between matches are negotiated for them.

I’d never heard of the term “Tools of the Trade” in reference to an AFL footballer, but the clubs are expected to provide them: “boots and running shoes, gloves, compression garments, GPS watches, heart-rate monitors, club uniform (of course), training equipment, IT equipment, supplements, recovery products and bikes”, are all provided for today’s AFL footballer.

Gone are the days when you had to beg or steal to get a pair of shorts or socks from the property stewards.

Rex Leahy the legendary, inaugural property steward at the Adelaide Club guarded the uniforms and equipment in the property room like they were the crown jewels.

Yes, today’s professional footballer is spoiled. While he can afford it, everything is provided for him.

It wasn’t always that way.

Footballer Peter Carey (r) with coach Graham Cornes at Alberton 17 Aug 1985.

Footballer Graham Cornes (l) with Peter Carey at Glenelg 24 Mar 1977.

We were fortunate to get those shorts and socks. But who is complaining? The love of the game fuelled us.

The mateship connected us and decades later, still does.

But such love and commitment had unforeseen and unexpected consequences: some physical, some psychological. Many are suffering.

The AFL Player’s Association issued a press release this week ostensibly detailing the work it is doing on concussion research, but what caught my eye was the reference to the AFLPA’s injury and hardship fund.

As part of the new collective bargaining agreement with the AFL, the AFLPA has secured more funding for its Injury and Hardship Fund.

According to the AFLPA correspondence, “the Injury and Hardship Fund is funded by current players through the CBA revenue sharing agreement to support those who came before.”

The work it is doing is remarkable and the figures quite staggering. Since 2023 the fund has helped more than 638 past players.

Obviously old injuries get worse as the years progress so there has been a lot of assistance given to those requiring joint surgery.

Remembering some of us played in the days before mouthguards were mandatory, it also covers dental surgery.

Medical and dental issues are one thing but some past players fall upon hard times once their careers finish and the income dries up.

The AFLPA’s hardship Fund has assisted more than 158 past players since 2017.

Then there is the AFLPA’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Navigator Service which provides all past players (and their partners) with free counselling support for life.

In the year of 2023, 313 past players and/or their partners had 3,190 consults through the wellbeing service.

All this sounds wonderful and it is obvious the AFLPA (and the AFLWPA) have done a great job in pursuit of better wages and support for its members but there is one glaring weakness in the system.

I played five games for North Melbourne back in the old days when Aussie rules football was played in urban suburbs.

Those five games in the VFL back in 1979 qualifies me for all the support benefits that a modern AFL footballer now enjoys.

South Australian Glenelg great Peter Carey played 423 games for Glenelg in the South Australian National Football League, he cannot access any of those benefits.

The reason given is that only ex-VFL and AFL players are eligible for AFL Player’s Association benefits.

Apparently only the VFL is responsible for the creation of the today’s AFL juggernaut. Technically, in a strict corporate sense, that may be correct but the AFL would not exist without the history and contributions of the other football states, especially South Australia and Western Australia.

The contradictions are severe.

Whose contributions to Aussie rules are greater, Peter Carey’s or those of Tony Spassopoulos who played one game for Fitzroy in 1985?

Obviously Spassopoulos didn’t get much of a chance at VFL level, but if that knee or hip needs replacing, or he needs a new crown on a tooth that was broken when he was hit high playing in a local league, he can access the benefits of the AFLPA.

Poor old “Super” has to pay for his own.

The defence that the AFLPA offers against criticism that it doesn’t include players from the other major football states is that the AFLPA evolved from the VFL Players Association. Ironically, it was a South Australian, Peter Allen, from a tennis marketing background, who played an important role in the creation of the VFL Player’s Association.

He served in admin, PR and eventually as chief executive until the Victorian tyranny forced him out and replaced him with eventual AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou.

Peter was a nice guy - too nice.

He unfortunately passed in 2007 but he would be amazed to see how powerful and effective the AFLPA has become.

Since 1911, every version of a Players Association was resisted by the various leagues. Through the 1950’s, 1970’s til now in its current position of significance, it has been met with negativity and resistance.

Any move to include ex-South Australians and Western Australians in collective bargaining agreements will be scoffed at - but why not?

Victorians don’t like to admit it but football is more than Melbourne and Geelong.

There would be no national competitions, no mega-CBA’s, no unprecedented riches, without the players from outside of Victoria.

Of course any move to include them will be resisted but that does not mean it can’t happen.

I wonder if today’s AFL footballer, cossetted in his professional sporting life by income, benefits and facilities, stops to consider those who came before him; the ones who made it all possible in circumstances and conditions that would have appalled them.

Would it appal them as well to know that only those who played in Victoria can access the vital care that old broken-down footballers will inevitably require?

Originally published as Imagine if the AFL tried to cut SA and WA players out of collective bargaining today | Graham Cornes