AFLPA implores league to find competitive balance in new CBA

The AFL Players Association says the league and clubs must commit to a review of footy’s competitive balance that could help bridge the gap between the giants and minnows of the AFL.

AFLW players are still in limbo about the 2023 season

The AFL’s player union says the league and clubs must seriously commit to a review of footy’s competitive balance that could hand teams extra money to deal with historical disadvantages.

As part of the AFL’s collective bargaining agreement the player union says it is determined to rectify the situation which sees some players drafted to clubs which have less chance of overall success than the power clubs.

The AFLPA is open to a system where some clubs are handed a financial advantage or extra allowances in the football department cap given a sliding scale of haves and have-nots.

It is one of six key pillars of the AFLPA’s wish list for the new pay deal as an industry competitive balance review.

AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh said the player union was open to discussing what levers it could pull so every player drafted had an equal chance of winning a premiership and playing in a successful side.

AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh says the sport must look into finding more of a competitive balance. (AAP Image/James Ross)

“Our view is that every club’s got advantages and every club’s got disadvantages but when you look at it on a net basis, there are some clubs that are obviously significantly advantaged and some that are disadvantaged,” Marsh told News Corp.

“And so we believe that the answer lies into some sort of an index that goes through that process. Are you a net advantage or net disadvantage club?

“And then what levers can we pull just to even that up and it might be to do with additional money for those clubs. It might be to do with some allowances.

“The big clubs are advantaged in terms of the structural advantages from the past, they get a better fixture which allows them to entrench that structural advantage. And I think you see it with those clubs. Their rebuilds are so much quicker because of everything they have got.”

Marsh said the review might show that some smaller clubs actually had advantages in their lack of size.

But he believes unless the industry strips back the reasons for why some clubs remain at the top of the ladder they cannot find the solutions to help solve the problem.

Marsh says some bigger clubs find it easier to rebuild quickly based on advantages of past success. (Photo by Matt Roberts/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

“The solutions will be the easiest part, but I think for the PA when you have kids coming into the system where they have no choice where they start and are not able to move for eight years, we owe it to them to set this up so they have an equal chance of success.

“The things we agreed to like the salary cap and draft are on the basis that everyone is competitively balanced. And if it‘s not, why do we agree to all that? So how do we deal with that? It doesn’t mean the answers that are in place now are the right answers forever.”

AFL SLAMMED FOR ‘SHORT-SIGHTED’ FAILURES TO WOMEN’S GAME

— Lauren Wood

The AFL Players’ Association has accused the league of short-changing AFL Women’s players in its latest pay proposal.

Under its most recent collective bargaining agreement proposal — put to players in recent weeks — the AFL wants a nine-year deal that AFLPA boss Paul Marsh has declared falls well short of projected pay hopes.

While the AFLPA is pushing for a joint revenue share agreement between the men and women players, Marsh said the AFL was against the model.

The AFLPA wants the players revenue shared 85-15 between men and women.

Marsh said as other sports like cricket — where the minimum salary is estimated to be around $80,000 per year — loom large, the AFL’s current position would be leaving its female players behind.

The AFL said at the end of 2021 that its vision was for AFLW players to be the highest-paid sportswomen domestically by 2030.

Women’s players signed a big pay increase for last season — but there’s a long way to go. Picture: Getty Images

“We’re trying to get to a point where W minimum payments are about $70,000 by 2026,” he said.

“More than half of the W players are on the minimum salary ($39,184) at the moment.

“Where the concern is for us is that the AFL’s proposal to us is way below this by 2031. “Their nine-year offer has cricket’s minimum wage now above where the AFLW average wage would be in 2031.

“It doesn’t line up at all in terms of their own vision. This is a big priority because we don’t understand where they’re trying to go on this particular point. Are we in, or are we not in?

“The growth proposal that they’ve put for W salaries is way, way below what we think is acceptable.

Women’s players remain without a start date for pre-season, which is expected to begin in May. The eighth season of competition is expected to begin in the bye weekend before the men’s finals series, though that remains unconfirmed.

Marsh said the league was also opposing the players’ push to steadily increase the amount of home and away games to a full fixture in 2026.

He said the league’s hesitance for a joint revenue share model for players was a “shortsighted” approach that fails to deliver on its own bold declarations for the future of the game.

The players are pushing for a lift of the players’ share of forecast revenue to at least 32 per cent.

What is obtained intends to be split 85 per cent to men’s players, 15 per cent to women’s.

AFLW revenue was previously excluded from the men’s share of cash, which Marsh maintained under the joint model “should come into the same pot”.

With the women’s pre-season set to kick off within weeks, he reinforced the players’ position that the new deal “has to be (joint)” in its entirety.

Paul Marsh says the league needs to walk the walk on its bold declarations for AFLW players. Picture: AAP Image

“It doesn’t make any sense for it not to be,” Marsh said on Monday.

“They’ve come at us with ‘we’ll do a joint CBA, we just won’t do a joint revenue share deal’ … which I think is a bit shortsighted.

“It depends how you want your sport to be seen here. I just think, read the tea leaves. This is where it’s going, this is where it should be going. There’s this huge opportunity. Why aren’t we doing that?

“They basically want no commitment to any changes, just ‘we’ll have a look to see how it all goes, and if there’s a reason to’. It’s ‘if the game grows, we’ll build it’, versus ‘we’ll build it, and it will grow’. That’s frustrating.”

He maintained there is urgency given the pressing nature of pre-season, citing the league’s recent Gather Round deal as an example of an ability to expedite negotiations.

“It’s uncertain for everyone at the moment until we get this done,” he said.

“What I’m hoping is we get a four-year deal done and some of these issues will be able to be resolved. When we did the deal last year, it went from anger to elation in the space of a few days.

“We’ll get an answer on pre-season pretty soon. But the season is obviously coming.

“We owe it to them to get this done.”