Former St Kilda list boss Chris Pelchen reveals how close Saints went to AFL salary cap breach

FORMER St Kilda list boss Chris Pelchen has detailed just how close the club came to facing devastating draft penalties — and the long-lasting effects of having to reshuffle player payments.

Chris Pelchen and Alan Richardson in 2014. Pic: Colleen Petch.

ST KILDA faced the disastrous prospect of being hit with AFL salary cap sanctions before urgent changes to some of its biggest stars’ playing contracts averted serious implications for the club in 2011.

The full extent of the club’s salary cap malaise has been laid bare, with former football boss Chris Pelchen being asked to step in as soon as he arrived at the club in August that year.

The Saints were nearly $500,000 over the salary cap when Pelchen declared the club’s problems to the league with only four weeks remaining in the regular season.

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The Saints faced a potential $450,000 fine and devastating draft penalties if it had been left unchecked.

Carlton lost the No.1 and No.2 pick for rorting the salary cap in 2002.

When asked this week, Pelchen said the Saints were forced to make 11th-hour changes to its player payments to ensure the club’s salary cap did not exceed 100 per cent in conjunction with AFL rules.

“The club had no alternative but to act because the AFL rules at the time were quite clear that you couldn’t pay more than 100 per cent of the salary cap in one season,” Pelchen told the Herald Sun.

Chris Pelchen was still at the Saints when Alan Richardson was starting his reign.

“While certain parts of the problem weren’t foreseeable because of injuries to specific players, there were other areas in my opinion which had been preventable and as such, needed to be rectified urgently.

“If they weren’t addressed then the outcomes would have been extremely serious for the club.”

It was revealed this week that the top 10 St Kilda players had been contracted to take up around 63 per cent of the Saints’ salary cap in 2012 leaving only 37 per cent for the remaining 34 players on the club’s list.

While the club had some of the biggest stars in the game at the time including superstar captain Nick Riewoldt, Brendon Goddard, Nick Dal Santo and Sam Fisher, it’s evident that previous planning around the TPP had gone awry.

Pelchen and then list boss Ameet Bains met with AFL integrity chief Ken Wood weekly from August to implement the emergency changes in late 2011.

Former St Kilda coach Scott Watters with Nick Riewoldt.

But the situation would haunt the Saints over the next two to three seasons as the constraints contributed to them falling to the lower reaches of the ladder under new coach Scott Watters.

St Kilda had both the oldest and highest-paid list in the competition in 2011 and was unable to retain star utility Goddard or attract top-tier talents as part of its ensuing rebuild.

Pelchen, who was a significant part of Hawthorn and Port Adelaide’s premiership list builds, said spreading the 2011 payments over the next two seasons gave them little flexibility in the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

“The AFL gave the club great support to ensure everything was done within the rules to rectify the situation,” Pelchen said.

“But the changes effectively meant that the 2012 TPP was maxed out before 2011 had ended. It heavily compromised the 2013 TPP model too.

Former St Kilda CEO Michael Nettlefold.

“So the club was clearly restricted by its TPP in 2011 and 2012. I had never seen a more challenging salary cap position in my time in the AFL.

“I’ve heard people suggest in the media this week that Michael Nettlefold (Saints former CEO) was to blame which is categorically wrong.

“Michael was a key driver in getting the problem rectified. Part of Ameet Bains and my appointments to the Saints in 2011 was to remedy the TPP structure.

“It wasn’t about blaming anyone, it was just the reality of the situation.”

AFL spokesman Patrick Keane said the Saints did not breach the salary cap in 2011.

“The AFL regularly meets with all clubs to ensure they are compliant with the competition’s TPP rules and St Kilda was fully compliant at the conclusion of the 2011 year,” Keane said.