Fears AFL financial struggles could kill off future footy fairytales, like Marlion Pickett
Marlion Pickett’s rise from mid-season draft pick to Grand Final hero is one of footy’s great stories. But Richmond boss Brendon Gale has warned skeleton football departments would no longer be able to take punts on untried prospects.
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Richmond fears football’s financial crisis will diminish its competitive advantage and also kill off fairytale stories such as Grand Final hero Marlion Pickett.
The AFL has mandated shoestring budgets for clubs and Tigers chief executive Brendon Gale said the industry faced extinction before the league secured a $600 million line of credit last week.
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But Gale warned that skeleton football departments would no longer be able to take punts on prospects like Pickett.
“There’s going to be some hard choices. Clubs won’t be able to take those risks or (have) the resources to bring in a Pickett,” Gale said.
Clubs have stood down about 80 per cent of their workforces and several employees will not have jobs to return to.
The cashed-up Tigers have, according to Gale, prioritised certain parts of their football program over others because they were proven to provide a greater on-field return.
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“It’s simply about identifying what are the things that are critical to … our competitive advantage and just fighting as hard as we can, within the confines of the rules, to protect those,” Gale said.
“Right now all these cuts makes it really, really hard to maintain that program.
“You’d like to think we’d be around the mark for a little while … and it’s probably fair to say we’re at the upper end of the soft cap.
“Now for the remainder of the season the (soft) cap has been significantly reduced. Some of those advantages might be gone, but our biggest strength is our culture.”
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Tigers are hunting their third premiership in four years and have grown into football’s on and off-field benchmark under Gale’s leadership.
Speaking on Fox Footy, Gale also referenced Leigh Matthews’ observation from some time ago that AFL clubs should not be responsible for developing players.
Gale said the elite development programs run by AFL clubs were now under threat.
Unlike the United States and its College pathway system, AFL clubs effectively act as finishing schools by upskilling players who predominantly are not ready to play when they are drafted.
“So much of our time and effort and resources and money is put into developing young athletes to get to the elite level, rather than bringing them in as elite,” Gale said.
“I thought that was an interesting way to look at things. We’ve just taken on more and more and more because that’s just what we do.
“We run elite sporting programs and I’m not quite sure whether that’s sustainable in the long-term.
Premiership coach Paul Roos has long argued that the five development coaches at AFL clubs should instead be employed at under-18 level because junior development was so poor.
Players might not be immune to job losses with talk that lists could be slashed by around 25 per cent.
GWS football boss Jason McCartney said it “would be disappointing” to lose back-end players who were developing nicely.
But he said it was crucial the four northern clubs retained access to local talent through their academies.