AFL can help close the gap between rich and poor clubs Stephen Rielly
From: The Australian
July 19, 2011 THE AFL has turned away from the idea of capping football department spending as a way of bridging the gap between rich and poor clubs.
.The league has settled on an alternative direction that will not stop those with money from spending it, but assist those in need by directly funding football department appointments.
Clubs such as the Western Bulldogs, one of football's lowest spenders last year, and Port Adelaide could, for instance, have the list managers they are seeking paid for by AFL money. So too St Kilda's new head of football operations, Chris Pelchen, announced last night by the club.
Recruiting, welfare, communications, sports science and coaching appointments may also be funded by the league as a way of establishing a minimum football department standard.
The idea is yet to receive AFL commission approval but has come out of the league's club funding working group and has generally won support from the clubs themselves.
With the gap in football department budgets between the lowest and highest spenders as much as $5 million, the AFL has become increasingly concerned that the balance of the competition stands to be compromised and the effectiveness of the draft and salary cap weakened.
Equally, clubs such as Richmond and Melbourne have been tin-rattling and trying to rid themselves of debt on the back of the argument that success is impossible without the money to fund a well-rounded football operation.
According to the Tigers, premierships are now the exclusive domain of wealthy clubs or those able to bankroll their way into the top quartile of football department expenditure.
The exact amount of money to be set aside for the new measure will become clearer once a new collective bargaining agreement has been struck with the players. The AFL, the AFL Players Association and the clubs are trying to carve up the proceeds from a new five-year television rights deal worth $1.2 billion.
The hope is that funding will be available by the end of the season.
"There is always going to be a gap, but an attempt is being made to ensure that every player at every club has an equal opportunity, a fair opportunity, to succeed," is how one party to the negotiations described the plan.
With attention from the AFL turning to the relationship between football department spending and on-field success, it seems the priority that was given to the upgrading of facilities in the life of the previous five-year television rights period may not be as high.
New facilities for North Melbourne, the Bulldogs, Richmond and St Kilda were all completed in the life of the present deal, as was the construction of Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast.
The decision not to cap football department spending will appease the wealthy on two fronts. The biggest clubs are strongly opposed to being hemmed in or, as they see it, brought down to the level of their poorest relations. They will continue to be free to spend as they wish.
The decision also steps around the argument put by Collingwood, West Coast and Hawthorn against money being given to debt-ridden or less affluent clubs as a form of unspecified charity that does little to improve their long-term prospects.
"The bigger clubs like to see additional funding get a result," said one observer. "And you know, the bigger clubs might go for another spending push, but as long as the smaller clubs are at a level where they are not disadvantaged in the way they compete, then the competition benefits."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/afl-can-help-close-the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-clubs/story-e6frg7mf-1226097136880
