Cap in handBy Ben Collins
Sun 11 Nov, 2012NATHAN Buckley says the AFL should allow each club to nominate a "franchise player" to be paid outside the salary cap.
The AFL recently staged its first free-agency period for players of eight and 10 years' experience to explore options at other clubs, and the Collingwood coach believes a natural extension to this would be the introduction of a franchise player mechanism, which is employed in various forms in other sports.
''It's a logical progression to free agency," he told The Age.
"It's mutually beneficial and happens incidentally at the moment."
Buckley is not the first person to suggest the concept, with former player agent Ricky Nixon long agitating for such a change, believing the game's best players should be financially rewarded accordingly.
Current player managers are said to be divided on the issue, with the dissenters concerned about the impact it would have on battling clubs.
''If you look at the Bulldogs or North, there is no way they would ever be able to do it," one player manager said.
"It's another reason why the poorer clubs could cry poorer.''
Meanwhile, another agent said the franchise player concept would be "great for the game".
"It keeps Lance Franklin at Hawthorn his whole career, it will probably keep a Chris Judd at Carlton, a Michael Voss-type at Brisbane - it helps with all that sort of stuff," he said.
''But I am just an advocate for list management. I just reckon the AFL makes too many excuses for clubs who have poor list management, and I think if you do franchise players it's yet another grey area that can get clubs into trouble."
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/150940/default.aspx
