Wallace's money spinner
Jake Niall
The Age
June 1, 2006
RICHMOND coach Terry Wallace's concern about the integrity of the competition has led him to devise a radical system by which every game of AFL football would carry a significant financial carrot.
Wallace suggested the AFL could use the television-rights money to set up an incentive system in which every game might be worth $100,000 — ensuring that there was less of an incentive for clubs to "bottom out" and get early draft picks.
"I am worried about the integrity of the competition," Wallace said. "I worry about people sort of saying that it's almost a waste of time even finishing in the lower part of the eight, you're better off sort of starting off all over again. I've heard that from key people within the game."
Emphasising he was speaking for himself and not Richmond, he said the $2 million sought by each club could be split, with every club receiving $900,000 and $1.1 million going into a pool to be distributed on the basis of games won.
Wallace mooted the plan during his weekly appearance on Fox Footy's White Line Fever, and last night said the concept, rather than the specifics, was important, but $1.1 million a club would create a total pool of $17.6 million for 176 home-and-away games — $100,000 a game.
He cautioned that the AFL would have to equalise stadium deals and place a cap on football department expenditure before this performance-based incentive system could be introduced.
"Before you could do this … something would need to be done, for a start, with the stadium deals in the competition. At the moment they're all over the shop and there's not an equal playing field," he said.
"We have a salary cap for players, but we don't have a salary cap for footy expenditure. And if you did a ladder in recent years of teams which spend the highest in footy expenditure, those are the sides that are having the most success."
Wallace said it was "ludicrous" that some clubs were able to pay assistant coaches almost the same as other clubs paid senior coaches.
With those equalising measures in place, Wallace said the AFL could then establish a prizemoney system in which every game counted — enhancing the integrity of the competition.
"If you went $1.1 million from each of the teams goes into a pool and each of the teams gets $900,000, that would give you $17.6 million in a pool, there's 176 games, that would mean every game of the year would be worth $100,000. That puts integrity into every single game of the season. Round 19, the 13th side is playing the 15th side, they're playing for $100,000."
Wallace said Richmond had often been "scoffed at" for finishing ninth. "Under this system, finishing ninth, say with 10 or 11 wins, would give them between $1 million and $1.1 million out of that money that was up for grabs."
He observed that the Kangaroos would have benefited enormously from their run of seven consecutive preliminary finals or better in the '90s, averaging perhaps $1.75 million over that period, plus the $900,000 each club would receive.
Wallace said wealthy teams could afford to bottom out more than poorer clubs. "At the moment they can do it and they can weather it with no penance … under my system, they'd be weathering it, but losing another $600,000 or $700,000 as well."
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/05/31/1148956418600.html
