Clubs fume over the 'Judd rule' Michael Warner
From: Herald Sun
July 15, 2011 THE AFL is under fire over its policing of player payments outside the salary cap.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire yesterday described the league as "serial salary cap manipulators".
Hawthorn boss Jeff Kennett said a move to block a third-party deal for Melbourne's Tom Scully was hypocritical.
It follows revelations the AFL has outlawed outside arrangements such as the one that sealed Chris Judd's defection to Carlton.
The Carlton skipper continues to pocket lucrative payments from cardboard giant Visy without affecting the club's salary cap.
"The AFL have continued to vary the rules to suit the interests of the AFL," Kennett told the Herald Sun yesterday.
"And if they are now closing this loophole for any Melbourne supporter to try to keep Scully, that is just so hypocritical it doesn't matter.
"There are a whole lot of forces working that will never be admitted to and amounts (of money) paid that will never be admitted to.
"Of course the AFL wanted Judd back here (in Melbourne), there's no doubt about that.
"Of course the AFL wanted (Gary) Ablett to go to the Gold Coast," Kennett said.
McGuire told Triple M radio: "There's no one who's fought harder for the salary cap than me. And the person, or the organisation I've had to fight hardest against is the AFL, who have been serial salary cap manipulators."
Yesterday's Herald Sun revealed the AFL had tightened its rules surrounding third-party deals.
The change means the value of third-party deals won by players who are in con- tract talks must be included in the salary cap of the club where the player eventually signs.
The league last year admitted 114 players were paid more than $2 million outside the league salary cap by club associates in 2009.
Payments from Visy to Judd, believed to total several hundred thousand dollars a year, come on top of his estimated $900,000-a-season Carlton pay packet.
The Visy deal was a deciding factor in Judd choosing Carlton after he left the West Coast Eagles in 2007.
But the AFL yesterday said a third-party deal aimed at keeping Scully at Melbourne would not be approved.
"If we allowed associates of clubs to pay players - any time they were at risk of losing a player, to pay extra money to that player to stay at the football club - then the salary cap becomes meaningless," league football operations manager Adrian Anderson said.
"(Melbourne) is not being thwarted, they have ability in their salary cap and ASA, a special marketing allowance, to pay a player like Tom Scully up to his market value should they so wish."
A league spokesman refused to say whether the AFL had changed its rules due to a reappraisal of the Judd- Visy case.
Visy yesterday said it could not disclose the size or length of the Judd contract.
"Specific details of the contract are commercial in confidence," spokesman Tony Gray said.
"But nothing has changed substantially since the Herald Sun ran a major story focusing on it a couple of years back."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/clubs-fume-over-the-judd-rule/story-e6frf9jf-1226094925825
