The Bombers are going to pay Michael $550k for 2 years
. So much for rebuilding recruiting 29 year olds on their last legs.
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Lions see red over Michael
25 November 2006 Herald-Sun
Mike Sheahan
THE Brisbane Lions are miffed. No, they're angry. Make that seriously p....d off.
They were content to live with three-time premiership player Mal Michael walking away at 29, but they never envisaged he might bob up somewhere else.
With nothing in return. Nought. To, of all places, Essendon.
Add a large dollop of embarrassment, and you get the picture.
The Lions accepted Michael's word he would retire and, six weeks later, he reappears with a two-year contract from Essendon.
Maybe Michael had a change of mind. Maybe he duped his former club.
"Michael mocks retirement contract," the Brisbane Lions' official media release said yesterday.
Whatever the truth, he is out of retirement in time for pre-season training, he is out of Brisbane, he is at the club of his choice, and there's no compo.
Even Kevin Sheedy expressed a degree of sympathy for the Lions yesterday.
Brisbane acted in good faith when they released the full-back from the final year of his contract, but they still should have insisted on a clause that precluded him from playing at another club for 12 months.
As usual, they will next time.
There's some emotive language coming out of the Gabba, but legal action is improbable.
Not sure the Lions want outsiders trawling through their player payments, particularly with an agreement in place that Michael was to be paid for an ambassadorial role this year after apparently taking a pay cut for 2006.
The Essendon version of events suggests the Bombers have done nothing wrong, anyway.
Coach Sheedy simply had his people inquire of Michael, whether the retirement decision was irrevocable.
When Michael responded with a degree of interest, the Bombers swung into action.
After all, Michael is some player. Essendon skipper Matthew Lloyd yesterday described him as his toughest opponent of his career. And he was available for nothing.
As is his way, Essendon chief executive Peter Jackson went straight to the AFL to ascertain from investigations manager Ken Wood that there was no impediment to the Bombers taking Michael in the pre-season draft.
He got the green light within an hour of the call.
As Jackson said pointedly yesterday: "If the deed of release that was negotiated (between Brisbane and Michael) didn't look after the club's best interests, that's not my problem."
That is as blunt as a club can be.
The response may come through legal action, or through an AFL inquiry announced late yesterday. More likely, it will come on the field.
If Jonathan Brown was counting the sleeps until the Lions confronted the Bulldogs and Jason Akermanis at the Gabba in Round 11, there might be a tasty entree in Round 8 when Essendon plays Brisbane at Telstra Dome.
Michael may find himself alongside Brown.
He will be a little uneasy that day; he certainly seemed uneasy facing an aggressive media yesterday.
He admitted the Lions were a "little surprised" to hear he was considering a return.
He said the Grand Final prompted him to wonder whether he was walking away too soon.
He said yesterday he was sick of Brisbane (the city), rather than football.
The Lions and Michael drew up a deed of settlement and release, in which the parties agreed to terminate a contract that required Michael to play for the Lions in 2007 for an estimated $350,000.
As of yesterday, he will play two seasons for the Bombers for an estimated $550,000.
And there doesn't appear to be much that the Lions can do about it other than cry foul.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,20817295%255E19742,00.html
