Fab 4 ???
I thought someone with such strong history and contacts with the inner sanctum would have known this. ??? This article by Jake Niall circa June 2001 explains who and what, and also the point to my opinion:
From the Fairfax site:
Footing the bill for past glories
By JAKE NIALL
Richmond is in a serious bind. It has been stuck in the middle of the ladder for years and seems unable to make the giant leap to contention. Tiger fans, equal parts hope, frustration and fury, wonder why the club, for all its off-field improvements, continues to stall.
There are several reasons behind the club's stagnation. One factor stems back to a fateful decision made nearly two years ago by the Leon Daphne administration, which had the misfortune to preside over Richmond as it slowly progressed on the bumpy road from third world club to respectability.
On July 1, 1999, Daphne announced the re-contracting of what were then the club's four leading players: Matthew Richardson, Wayne Campbell, Matthew Knights and Nick Daffy, the latter having won the club's best and fairest in 1998.
The fab four were estimated to be paid nearly $1.5 million for the next two seasons. Richardson, Daffy and Knights re-signed for three seasons, Campbell for two. If they were getting big bucks, Daphne said, they deserved it ``because they are our best four players''. He added: ``One thing that football clubs, in particular Richmond, are obliged to do is pay their players what they are worth and not short-change them.''
But what are they worth now? Press the fast forward button to last Sunday. Richo, whose value is unquestioned when he is on the park, was again absent through injury, fortunately this time with only a strained hamstring.
Daffy was languishing in the VFL after an indifferent start to the season, a knee injury and a poor 2000.
Knights began the match on the bench and, for the third consecutive week, was largely ineffective in the midfield, unable to hurt the opposition as he once did. Richmond's midfield has been the epicentre of its collapse over the past three weeks and Knights, who turns 31 in October, has battled to win the ball.
That left Campbell, who was among the best of a terrible bunch on Sundayand who has stood up as a leader during the past three rounds of ignominy.
Unfortunately for Richmond, the decision to re-contract both Daffy and Knights on huge money - they are believed to be paid, collectively, about $750,000 this season - also threatens to stymie its improvement into 2002.
Both players have contracts for 2002 and, as the top paid players at the club, would be on guaranteed money - ie, they would earn an estimated $350,000 (Daffy) and $400,000 (Knights) regardless of performance, or indeed, whether they played in the seniors. To put it in perspective, Knights would be paid similar money to Carlton's midfield maestro Brett Ratten, rated among the AFL's best half dozen or so players by some astute judges, including James Hird.
If Daffy, 28, and Knights are retained next year - and it would be an extremely challenging task to find clubs interested in picking up the pair on their present contracts, given their age and recent form - Richmond will have little capacity to pick up players of quality from other clubs.
The same constraints prevented the Tigers from making any meaningful acquisitions in trading last year, and Daffy's big contract was an obstacle in negotiations with Hawthorn. Ultimately, though, Richmond seems to have taken a conservative course with Daffy and baulked at trading him at the last minute. One can only guess the club took account of his interrupted pre-season for 2000 and the heavy personal toll of his mother's illness.
Unless Daffy and Knights can be traded, retired or their contracts significantly reduced, Richmond's trading capacity will remain limited and it will have to rely solely on improvement through young talent - which, to be fair, is usually the path to premierships anyway. But the Daffy-Knights contracts mean they have little room to manoeuvre within the salary cap, despite the likely retirements of Brendon Gale and Paul Broderick at season's end. Remember, too, that Brad Ottens re-signed last year after a
bidding war with the Adelaide clubs, and that Richmond now faces the potential perils of re-signing Darren Gaspar, an expatriate Western Australian, while Fremantle and West Coast are at the foot of the ladder and ready with the chequebook.
The contractual bind the club has inherited is not a subject that Richmond chief executive Mark Brayshaw was willing to broach, on the grounds he does not discuss individual contracts. Brayshaw, though, acknowledged that Daffy and Knights were not performing as well as the club would like.
``Both players have been great servants of the Richmond Football Club,'' said Brayshaw. ``It would be fair to say, however, their form isn't what we'd like it to be at the moment, but that can also be said of many of their teammates. We are looking to them, together with our other leaders, to get the team performing at a higher and more consistent level, now, ie read this weekend.''
Even if they are struggling, Knights and Daffy should not be blamed for the club's excessive generosity and miscalculation. Knights is a former captain and best and fairest, with more than 250 games to his name, who stayed at Punt Road during a dark age. Daffy was once rated by Mick Malthouse as the best crumbing half-forward in the caper and he, like Knights, is a life member at Richmond.
If Richmond sought to force one or both to retire, the pair would be foolish not to demand the contracts be honored - payments that, even if they retired, must be counted in the salary cap (in the year severance payments are made). Although only half of Knights' salary counts in the cap - he is a designated veteran - Richmond, on the back of a $500,000 loss, could ill-afford such golden handshakes.
Like many ageing players, Knights and Daffy are being paid as much for what they did, as what they can do. As grand servants, they deserve to be looked after, yes. But, in a familiar theme, can Richmond move forward while it is still paying for its past?
