Holland's cautionary tale
Caroline Wilson | April 6, 2008 | The Age
BEN Holland, in the words of his manager, is a player spurned. In the eyes of some members of the media, he could prove the missing link to alleged subtle and systematic salary-cap cheating at Richmond during Clinton Casey's presidency.
But on all of the evidence presented to date, surely there is also a very strong case arguing that Ben Holland is a bitter footballer nearing the end of his career and demanding money for next to nothing?
Holland has presented himself as a cautionary tale. Having sued his former president Casey and former club Richmond for $530,000, his case should send a warning not to footballers who settle for significantly less money to stay at their club but instead to players who believe they will succeed in business or anything involving finances simply because they are a footballer.
Casey clearly made undertakings to Holland. According to the player, he was "going to be like a financial planner". You would hope for Holland's sake that the notes he took after that coffee at Koko restaurant at Crown and the subsequent letter Casey sent him provided more concrete monetary promises than that.
Richmond, as it turns out, could have been a frontrunner among AFL clubs in making available share and property packages, some which have proved successful for players and some which have not. But the AFL investigated those deals and cleared them, just as they have cleared Chris Judd's third-party deal with Carlton president Dick Pratt.
Remember when Tony Lockett retired and believed he had been promised a massive lump of retirement money from the AFL as part of his Sydney contract? And then when the AFL actually demanded he do some significant ambassadorial work for the money, Lockett spat the dummy and became bitter and twisted with the game?
It is true that Holland was promised podiatry opportunities via Casey but that they never amounted to much does not seem to be Casey's fault. The player worked briefly as a podiatrist in one of Casey's aged-care facilities but it was not a job he was keen to continue, given that he worked for a brief period of time, earning only $4000.
In fact, it is staggering to believe that Holland has chosen to say some embarrassing things. He was quoted in The Australian yesterday bleating: "Other players got parcels of land at Sandhurst. I wanted to get involved but it never eventuated. Nothing ever happened."
Our memory of those land sales is that plenty of potential buyers, including some Richmond players and officials, turned up on the day they became available and purchased accordingly. Did Holland expect his financial mentor Casey would drive him there or even buy the land for him with Casey's cash?
Certainly, if Casey promised the latter, then both he and Richmond are in a great deal of trouble. But the AFL, the players' association and Griffin all deny a salary cap issue at this stage.
No, this ageing player's story reeks of yet another footballer who has failed to take responsibility for bad decisions, injury and his subsequent struggles with form.
If the basis of Holland's case is as it appears — that Casey promised to identify business opportunities and did not — then his claim looms as a tough one to prove because it takes two to tango.
Hopefully, for Holland's sake, he is not simply another player, despite all of the off-field opportunities provided nowadays from the players' union via the AFL, who struggles to pay his own bills.
Holland's gripe from this recent passage of football history offers a cautionary lesson, too, for all clubs and specifically Richmond — not that the Tigers need to be told again — about the mistakes a club can make when it believes it is on the brink of greatness.
Richmond finished third in 2001 but was smashed by both grand finalists Essendon and Brisbane Lions during September, particularly in the midfield at the Gabba. Rather than concede it had gone as far as it could with that group of players, it took short cuts, picking up the likes of Paul Hudson and Greg Stafford — albeit in exchange for Nick Daffy and some cash.
One reason Ben Holland never made it to Adelaide is because the Kane Johnson trade — where Richmond was to receive Johnson a year earlier than it eventually did along with at least one draft pick — fell through when Johnson significantly lifted his price at the death-knell. So Holland would have had to place himself at the mercy of the pre-season draft.
Brendon Gale, who will now try to resolve his old teammate's issue via the association's grievance procedure, left the Tigers in some bitterness because the money going to players like Holland had squeezed him out financially. Paul Broderick also retired that year.
Gale's bitterness was short-lived but the loss of those two club leaders was another nail in the coaching career of Danny Frawley and the leadership at Richmond has never truly recovered.
And Gale? He is just another in a long list of Tigers who remains a successful player in the football world but no longer at Tigerland.
Richmond looks likely to survive allegations of salary-cap rorting but it would do well to take some extra wisdom from this unsavoury story.
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