Weekly Times | THE head of South Australian community football operations has urged his Victorian counterparts to keep their points system simple and flexible.
To contain surging payments to players, AFL Victoria is due to release a points system to be trialled across the state this season and implemented in conjunction with a salary cap from next year.
South Australia Community Football League community football operations manager Kym Ireland said the key points to its Approved Player Points System was keeping it uncomplicated if it was to be applied statewide, and adaptable for different competitions.
“If we try to be too rigid with what we want to implement — and Victoria would be the same — there’s a variance in standards and populations and teams in competitions right across the state,” he said.
“They need to have flexibility for the smallest competitions, who are struggling for numbers and population, to work within the same guidelines as a league closer to metropolitan Adelaide, who aren’t under the same pressures of population.”
The SACFL’s system was introduced in 2011 and applies to all of its affiliated competitions both in the country and city.
Ireland said it was successful in its goal of reducing the number of players moving from club to club.
The system rewards clubs that develop and retain their players or recruit long term by making those players worth fewer points than those recruited from the AFL, state leagues or other competitions. Points for players in one team can only add to a certain amount.
Leagues can adapt their APPS, but it must be approved by the SACFL board.
But Ireland said there were concerns the APPS led to rises in payments to certain players.
“We’ve increased junior participation or clubs playing their junior players, but what we’ve seen is clubs have their budget of what they’re willing to spend and they may still be spending that amount on fewer players,” he said.
“Consequently the price may have gone up.”
Ireland said a player payment cap would be introduced next year
He said leagues were supportive of it coming in.