Omnia   

AFLcountry thumbWeekly Times | AFL  Victoria expects salary caps to come into effect in all Victorian community leagues next season, but it may take several years for them all to drop to their desired thresholds.

AFL Victoria unveiled its proposals for club sustainability last week, including a statewide points system and salary cap to address concerns about soaring player payments.

The proposed salary cap would apply to all payments and financial incentives to senior players through the season.

Integrity officers would conduct audits on clubs, and penalties for breaches would include fines, relegation in divisional competitions, loss of points, suspension from finals, and player suspension.

Salary cap levels would vary between leagues. Region commissions will be charged with recommending the limits for country leagues, to be ratified by AFL Victoria.

AFL Victoria hopes the salary cap levels will be determined in a testing period for the equalisation measures.

Depending on the feedback from this period, which runs until the end of July, the panel developing the proposals anticipates all leagues will have some cap in place next season.

AFL Victoria’s Brett Connell, who chairs the panel, said it may take several years for some leagues to reach their desired salary cap level.

“We’re anticipating a staged approach with the implementation of the salary cap and will be guided by league feedback on how it will initially look in 2016,” Connell said.

“Some leagues, we know, are considering bringing it in next year, already set at the figure they believe is appropriate.

“But in other competitions, especially in metropolitan Melbourne, we anticipate that they will gradually move to their desired cap amount over a two or three-year period.

“We are looking for feedback over the next 12 weeks to determine what the best implementation strategy looks like for individual leagues.”

Ovens and Murray league general manager Aaron McGlynn said the points system, which allocated a points value to players based on their playing history and rewarded junior development and retention, was “even more in depth” than he had expected.

But McGlynn said more consultation would be required with clubs to determine an appropriate salary cap figure, and more thorough consideration was required before making a decision on whether to introduce the cap next year.

“We need to ... trial with the points system at least first and see what impact that will have,” he said.

Geelong and District president Neville Whitley said his league agreed with the equalisation measures in principle, but some areas were debatable.

In particular, he believed the league’s salary cap should be the same figure as the Geelong league’s, but as it stands a GDFL cap would be less than the figure proposed for the Geelong league.

“They’re in the same market ... (if GDFL clubs) can raise the money to spend $120,000 they should be allowed to spend that amount,” Whitley said. “Time will tell whether the figures are right.”

Read Full Article