This article appeared in SEN Inside Football's December Issue. Subscribe today!
The pay scale for community footballers went something like this back in the late 1960s and early 1970s: “We were getting $10 a win and $5 a loss and we thought that was all right,” said former player and veteran Vermont administrator Lee Bidstrup.
While those amounts have long been consigned to history, there is evidence that AFL Victoria’s two-pronged attack on skyrocketing match payments is beginning to wind back the cash, if not the clock.
The imposition of a player points system two years ago and salary cap last off-season are impacting clubs’ management and recruiting philosophies.
“The biggest change, especially as you outline the points, is that the clubs have nowhere to hide,” said Darryl Richards, who spent a decade as Bundoora’s football manager and recently moved to the role of club treasurer.
“You can no longer go and load up a team. For example, if you were to recruit five ex-AFL players that are going to cost you six points each, you’ve just lost well over half your points (total) and that restricts all the other players you can have in your team.”
Added Aberfeldie vice-president Leigh Fotheringham: “Now with the salary cap in place, too, you can’t afford to go out and spend big bucks on a handful of players any more. You’ve got to be very smart.”
“Big bucks” is an understatement when framing the level of money clubs have been shelling out in the past few years.
“There was a match payment explosion six or seven years ago,” explained football manager Tony Walshe, who has been involved at Spotswood in some way, shape or form for 27 years.
“It used to be that some of the country clubs could offer $1000 (a match), but that was offsetting the travel and the time for players.
“However, when metro clubs started throwing around $1000 (a match) and $5000 sign-on fees … it was mind-boggling really.”
But he doesn’t blame the players for listening.
“Kids just get phone calls,” Walshe said. “It’s so easy to get someone’s number and they ring up and tell them ‘we can give you $1200 a game so you should come and talk to us’.”
Bidstrup believes the financial culture has filtered down from the highest echelons of the code.
“The whole business of contracts or who gets what has been made worse, or got into the minds of local players, because in the AFL, for the past decade and a half, there has been constant talk about how much everyone gets paid,” he said. “Years ago that was hardly ever spoken about.
“The amount of money being paid at this level is not proportionate to the number of people who come to watch the games. It’s totally out of sync.
“To stick to our salary cap you can spend about $12,000 a week. Well you don’t make that every Saturday, you don’t get anywhere near it so you have to get it from elsewhere.
“At least the salary cap is an attempt to halt the continual growth (in match payments) and bring it back to somewhere half reasonable.
“It’s (money) the worst thing I’ve seen in football in my many years of involvement.
“The players have gone from just being part of the club, with some of them even being on the committee, to becoming employees.”
Having carried off the silverware in the top flight of the Western Region League for five straight seasons, Deer Park, with its many high-profile signings, has been an obvious target for critics and haters in such an inflated market.
“We get cheap shots all the time, which we’ve just gotten used to, but I tell people there was not one player in our team over these years that wouldn’t get more money at another club,” said president Mark McGoldrick.
“Like most competitions it’s very rare that the team that wins the premiership doesn’t spend a lot of money on players and people who say the opposite, well, most of them are lying.
“We’ve obviously spent a reasonable amount of money. We’re in the business of wins and losses and we’ve built the club to win premierships.”
In a decade McGoldrick has helped Deer Park rise from a division two outfit with “no real playing list” to a metropolitan juggernaut.
And he’s particularly proud of how the club has continued to prosper under the player points system and salary cap.
“This past year we lost a heap of players from our (2016) grand final side due to the salary cap,” he said.
“And we weren’t able to recruit like we would previously due to the restrictions.
“People have clearly gotten a little peeved with our continued success, but right now — with the new systems — we can’t lift the bar any higher and the other clubs will keep coming after us.
“And as we saw (in this year’s grand final, where Deer Park held off Sunshine by just three points) the gap is getting a lot smaller.”
Of course those most personally and directly affected by the new systems are the players themselves.
And there is a sense that the penny hasn’t quite dropped yet in terms of the new “workplace” environment.
“I don’t think it’s fully sunk in with the players about what AFL Victoria and the leagues are trying to do,” Bidstrup said.
“And when you start reducing people’s pay to fit under the cap, they don’t like it.
“Some guys take it particularly hard as they depend on the money because they only have an average job, a part-time job or even no job.
“The economic circumstances of our communities have meant that more and more players see that money as money they need in order to live and pay their mortgages.
“It’s not that we want to hurt them, it’s just a fact of life now. We have to do the right thing.”
Said Richards: “They’re (players) accepting of it when it doesn’t affect them.
“Obviously if you were at a club that was over the salary cap you’ve had to instigate pay cuts to some players and everyone’s for it until you have to sit down with them and start talking about upsetting their pay scale … adjusting what you believe they’re worth.”
Bidstrup is adamant that all clubs haven’t yet fallen into line.
“There are still clubs that are cheating,” he said. “You know that because you talk to players and they say they were offered this and that.
“There are hundreds of football clubs and there’ll always be someone offering something that isn’t within the rules. And some players clearly also have no problem with breaking the rules.
“People can still cheat the money, but they can’t cheat the points.
“And as they tighten the points total it’s going to be extremely hard if you don’t have your own kids.”
Walshe concurred that there was more faith in the effectiveness of the player points system than in the salary cap.
“The big conversation around local footy goes like this: people believe the points system will have an effect, but are very sceptical about the salary cap and wonder how it can be enforced,” he said.
“Have there been any audits done of clubs? Has AFL Victoria been vigilant in that particular area?
“There should be some activity there to put clubs on notice.”
The good news is there are checks being undertaken, as Richards and Bundoora can attest.
“We did get audited this year,” he said. “AFL Victoria sent people out to check our books to make sure we were doing the right thing as far as the salary cap was concerned, so they’re serious.
“The auditors told me they had done a few clubs, a lot in the country, but a few metros.”
Of course the recruiting market has — as was intended under the new systems — tightened up and the need to secure signatures early has seen the traditional “signing window” shift from October- November to August- September.
“It used to be a bit of a sleepy time when the season finished, but now it’s almost a frenzy,” Bidstrup said.
Said Richards: “As soon as you’re out (of the running) you’re either re-signing your existing players or chasing others to backfill the team.”
Walshe said the evidence of urgency was glaring.
“A club in our league announced seven signed-on players within about two weeks of the season finishing so they’d obviously been working on those guys during the season,” he said.
“Certainly you’ve got to have your eyes and ears open the whole year round.
“As competitive as it is on the field, it’s just as competitive off it in terms of recruiting players.”
In-season recruiting is not a new phenomenon and neither are bidding wars, yet most clubs are showing greater discipline than ever on that front.
“We were in the race for a couple of players this year and there were three or four clubs after them,” Walshe said.
“That obviously pushes up the match payments they’re going to get and then you have to make a decision.
“And often we’ll stand aside and say we’re not prepared to match that.”
Fotheringham said big-money demands were still being made and that the total value provided by the individual to the club was now paramount.
“People show interest in coming and then we talk dollar figures and often it just doesn’t come to fruition,” he said.
“You can only pay so much per player and as soon as someone comes in that’s way over the top they’d have to provide great playing quality along with good leadership and coaching qualities if you’re going to pay those dollars these days.”
One key trend that has emerged over the past two campaigns is the recruiting back of players to their “home” clubs.
The points benefits are the main driver, but there is also a better knowledge of what you are getting for your investment.
“We’ve got one guy who’s played 100 games at Williamstown and we’re super keen to get him back in a season or two,” Walshe said.
“It does become a focus because they are one-point players, but then the money can still be an issue.
“It’s a priority to get them back, but then it’s ‘can we find the money?’ and ‘do we want to pay the money?’ for that particular player.”
Aberfeldie, too, has been keen to welcome people back into the fold.
“Players that have gone on to higher levels and decided that they’re not going to make it … there’s been a push from us to try to get them back,” Fotheringham said.
Richards also pointed to a lesser trend of top-tier clubs chasing players from lower divisions.
“If you can’t get an AFL player because of the points you’re better off getting the best player in a lower division that’s only going to cost you a maximum of three points,” he said.
The actual points values assigned to players across the spectrum by AFL Victoria have generally been greeted with nods of the head, but the loadings on ex-TAC Cup players and, to a lesser degree, lower-end VFL talent continue to cause consternation.
“The main one I disagree with is the amount of points loading on former TAC Cup players,” Richards said.
“It’s too high for kids that are 18 years and under; it’s too much of an impost. Those kids at that age just want to play footy.”
Walshe said the demise of the VFL development league and the resultant run-off of players into local competitions had further changed the landscape — and he emphasised that recruits were now asking about the points situation at potential landing spots.
“If these guys have played more than a certain number of games in the TAC Cup and then they’ve rolled into the development league, even though they are only 19 or 20, they are potentially four-point players,” he said.
“And if they’re from another club in your competition you get a penalty point so they are a five-point player.”
If all of this sounds a lot like the chatter that emanates from your favourite AFL club, it’s no wonder — community clubs are now confronting their own lesser form of list management.
“It is becoming more like what the AFL does where you’re deciding who to keep and who to let go,” Bidstrup said.
“You might have a heap of one type of player so you offer a guy less money, which means he’ll probably leave.
“There is more of that in your thinking. (The market) is forcing that kind of thing to happen.”
Walshe agreed: “In the next couple of years there may well be discussions where we sit down with a player and say ‘listen X, we’ve looked at our list and the position you’re playing, and we can get another guy in and we’re going to put our faith in him.
“So we can’t pay you the same sort of money and if you want to stay you’re welcome, but if you want to move on we’re OK with that’.
“We’ve never had those discussions up to this point because you always wanted to have as many players as possible.
“But moving forward with the points system and salary cap, that is going to be a discussion and some clubs at the higher end of things might already be facing that.”
The reserves grade, once a place for loyal servants in their 30s, is these days stacked with young faces desperate to make an impression and force their way into the ones.
“In the past we had two or three blokes that played 200 games in the reserves,” Bidstrup said. “That isn’t going to happen again. You’d be lucky to play 100 games.
“The reserves in first division (of the Eastern League) is almost an under-21 competition now.”
Fotheringham said Aberfeldie had introduced a thirds team for the older guys who just want to have a kick.
“In the past they’d play reserves, but the standard of the seconds now is high with guys really vying for senior selection.”
While the AFL’s professional practices are being copied in many areas of community football, recruiting — the actual sourcing of a player — remains hugely reliant on personal networks.
“Mostly it’s still somebody that knows somebody,” Bidstrup said.
“If you have a reputation as a top club that certainly plays a part. But when you are trying to recruit it can be mates that make the difference. A player has a mate at the club.
“We’re probably going to get a couple this year that are mates of senior players, one from interstate.”
Walshe said there was more vision available than before and that research could be done on the Sporting Pulse (league) websites, but in the end: “I’ve been doing this for a long time so you have your networks.
“You have to work really hard and talk to lots of players to find the right types. So you might talk to 40 players and get three.”
He also referenced the level of “blind” recruiting that goes on.
“We’ve signed a guy who played in Cairns this year,” Walshe said. “He was referred to us by a past player that now lives and plays up there.
“He’s vouched for him and said he’s very good and will walk straight into the team, but we haven’t seen him play and you have to negotiate around that.”
Fotheringham said the coach often served as a bridge for recruits crossing over while stressing that a little on-field success also went a long way.
“After winning a couple of flags recently we get approached, too,” he said. “Success does breed a little bit more success.
“And players will probably come for a little bit less if they know they are a good chance of winning something.”
There are a couple of websites where players shop their wares (and clubs can flag their needs) but Richards feels they attract “people trying to make a quick buck”.
Although the sample size might be small at this stage, there is anecdotal evidence that player movement — which had reached exodus-like-levels — is settling down somewhat.
“There’s been less movement for us this year and I expect that’s the case with everyone else, too,” Fotheringham said.
Said Bidstrup: “The points system certainly reduces the chance of a mass exodus to one club.”
Richards is confident the number of clearances lodged will fall over time.
“People will stay longer at clubs again, maybe not always in the younger age group because sometimes kids get the odd delusion of grandeur when other clubs throw a larger dollar at them than their current club can afford to pay,” he said.
“But the 25 and overs should hang around more.”
One thing is certain going forward: the player points totals and salary ceilings across all community leagues will fall further, perhaps significantly.
With the major leagues working with points tallies in the 40s and under caps in excess of $200,000 (with the average match payment running in the vicinity of $550), AFL Victoria and the clubs themselves want even greater restraint.
“That’s a boatload of money for local footballers,” Walshe said.
“These guys would play footy for nothing if that was what the marketplace was, but we’re in one that says you can get paid and we don’t have a beef with that, but it’s just still too high.
“I’d like to see the salary caps come down substantially across all leagues.
“And a lot of the players are fine with that. Not every guy is chasing money.”
Whatever level of discontent there is among the players, they will have to reconcile themselves to the changes, according to Fotheringham.
“At the end of the day, with every league operating under a salary cap, they’ve got nowhere to go,” he said.
“Within a couple more years everyone will come to the realisation that all this isn’t going away.”
The January issue of SEN Inside Football is out now. It is jampacked with all your off-season footy yarns. Subscribe today!