Have AFL clubs fallen back into bad pre-COVID habits when it comes to wasting money?
Veteran AFL journalist Damian Barrett believes so, citing St Kilda’s sacking of coach Brett Ratten just 100 days after re-signing him.
Other examples include Essendon parting ways with Ben Rutten, Hawthorn paying Alastair Clarkson nearly $1 million to not coach them in 2022, North Melbourne moving on from David Noble and more.
“The entire industry has been through COVID and there has been a tightening of the financial belts in so many aspects of the game, now it has emerged from that and there is a sense of returning to normality and part of that returning to normality is just the financial waste that so many clubs are embarking upon,” Barrett told the AFL Daily podcast.
“The lack of control and I reckon the lack of responsibility around certain decisions that relate to these payouts because they wouldn’t be tolerated in other professions around the world and yet we just do as footy clubs.
“It’s very normal for a club to recontract a coach and move on from him within 100 days as we have seen very recently.
“I’m referring of course to St Kilda and that’s the most staggering one of all-time in some respects.
“We’ve seen Essendon do it with their coach as well.”
Barrett adds that the league itself is frustrated at seeing its clubs pour money down the drain like this.
“They hate it and it’s one of their biggest bugbears of all-time and you’re right, the dividends that go to footy clubs every year, every club gets a form of an AFL payout, and a lot of clubs get a whole lot more than others to competitively balance their situation,” he said.
“I mean, St Kilda was in debt beyond $11-12 million and they’re making decisions to sack a coach 100 days after recontracting him and then just moving on and paying Ross Lyon a whole lot more than they were paying (Ratten).
“Obviously there is a soft cap function to each club’s operations, but it doesn’t seem to stop them making bad decisions.”
Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney wonders whether the AFL should look at removing the senior coach’s salary out of the soft cap to limit the damage done when one is sacked.
“Should a head coach’s salary be in the soft cap? If Brett Ratten is going to have to be paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars, that’s potentially two full time physios, two staff members that the players miss out on because of the mismanagement that has happened upstairs,” Cooney asked on SEN SA Breakfast.
South Australian journalist Michelangelo Rucci believes that move would give clubs more scope to act hasty with their coaches.
“If you don’t put it in the soft cap, you’ll have more clubs tempted. At the moment there’s been a few clubs that probably haven’t sacked their coaches because of the soft cap,” Rucci said.
“You’re just going to get more irresponsible wastage of money in football. Damned if you do, damned if don’t.
“The bigger question is one Michael Malthouse always pointed out which is when do the boards become accountable for the way in which they spend this money.”
We saw four AFL coaches sacked in 2022, with Leon Cameron, Ben Rutten, Brett Ratten and David Noble all removed.