Personally I'd hate to see my favourite players leave the club for money or better opportunites, but on the flip side, I'd love if we were able to woo a Judd without having to trade half our list.

I know there would be a lot less "loyalty", but do you think it would compromise the eveness of the competition, if a salary cap was still in place?

Or do you think the majority of good players from clubs with smaller fan bases and/or with less success would all want to play for scum like Collingwood and Essendon?

I am very against it pretty much for the reasons you have given. I love the loyalty in the afl and not only would free agency push us more in the direction of the disgustingly loyalty-less rugby league (where players sign with opposition teams mid-year), but I fear it would also favour the big clubs. No thank you! The AFLPA can get stuffed.

Anyone who cant quite get their head around free agency is really living in another century. Why shouldnt a professional be able at some stage ( after fulfilling certain requiements ) be a master of their own destiny ?

Would you want to be told for the rest of your life where and where not you can work ?

of course NOT !! and why should they !!

Just about every other major code has learn to deal with it but good ol' AFL drags the chain!! how surpising.

As example you could have it that a player needs to have fulfilled their initial contract after drafting ( so effectively their second contract fulfilled ) and they are their own. It could be time based as well. Say 5 years or 100 games might fulfil this. etc etc.. There would be rules govening allowances for inuries etc.

This is not necessarily THE answer...just an example .

Im all for free agency for those that have earnt it...seems only fair !!

All these newspaper "experts" bang on about the free agency. I am a MASSIVE NBA fan, and know the restrictions involved with a FA.

The FA is not the be all and end all it appears to be. Many nba players get stuck at clubs they don't want to play at because they are a restricted free agent. In this case, the club who owns the player can match any sheet offer elsewhere, and the player must then sign it.

In the case of Judd, the eagles could have matched Carlton, even though he were out of contract, and Judd would have to remain an eagle.

Players can move around more freely in the NBA, but it doesn't always work out as sweet as the papers are telling us.

If the AFL adpot the same cap principles as the NBA, you can forget clubs like the MFC EVER winning a flag again. Wealthy clubs can afford to pay over the cap, and get all the good free agents who chase the $$$$.

Collingwood will be the lakers, and the mighy demons will be the Clippers. Plain and simple.

But there is a cap !! Always will be for forseeable future, so that negates the big spending at all costs.. any team will still have to have a list ...and pay for it .

Who say we adopt all the restictions or clauses of the NBA ? is that entrenched in stone somewhere ?

NO

I would imagine like anything you look around at all best practices currently on offer ( and any suggestions made by those concerns to improve it ) and take on board the best elements and concoct your own Free Agency agenda.

No its not the be all and end all...and it would be for all. But it needs to be explored as a viable avenue of player tranfers.

too much has changed in our sports....lets not change a thing..too many things are changing in AFL and it is just starting to become good (on the field) like it was 10-15 years ago. anyway, isnt the salary caps and trading rules there to help out the little clubs like us?

Keep in mind...its a job...and in many ways very unfair restraints are being placed upon these careers.

You cant stick your head in the sand and pretend there arent needs and issues yet to be dealt with.

what i dont understand is that a player can get any conditions he wants by saying, at the end of the contract, i dont want to resign i want to go to another club. they can then set the conditions of their contract and go into the psd can they not? or they could be traded the same way aker, judd and messen have been (along with plenty of other) in the past few years.

FA will mean that clubs do not get anything in return for players, so while it may be fairer for the players, it goes against the evenness of our competition...

what i dont understand is that a player can get any conditions he wants by saying, at the end of the contract, i dont want to resign i want to go to another club. they can then set the conditions of their contract and go into the psd can they not? or they could be traded the same way aker, judd and messen have been (along with plenty of other) in the past few years.

FA will mean that clubs do not get anything in return for players, so while it may be fairer for the players, it goes against the evenness of our competition...

well put

and its even now ?

its not even now, but FA makes it less even. now the situation is you draft a player, and that player is an asset of the club. if you want them to move on you can trade them and get more assets in returns (picks or players). ok sometimes you lose the player for nothing in the psd. but only if the player is a [censored]...

the whole set up of the salary cap, the draft, trading etc is there to ensure clubs are even. and have a look, clubs are even. last year we were touted as top 4. injuries made us bottom. geelong were crap last year, but with effectively the same list won the premiership. the difference between 1 and 16 is as small as it has ever been. a few injuries, a bit of luck. extra money spent off the field on staff and facilities. the quality of your recruiting dept. are the things that make all the difference these days...

and that player is an asset of the club. ..

Now this cuts to the core of the issue.. Who is entitled to own the destiny of a player ?? Can sport usurp the common law right of self determination within the workplace ? This very murky ground. No matter what you want to or indeed do insert into a contract it cant over-rule any inalienable right that occurs at a superior level of law. I feel Sport ( and in particular AFL ) is about to be sorely tested on this.

A player is only an assett in the true sense in so far as he allows the club the use of his talent, beyond that it stops. So he's not a common assett in the normal sense.. he's a special assett by agreement.

if you hire a piece of plant...its an asset to your business in the course of whatever it is you do but its ownership remains with whoever hired it to you. I see players very much like this.. except in this instance the Plant and Leasor are the same !!

its interesting isnt it.

you know what though? the sports that operate like we are have more feeling in them, than those that dont (rugyb league, international soccer). ok it might restrict some players making a bit of extra cash but i think the competition is more important than a player. they make money only because of the competition being there. to me sport is different than work. even though for these players it is their work, i think it should be regarded as 'they get paid to play football' not that "they play football to get payed". its a fine distinction but i am sure you know what i am getting at...

I understand why the players want this.

It would be good if some draft compensation for the club losing the player could be included. I know this means it's a trade and that's what we've got now. I'm thinking something along the Judd-lines where an out of contract player with 6 years experience nominates the club of his choice, that club then has to provide a draft pick to compensate.

Not sure how to set the value of the pick - the way it worked for the F/S this year was good where the acquiring team had to provide their next available pick after other team's best bid. This would not work in the FA case because the point is that the player wants to end up at the club of his choice.

The current club is really the alternative bidder, one option could be that the player's current club has to match the contract on offer from the preferred club and offer a pick they are prepared to forfeit (not trade - the preferred club should not benefit) to keep the player, then the preferred club has to match that pick in a trade to the current club. It's not ideal but at least there's some compensation.

The current club is really the alternative bidder, one option could be that the player's current club has to match the contract on offer from the preferred club and offer a pick they are prepared to forfeit (not trade - the preferred club should not benefit) to keep the player, then the preferred club has to match that pick in a trade to the current club. It's not ideal but at least there's some compensation.

interesting but that makes it similar to the nba system whereby you can keep whatever player you want by matching the other offer...its not really free agency if the current club can force the player to stay...

Now this cuts to the core of the issue.. Who is entitled to own the destiny of a player ?? Can sport usurp the common law right of self determination within the workplace ?

The simple answer would be to say that the player is actually an employee of the AFL and not the club itself, therefore he will play within a side chosen by the rules dictated by them. In a sense, players would be leased from the AFL, rather than being "owned" by the clubs. I don't see why this couldn't be the case, as it currently is "assets" such as club logos and merchandising rights are already owned by the AFL. This wouldn't really be any different.

The most frustrating thing about the whole Judd saga was that it looked like he was going to choose Collingwood, and the rich would get richer. In the end he chose Carlton because they were able to provide him the most attractive salary package. Why? Because it would seem Dick Pratt's paying him and his lovely girlfriend in ways other than through the footy club, thus circumventing the salary cap. The salary cap is chock-a-block full of loopholes that the rich clubs can exploit, and the poor clubs, like us, can't.

In FA, we would just see more and more of this. All the best players flock to one club and all the poor clubs rot. You see it happen in grassroots footy as well.

interesting but that makes it similar to the nba system whereby you can keep whatever player you want by matching the other offer...its not really free agency if the current club can force the player to stay...

I'm suggesting that if the acquiring club matches the current club's draft pick (forfeit) then it gains the player and trades the pick to the current club. The current club can only retain the player by matching the contract and making a (forfeit) draft pick bid that the acquiring club refuses to match. In the Judd case WC would make the bid a first round pick, Carlton would have to match that (with pick 3). That's a lot better than losing Judd for nothing which is what would happen under true FA. Judd would only stay at WC if Carlton refused to trade a 1st round pick to WC. WC have to offer the same contract terms as Carlton, say $6m over 5 years. In that case WC would have to forfeit (not give to Carlton) it's pick 13 to retain Judd. In most cases the player would go, which is fair, but some compensation would be paid.

old, using your example, had WCE offered their first round pick and carlton didnt match it, WCE would forfeit their first round pick to retain a player they have already drafted. They then will have to pay them exorbitant prices to retain them if they stay and have demanded it. does judd have a right of refusal after all this where he can leave and take the PSD option? or is he compelled to stay at WCE? and is the player free to choose who to go to? or can any club bid, ie if he had chosen collingwood, could carlton have trumped them with the lower pick like in the f/s? or does it become a bidding war between the current club and one other club?

what this also does it restricts the trade of FA to only 1 draft pick, and leaves trading players out of the equation...

old, using your example, had WCE offered their first round pick and carlton didnt match it, WCE would forfeit their first round pick to retain a player they have already drafted. They then will have to pay them exorbitant prices to retain them if they stay and have demanded it. does judd have a right of refusal after all this where he can leave and take the PSD option? or is he compelled to stay at WCE? and is the player free to choose who to go to? or can any club bid, ie if he had chosen collingwood, could carlton have trumped them with the lower pick like in the f/s? or does it become a bidding war between the current club and one other club?

what this also does it restricts the trade of FA to only 1 draft pick, and leaves trading players out of the equation...

The player chooses the club they want to go to and the bidding is only with that club. WC have got the choice - make a bid to keep him and match the contract terms, if they refuse to meet the terms then they lose the player to the other club for nothing but the other club has to pay the terms - standard FA. It's WC choice - if they want to retain the player they have at least some leverage and if they fail they get some compensation. One pick for a player is better than none - very few players are worth multiple picks anyway.

Trading would still happen for contracted players like the Johnstone deal and for players with less than 6 years.

what if the issue wasnt contractural? what if judd had wanted to leave the club for personal reasons ie didnt like the coach, or the culture? money is then not an issue, but according to FA he should be allowed to leave. if WCE offered to match whatever the terms were (and why wouldnt you, judd is the best player in the comp) is there anyway for judd to say, no i dont want to play with you?

what if the issue wasnt contractural? what if judd had wanted to leave the club for personal reasons ie didnt like the coach, or the culture? money is then not an issue, but according to FA he should be allowed to leave. if WCE offered to match whatever the terms were (and why wouldnt you, judd is the best player in the comp) is there anyway for judd to say, no i dont want to play with you?

Perhaps you could then introduce an "any club but the one I'm at" clause, i.e. he doesn't nominate a club and it's up to the highest bidder. Then it's starting to just become like the PSD though.

what if the issue wasnt contractural? what if judd had wanted to leave the club for personal reasons ie didnt like the coach, or the culture? money is then not an issue, but according to FA he should be allowed to leave. if WCE offered to match whatever the terms were (and why wouldnt you, judd is the best player in the comp) is there anyway for judd to say, no i dont want to play with you?

Yes, if the club of his choice offers a matching draft pick then he moves - simple, it doesn't matter what the reason is.

Yes, if the club of his choice offers a matching draft pick then he moves - simple, it doesn't matter what the reason is.

I agree that the reason matters not...only the desire to move on.

Like much in life... we ,I suggest, will see a compromise type solution. Somewhere between where it is now and true free agency , which whilst probably entitled to ( by a player ) w ould unravel everything. Its murky isnt it ..lol

I agree that the reason matters not...only the desire to move on.

Like much in life... we ,I suggest, will see a compromise type solution. Somewhere between where it is now and true free agency , which whilst probably entitled to ( by a player ) w ould unravel everything. Its murky isnt it ..lol

sure is...if it improved our draft system and stopped tanking maybe it's a good idea

Yes, if the club of his choice offers a matching draft pick then he moves - simple, it doesn't matter what the reason is.

sorry i think i wrote that badly. what if the draft pick was matched by his current club? is he forced to stay or does the player have the second chance of leaving and going into the draft where the original club still gets nothing? if thats the case there will be a balancing act where if a club names too high a price they could well lose him for nothing...and if thats not the case, the player could be forced to stay with his current club because they were willing to pay for him.