It’s time to abolish restricted free agency compensation

[RUNVS]

The other reason Free Agency compo needs to be abolished:

Example 1:

Lynch exercises his free agency right to leave the Gold Coast.

AFL compensation is Pick 3 or whatever it is because Gold Coast are crap. Gold Coast accept the compo, knowing Richmond can't do any better than that and Richmond don't give up anything except cap space for Lynch.

All clubs get pushed down the draft order due to the compo pick.

Example 2:

Jeremy Cameron exercises his free agency right to leave GWS.

AFL compensation pick is Pick 10 or so, because GWS had a better year. GWS know they can squeeze Geelong for a bit more, so they match the bid and Geelong pay stacks more for Cameron than Richmond do for Lynch.

No clubs (other than Geelong) are affected in the draft because GWS take Geelongs pick.

That's not to say that Geelong didn't pay fair value (they did), but that Richmond paid nothing and all other clubs got shuffled down the order, shafts everyone except Richmond and Gold Coast.

GWS couldn't match bids for Cameron as they had to overpay their other players to stop them from leaving.

 

[ferrisb]

Need to get the new rules put in before North get pick 3 for McKay.

Then we can revert back to the old rules when a more worthy team benefits.

That's fair (sort of). A lot of fans rail against the system when it doesn't suit them, BUT....

This seems to be one area that a wide group of fans seems to think is unfair (and have for years).

Another example is father-sons that qualify for NGA. As if a kid whose father played 100+ games would be lost to the sport without the NGA pathway.

IF Carlton got access to a player like that, I would happily call BS.

 

[TheCatStevensExperience]

GWS couldn't match bids for Cameron as they had to overpay their other players to stop them from leaving.

But they did match the bid to force Geelong to trade.

Geelong could have called their bluff, let them match and blow up their cap, but they didn't

 

[theasian]

Bring in mechansims to allow rebuilding clubs to get back to the top quickly, the Compo will go.

Otherwise it will remain.

 

[Daka]

The clubs like the Suns & GWS and Tasmania when they come in would be absolutely ravaged if compenstation didn't exist, you have to look at this unbiased.

It's the reason the draft lottery would not work in our game Imagine Hawthorn a bottom 4 side got the number #1 pick over West Coast & North Melbourne.

The Hawks are way more advanced.

 

[Nugett]

Everyone complaints about it but the real issue is the receiving club getting a free hit. The team who gets the compo is usually terrible and I can’t remember any examples of a dynasty built on the back of the compo.

It’s a quasi priority pick & gives the AFL the excuse to play their favourite game, changing the rules behind closed doors.

Buddy Franklin left after winning a premiership. How ever the high profile ones never leave for a crap team.

 

[Nugett]

GWS couldn't match bids for Cameron as they had to overpay their other players to stop them from leaving.

But they did match the Cameron bid, GWS got three firsts from Geelong By matching the bid.

 

[Toump Ass]

Gold Coast have a terrible record of attracting talent to their club.

That’s because they’ve been a bloody rabble.

They targetted horrible players, hired rubbish coaches (Rocket Eade, what a laugh. Remember when he wheeled out the grandkids to cover for a loss in a press conference?).

Sign a decent coach who gets the best out of King, Miller, Anderson, Rowell etc and they’ll have no trouble attracting talent. None at all.

Lions were complaining about retaining talent when Leppa was assaulting the players, go home five etc. Now their two best midfielders are recruits, along with Joey D, McKenna, probably forgetting some others.

Same with every poor club.

 

[Crankyhawk]

They get cap space in return..... same as all teams. The reward they get for being a bottom team is higher draft picks that year.

Some clubs can’t use cap space (when they have spud team that doesn’t deserve cap floor)

 

[harper2bastinac]

So you think North deserves the same compensation?

FFS, McKay is a plodder, on the open market he'd be worth a 3rd rounder

Get your hand of it

Well they’re the rules and if someone’s willing to pay him 800k then so be it, he’s not the first to be overpaid just for free agency compo.

 

[Purple Suit]

Buddy Franklin left after winning a premiership. How ever the high profile ones never leave for a crap team.

Buddy is proof they can, but the movement is not the discussion, it's the compo pick. The pick the Hawks got for Buddy was traded and turned into Billy Hartung & Jonathon Ceglar (i think). No one was complaining at the time except Hawks fans.

 

[TheCatStevensExperience]

Also think of Gold Coast losing Tom Lynch to, at the time, the best team in the competition.

They got pick 3 in compensation, which while still probably not enough was at least something.

I am sure there will be people on this thread saying "well the freed up cap is compensation enough" but in reality that cap space would be useless for Gold Coast as all it would mean is having to pay their current players more in order to reach the minimum salary cap. Gold Coast have a terrible record of attracting talent to their club and odds are they would not have been able to use that cap space to attract anyone else.

So all that would have happened was you removing the most important player in one of the worst teams and handing said player to the best team in the competition. Not only would it not be fair but it would make the competition worse as you would make the gap between the best teams and the worst teams even greater.

It's not so much what it did for Gold Coast so much as the free hit it gave Richmond.

If compo is to be retained, receiving clubs should have to give up something of value.

 

[Saab NLAW]

Well they’re the rules and if someone’s willing to pay him 800k then so be it, he’s not the first to be overpaid just for free agency compo.

Actually, it's not the rules at all because no one will pay a plodder $800k

Delusional

 

[harper2bastinac]

Actually, it's not the rules at all because no one will pay a plodder $800k

Delusional

How am I delusional when there’s been rumours that essendon is one team looking at paying him that much?

 

[Saab NLAW]

How am I delusional when there’s been rumours that essendon is one team looking at paying him that much?

Rumours lol

 

[jim boy]

Some clubs can’t use cap space (when they have spud team that doesn’t deserve cap floor)

Even so - I'd rather see compensation in the form of the losing club getting a bump in their salary cap. That way they can offer over-the-odds to a player from another team without condemning some poor kid to join a shit-show of a team.

 

[catstragic]

Some clubs can’t use cap space (when they have spud team that doesn’t deserve cap floor)

If you've got a shitty list it allows theoretically you to front load existing players and free up cap space for big swings later down the track.

 

[harper2bastinac]

Rumours lol

Well wait until it happens then come back to me

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Actually, it's not the rules at all because no one will pay a plodder $800k

Delusional

How am I delusional when there’s been rumours that essendon is one team looking at paying him that much?

There are no rules around free agency compensation. The AFL simply apply whatever they like to each situation.

No matter what McKay is offered, North will get a top 3 pick because it’s the AFL’s way of giving them a priority pick by stealth. Just as they did when James Frawley left Melbourne.

There’s no rules in place to stop it - they just do whatever they like.

 

[ZEV]

Please name all the players you can think of in the last decade who were a top player in a top team who went to a bottom team for extra money?

Dale Thomas?

 

[big_e]

There are no rules around free agency compensation. The AFL simply apply whatever they like to each situation.

No matter what McKay is offered, North will get a top 3 pick because it’s the AFL’s way of giving them a priority pick by stealth. Just as they did when James Frawley left Melbourne.

There’s no rules in place to stop it - they just do whatever they like.

There are rules.

Free Agency - AFL.com.au

Australian Football League. All the latest AFL news, video, results and information

www.afl.com.au

 

[Crankyhawk]

If you've got a shitty list it allows theoretically you to front load existing players and free up cap space for big swings later down the track.

Not sure it works that well (have a sense though no evidence that after the front load years players often leave or performance drops)

 

[Underarm]

Dale Thomas?

After Finals Carlton finished higher than Collingwood that year.

 

[sexyhunk]

Tell me what hawthorn could have offered you that was the equivalent of pick 3, they would have refused to trade anyone worth it and their first rounders in 2014 and 2015 would have been 2x pick 18s

nothing, he was a free agent. thats how the system should be.

 

[ZEV]

After Finals Carlton finished higher than Collingwood that year.

Fair point, but Pies had been around the top 4 since 2007.

When Daisy was at Carlton they finished 13th, 18th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 16th.

Weitering and Walsh came from somewhere.