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dogwatch
Premium Platinum
A lot of stuff that happens every day in Australia may not be allowed under law. It just needs someone to challenge it in the courts. As we know justice is a facility more available to rich individuals and to well-resourced companies so a lot of the time the bluff works. It'd be an interesting test case if it came to a challenge.I'm actually surprised this is allowed under Australian law.
I understand why the AFL would require it. They fork out a lot of money supporting clubs and it's a bad look for the AFL and the club (as well as just bad business) to see a few million of that just walk out the door because the club made some poor contract decisions. This is especially true of clubs going through a basket-case phase where they have sustained poor results both on-field and in their finances - the two often go together. If the AFL digs into its pockets to help them out then it doesn't want to see a lot of that money go down the gurgler on a coach sacking.
I wonder whether the AFL has insisted all clubs insert a 6-months maximum payout clause in the senior coach contracts? If so, it wouldn't leave the sacked coach much legal ground to challenge.