The Go Home Factor: Weak AFL Players

[Footy 1st]

Young guys left non-mining states for 'big money' in the mining states.. choice... they didn't even train all their childhood to be the amongst the best...the good ones stuck it out...the weak ones went home.. unless you're still breastfeeding then do your time playing the sport you "love" in whatever state u end up in, take the cash, enjoy the code then move home if necessary.

 

[blitzer]

I don't really agree with this thread except in so far as removing the PSD is a good idea. Definitely not required and is only ever used by bottom clubs as a bargaining tool to get a player on the cheap or threaten to in order to reduce the trade value of players.

The 3 year initial contract thing - i'm a bit meh about. I don't particularly want it but nor am I strongly against it. I actually sympathise with kids who go to a club they hate and they are stuck their for that long initially. I personally think the go home choice is a perfectly valid choice. How can it be OK for players to leave for more money or premiership success but its not OK if they leave to go home to their friends and family? Seems a bit silly to me. I suspect if we had the right compensation measures and trading systems in place then we would find that people would stop caring about players leaving.

Not a fan of increasing draft age. We will lose talent to other sports and some players are more than ready already at that age. Not to mention the short term perspective of even more compromised drafts in order to increase the draft age. Plus is introducing a 'gap year' really that great for potential draftees. You finish highschool and instead of going straight into the AFL you might start a year of a degree or start a job all the while just waiting for your chance to go into a draft you were probably ready to do last year. Plus from a development side of things delaying the entry into the AFL system may be quite bad for some kids depending on their backgrounds.

 

[Augustine]

Anyone saying playing afl isnt attratctive seriously what the ****. I would PAY to be an AFL player

 

[manboob]

So your expectation is that because a person has moved and accepted a contract they are bound forever to that club?

You do realise that the players that request a move back home are often out of contract thus fufilling their obligation to their contract .

Wages doesn't come into it , if the person is unhappy with the state/club/culture then they have the right to move if they like.

they aren't slaves

Oh no you didn't compare footballing contracts to slavery did you. That makes you a dirty racist. How dare you compare the two!

 

[manboob]

I don't really agree with this thread except in so far as removing the PSD is a good idea. Definitely not required and is only ever used by bottom clubs as a bargaining tool to get a player on the cheap or threaten to in order to reduce the trade value of players.

Plus 1. Just keep the draft going until all the list spots are filled.

 

[Catastic82]

Young guys left non-mining states for 'big money' in the mining states.. choice... they didn't even train all their childhood to be the amongst the best...the good ones stuck it out...the weak ones went home.. unless you're still breastfeeding then do your time playing the sport you "love" in whatever state u end up in, take the cash, enjoy the code then move home if necessary.

Aren't you tough

 

[Gravity]

My assorted thoughts.

19 or so is better than 17 as a drafting age. For everyone. The clubs have a better idea what the player will be like, the kid is at least old enough to have done some full time work and should be a lot more mature than they were at 17.

I'm happy with two year contracts, if they don't want to hang around for two years, dragging it out to three is probably just going to make it more painful. In saying that, I have very little sympathy for players who want to leave early. Police, teachers, fireies etc have to move where they're told for the first four years or so for 60k a year. As a young kid with piles of money and bugger all expenses you can probably afford to fly your mum or your mates up every weekend anyway if it's really that important to you.

It's really not the same thing saying people can change employers in the real world easily so these guys should be able to whenever they want too. The real world employer can offer you more to stay if they want. And they can hire someone else straight away, who theoretically is likely to be just as good at their job as you are. You don't get another company saying 'Well we'll give you this bloke who's not as good or maybe the option to get a lower rated new guy next year'... Which is effectively what happens in the AFL.

 

[manboob]

Can you please stop making comparisons to other professions and how much they get paid. It's completely irrelevant.

 

[Crankyhawk]

So your expectation is that because a person has moved and accepted a contract they are bound forever to that club?

You do realise that the players that request a move back home are often out of contract thus fufilling their obligation to their contract .

Wages doesn't come into it , if the person is unhappy with the state/club/culture then they have the right to move if they like.

they aren't slaves

A lot of those playing homesick card are still in contract eg McCarthy. I have some sympathy if out of contract but one can always just refuse to sign and take your chance as a delisted free agent.

 

[Footy 1st]

Aren't you tough

What's your point mate? This isn't about me being tough, contribute to the discussion or 'go home'

 

[Crankyhawk]

Can you please stop making comparisons to other professions and how much they get paid. It's completely irrelevant.

Why is it irrelevant? You want good money to play this game this is what you choose to agree to, the chance of being sent interstate.

 

[Footy 1st]

Can you please stop making comparisons to other professions and how much they get paid. It's completely irrelevant.

Why? Are young, enthusiatic, talented footballers that dream of playing AFL as opposed to other vocations more qualified to choose their prospective job location than us plebs? Signing up to play in a national comp would suggest it's 'national'. Its still a choice at the beginning...a couple hundred thousand a year doing what I love would see me move anywhere

 

[telsor]

Put the claws away mate it was a joke.

Turn your focus to winning a final for once and leave us "lesser clubs" alone.

A joke that was based on truth.

The whole 'go home' issue is based on a very limited view sorted out to serve the AFLs interest in propping up the northern clubs.

 

[manboob]

Why? Are young, enthusiatic, talented footballers that dream of playing AFL as opposed to other vocations more qualified to choose their prospective job location than us plebs? Signing up to play in a national comp would suggest it's 'national'. Its still a choice at the beginning...a couple hundred thousand a year doing what I love would see me move anywhere

Well yeah they are. By the very virtue of the talent they have that we don't. In the AFL market with it's mechanisms for player movement that goes double.

 

[AstonSouffle]

Think people are underestimating just how much growth there is in someone mentally when going from 18 to 19.

I've thought a few times that there's plenty of scope to utilise the talent pool we already have by not throwing under prepared kids in.

However, can certain players of certain backgrounds take that year off? Or will they be lost to the game forever? Or will they just continue in the state leagues another year as perhaps another test of their skill, raising the talent there and perhaps allow drafting to become more precise?

 

[Sea Bird]

To be honest, the sense I get is 'go home' is mostly a euphemism that is used to mask other reasons such as:

1. I don't like a particular person / people at the club
2. I don't like the environment at the club (be that lack of success, small crowds, is there too high a profile, extenuating circumstances, etc)
3. I've been offered more money elsewhere

I'm sure players do move for genuine family reasons; however, do feel that the term 'go home', is often a more amenable way of explaining to the fans why a (desired /wanted) player is moving on.

With that being said, those solutions put forth in the OP seem to reduce the opportunities to move; which might help. However, I don't think this a 'mummies boy' issue and probably still doesn't address that the more talented players will have greater bargaining power over their future as 17 other clubs will be willing to bid for their services

 

[LightTower4]

Is part of this related to more young adults these days staying at home till they are well into their 20's?
Not to be derogatory, and it is maybe the way kids are raised these days where disipline for misdemeanours during adolescence seems to have disappeared and replaced with trying to blame someone else, but 18 year olds in 2015 are a lot softer than what they were 30-40 years ago.
Not trying to turn this into a generational debate but in my day we were expected to move out of the family home soon after leaving school and getting a job.

 

[LoungeLizard]

I wonder what everyone would think if 10 of the best kids in the country all wanted to go to last years premiers, all covering their aging stars?

 

[RelaxMax]

I wonder what everyone would think if 10 of the best kids in the country all wanted to go to last years premiers, all covering their aging stars?

I'd be ok with that

 

[LoungeLizard]

I'd be ok with that

Would you though? I'm talking down the track.
What if 3 of them were your players and say they wanted to go home to Sydney.

 

[RelaxMax]

Would you though? I'm talking down the track.
What if 3 of them were your players and say they wanted to go home to Sydney.

I see what you're saying...

Ok how's this

I'm ok with hypothetical situations that work in my favour

 

[Pessimistic]

Is the father son rule soft too ?

Many things would go against the op suggestion if tested by courts.

But lets use mining or resources industry where youngsters often live away from home.

If the employee has a choice of companies, they can have some control on where they are asked to go, and as they become more competent, they get more choice, maybe after 3-5 years

What if a cleanskin player is drafted to a club with a widespread drug culture ? It has happened

 

[1970crow]

What makes a football player different to any other professional outside of a sporting industry?

The OP seems slightly unhinged.

You've got it ass about there. They are the same, that's the point. Does the teller at your local Westpac branch get to demand a transfer to another city? What about your country police, just demand to move back to the big smoke? Nope. You join, you get posted wherever they choose. Comes with the job.

 

[Kwality]

Oh no you didn't compare footballing contracts to slavery did you. That makes you a dirty racist. How dare you compare the two!

Why a racist? Disagree any time but to try to put a racial overtone on that view is ignorant & downplays any other racial issue.

 

[Sultan]

You've got it ass about there. They are the same, that's the point. Does the teller at your local Westpac branch get to demand a transfer to another city? What about your country police, just demand to move back to the big smoke? Nope. You join, you get posted wherever they choose. Comes with the job.

That is why I referred to professionals.

Police transfer all the time.