LEIGH Matthews' support of the AFL Players' Association's push for a significant increase in their salaries in ongoing negotiations with the AFL in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement (2012-2016) gained significant prominence in The Sunday Age (after it had been reported on Saturday on afl.com.au).
Matthews made his comments in a vigorous pre-game discussion on 3AW on Saturday, with his most provocative line being his reference to players as 'serfs'.
He said: "… what I sense at the moment, the serfs are fighting back, and head office doesn't like it because they have been able to keep the players under control.
"They (the AFL) have got the salary cap, that keeps your player payments to a manageable level."
The Matthews' view is that players have been underpaid for much of the last decade, a view he expressed using his panel-mate Matthew Richardson as an example: "You probably should have go 20 per cent more and players of the last decade should have got 20 per cent more; because you haven't got the money, which is why the game has got the money."
Media Watch can only imagine what AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou makes of this emotive stuff.
Demetriou is the man who set the AFLPA on its way in the late nineties, and negotiated the essence of the deal that continues today.
The Demetriou-Wayne Jackson (as AFL CEO) deal, consummated in 1998, has taken the average salary of a player (in 1998) from $101,957 to the 2010 figure of $226,165 (listed player average) and $249,239 (played at least one game, average).
This deal had its critics within the AFL in that era, in that it was claimed by some that it gave the players too much, and left too little for the game, the fans, and in particular, for the clubs. This criticism was made public in sad circumstances at the service celebrating the life of the Jill Lindsay, back in February.
In his eulogy, Demetriou recalled his first meeting with the redoubtable Lindsay in his first days as football operations manager in early 2000. She came into his office, said Demetriou, and let fly: "You’re the bloke who has (expletive deleted) the AFL." Lindsay was not alone in her thinking. Her view was that the players had received too much, too soon.
Richardson's stellar 282-game career with Richmond extended from 1993 to 2009. In 1993, the total payment available to the 15 clubs was $26.2 million. At the end of his career it had increased five-fold to $123.1 million plus a marketing allowance of $8.6 million ($537,000 per club). In 1993, there was one player in the salary range of $200,000-$300,000; in 2009, there were 151 in that range, with 151 earning between $300,000 and $1,000,000.
Of course much changed in that period - players became total professionals, working out at their club at least six days a week, and clubs became even more professional, adding hugely to their football departments. Added too, were big multiples in membership departments, and commercial departments - professional fund-raisers in one form or the other. And, TV rights, courtesy of a death-bed decision by Kerry Packer, have given the game unprecedented wealth.
In that same period, many clubs have been to their members seeking to stay afloat. In 1996, Fitzroy folded into Brisbane and Hawthorn and Melbourne flirted with mergers. The now well-resourced Geelong was all but broke at the start of the 2000s; the Western Bulldogs, St Kilda, North Melbourne, Richmond, Port Adelaide and Melbourne have faced down debt - not through the largesse that flows from the AFL, and its massive TV rights deals, but from the generosity of fans, and lending institutions. Even Collingwood had periods in the pre-McGuire period, in which disaster was just an aggro bank manager away.
So, the whole negotiation is far more complex than discussions about masters and serfs. The game and its relationship with the fans must be the first conversation, followed by equity and security for clubs, issues the AFLPA understands well.
Once these issues are resolved, the players need to be remunerated fairly, while understanding the pot is large and has many ingredients, all needing fine amounts of seasoning.
It's not enough for the players and the AFLPA to see themselves as the sole reason for the strength of the game. Success comes via many masters and many serfs, not just those on the field.
In the Richo era, all parts of the game have accelerated marvellously, starting (as with any elite sport) with hugely talented players. Professionalism gave them opportunity to practise their skills, then come the extras that have helped those become so much better, more efficient and exciting than ever before. Add dozens of specialised coaches, and superb facilities and support.
Attendances grew, as fans revelled in beautiful exhibitions in modern stadia, then TV executives wanted more of these highly competitive displays (a direct consequence of the draft and salary cap), adding more money flowing freely into the game, which continues to get better, and better and better. A beautiful circle.
Well managed, as it has been, the circle of strength can only get bigger and bigger and bigger, with all inside it flourishing - especially the players.
An AFL team in Tasmania?
Tasmanian-born Tim Lane, broadcaster and Sunday Age columnist has long been a spruiker for an AFL club for his home state, but his weekly column had more to do with despair at the island's north-south divide.
He wrote of North Melbourne's decision (in concert with the AFL and the Tasmanian Government) to play two games in Hobart: "Hobart has thus emerged as a last oasis for a money-parched North Melbourne".
He noted that it was inconceivable that North Melbourne could be a team that was Tasmania's team, should relocation ever take place: "…it's hard to see how a relocated North Melbourne could ever be the team of the whole of Tasmania. It is now a symbol of the south and also a symbol of division. The state whose great hope of unification lay with football, now stands to be hopelessly divided by it."
Get tougher, son
Jon Ralph, in the Sunday Herald Sun, revealed that Carlton midfielder Marc Murphy's superb 2011 season could well have had its genesis during a no-holds-barred session - led by Leading Teams - with his teammates last season.
The review by his peers was honest, and if taken the wrong way, brutal. Murphy told Ralph: "Last year they told me they wanted me to be a bit harder at the ball.
"I took it on board, but I wasn't too happy when I got told that at first.
"That's the idea of Leading Teams - to make yourself better. You hear it from four or five blokes and it makes a big impact."
Murphy is leading the AFL Coaches' Award with 54 votes, head of his captain Chris Judd (46), and West Coast's Dean Cox (44) and Sydney's Ryan O'Keefe (44).
Geoff Slattery is the Managing Editor of AFL Media
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
