No

Spare me the arguments about how much more sportsmen in international codes earn, and let's not get caught up in the AFLPA's push for players to get a fixed percentage of AFL revenue.
 
Just ask yourself this – are the players fairly paid for careers that most suburban footballers would give their dodgy kicking leg for? Given each club's salary cap was set at $10.07 million this year, with an average wage of more than $300,000 for senior-listed players, the simple answer is yes.
 
Players have also enjoyed healthy pay rises under collective bargaining agreements with the AFL – total player payments (TPP) will increase by about 24 per cent over the life of the 2012-16 CBA – so there's no need for the next CBA to introduce a drastically new remuneration formula.
 
The players also need to remember that other key stakeholders desperately need their fair share of the AFL's riches.
 
For starters, the clubs.
 
Equalisation is one of the most pressing issues for the competition. No one wants the AFL to become Australia's version of the English Premier League, where only a handful of cashed-up clubs enter the season with a realistic chance of winning the championship.
 
The AFL must preserve the necessary funds to ensure smaller clubs like the Brisbane Lions, Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne, and expansion clubs Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, can compete with powerhouses like Collingwood, Hawthorn and West Coast.
 
Especially when bigger clubs such as the Magpies and Hawks continue to rail against 'contributing' their own funds to the equalisation cause.
 
The AFL also needs to redouble its commitment to community football, especially at the junior level. To slacken off here while soccer's appeal continues to grow among an impressionable new generation would be negligent.
 
Then there's the need to invest appropriately in the forthcoming national women's league, an overdue venture that has to be a priority for the League.
 
None of the above is meant to detract from the players' pivotal role in the AFL.
 
There would be no 'show' without them. They fearlessly put their bodies on the line for our entertainment week in, week out.
 
But they are already handsomely paid for their efforts and the inherent risks of their chosen profession. - Nick Bowen
 
Yes
 
League football is bloody hard.
 
It takes the best years of a young man's life and extracts a huge physical and mental toll. Meetings, training, testing, travel and still more meetings. Every meal, every minute of sleep gets recorded on a database, for about 50 weeks a year. Then, and only then, comes the fun stuff…you know, the games.
 
It's like the line from 1980s rock band The Police: "Every move you make, every step you take, I'll be watching you..."
 
Pursuits such as skiing – snow and water - are out of the question, as is pretty much every other form of physically taxing recreation. Don't even think about mucking around in any sort of vehicle that has an engine and goes fast.
 
And we haven’t even started on dietary restrictions.
 
AFL footy requires a relentless, demanding and disciplined lifestyle and yes, nobody is forced against their will to play the game at the highest level, but it doesn't leave room for much else.
 
Forget getting a degree. The mandatory one day off per week was a hard-won entitlement by the players but in practical terms, allows them enough time to get through just one university subject per semester and perhaps two if they are really bright, driven and organised. Get seriously injured and they'll likely need to ditch the studies altogether because of the demands of rehabilitation.
 
A player could play for 10 years, study part-time and still be eons away from a qualification by the end of their career.
 
Nor does full-time football allow a player enough time to fully learn a trade.
 
So what is a player to do with his life once he finishes playing? Coaching and the media offer a handful of positions, but far fewer than there are newly-retired players at the end of a season. Bush and suburban footy pay some good money, but rarely enough to live on.
 
Retired League footballers often find themselves at age 30 asking the same question of themselves as the rest of us did 10 years before that about what to do with the rest of their lives.
 
So don't blame the players for driving a hard bargain and extracting every cent they can for themselves when the next Collective Bargaining Agreement is negotiated. They deserve every encouragement to do so.
 
Many of them only have a window of a few years to make seriously good money before their earning capacity is reduced and in some cases, is over.
 
They put on the show, so it is incumbent on the game to give them the dough. - Ashley Browne