The AFL Commission today met with Club Presidents / Chairman around the topic of Equalisation. Please find attached the speaking notes by AFL Commission Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick -
The AFL Commission and Executive today met with the Club Presidents and Chairmen to discuss the key issue of equalisation in our game.
As a general overview, I wish to say that the submissions we received from clubs were of high quality. Today, with everybody from the competition in the one room, we did re-confirm as an industry and a sporting code that we agree more than we disagree.
The clubs and the Commission again agreed today on the Core aims of Equalisation.
Competitive balance is critical to the competition and code
Fans should expect that their Club will be competitive on any given day
We agree on core pillars – draft and salary cap
Not all Clubs are or should be equal
Support for disequal funding of smaller Clubs
As part of that discussion, there are key points that are critical to the financial inequality that currently exists in our competition:
The Fixture – a commercial fixture drives overall growth, but advantages some Clubs at the expense of others
Stadium deals – some Clubs play out of ‘right sized’ stadium with better deals than others
State Markets – we have large, heartland Clubs and others forging ground for the code in emerging and more competitive markets
Decision making – some Clubs have made better decisions than others and some can afford to take risks that others cannot
The key questions we debated today as a group were:
How do we achieve competitive balance and what are the next steps to be taken?
The acquisition of Etihad Stadium can be a key part of the overall solution, but only if a commercially sound transaction can be reached.
Opportunities exist around centralising revenue, but these may not be enough to address equalisation by themselves.
We discussed various ideas around spending caps, but it must be said there is a wide variance of views on this topic in particular.
As a summary as Commission Chairman, I must say that I am extremely pleased that the entire industry is able to come together today – Presidents, Chairman, CEOs of all clubs and the Commission and the AFL Executive – to debate key issues for the long-term security of the game.
The united view around the room from all clubs makes our competition extremely strong to continue to prosper into the future.
From here, our aim is to have recommendations due end by our next meeting with club Presidents in September this year.
ends
Patrick Keane
AFL Media Manager
