I'VE GOT to admit I felt a strange touch of sadness when Tom Scully's defection to Greater Western Sydney was confirmed on Monday.
 
It was sad for the spirit of footy, more so than when Gary Ablett went to Gold Coast because Scully is a 20-year-old for whom a struggling Melbourne had such high hopes. And he was such a sizeable draft investment.

Yet at the same time I understood it was a huge positive for the business of the sport.

Certainly, it was a moment that highlights the conflict between the emotional and practical sides of everything involved with the AFL.

And it reminded me of a couple of the enduring principles of elite sport: that there is usually short-term pain for long-term gain, and that for every action there is an inevitable consequence.

Those of us who love our footy understand and appreciate the importance of growing the game's foothold in the non-AFL markets of southeast Queensland and Sydney.

It is a worthwhile if ambitious project, then, to establish two new clubs so as to be able to have a live game of top-level AFL football each weekend of the season in both markets.

The problem with the pain for gain theory, particularly in this expansion project, is that the pain is not shared equally among the existing clubs.

For instance already Adelaide has lost Nathan Bock, its established centre half-back, and Phil Davis, their developing centre half-back. The Brisbane Lions are minus Michael Rischitelli and Jared Brennan.

And now Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs and Fremantle have lost players they hoped would have been their next-generation stars - Scully, Callan Ward and Rhys Palmer.

Yes, Geelong lost Gary Ablett. But at least he'd given them a wonderfully productive career before he was lured to the Gold Coast.

Collingwood, Carlton, West Coast, Hawthorn, Essendon, Sydney and St Kilda, finalists this year, are among those clubs that haven't lost any required players yet.

Clearly, the pain of the game's expansion is not being shared.

In addition to this is the very real issue of actions being followed by consequences.

I've had a basic sympathy for the militancy of the AFL Players' Association as they negotiate hard for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The players have seen clubs spending more and more on non-playing aspects of their football operation while their own payments are constrained by the salary cap.

Also, they've seen the AFL budgeting for and now spending tens of millions of dollars on the two expansion clubs.

All this poses a basic question, the tenor of which I support totally - why should the current players, through payment restraint, be bankrolling the game's future growth?

There is no criticism whatsoever of the players, from Ablett to Scully, for taking the big money offers.

They are professional sportsmen with a limited earning window and accepting a pot of gold from the new clubs is perfectly understandable.

However, the notion that their decision to move is for reasons other than the money is quite annoying. That's purely a PR gesture. It's almost as if they are trying to convince themselves.

I'm sure the view of the general AFL player population on the CBA negotiations would have hardened when they read in the Melbourne press this week of estimated incomes of the League's top earners in 2012.

Among the AFL's top 10 by payment next year will be Scully, Ward, Davis and rugby league converts Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau - five players who at this stage wouldn't rate in the game's top 100.

Even allowing that heavily front-ended contracts are a factor in these huge figures for unproven talent, if I were a player I'd certainly be saying to myself "Hey, something is seriously out of kilter here." Hence, the militancy of yesterday may be even greater today.

Yes, this big-money recruiting subsidised from AFL coffers is a sad thing for the spirit of football.

Unfortunately it is a necessary evil from a business perspective if the two new clubs are to have any chance of succeeding, but just as certainly, the unforeseen consequences of these establishment actions will be many and varied.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs