HAWTHORN coach Sam Mitchell has added his support to 'pick purchasing' being the next layer of the trade and player movement landscape as the Hawks continue their aggressive rebuild.
AFL.com.au revealed in May the growing interest from clubs in 'pick purchasing', which would allow a club to trade salary cap space in return for draft picks. The concept was first raised in 2021 by AFL.com.au as clubs continue to look at ways to speed up longer-term list plans.
Essendon coach and former AFL general manager of football Brad Scott earlier this month backed the proposal for pick purchasing, with Mitchell saying he expected the next step to be added to enhance the ability for clubs at the bottom of the ladder and with salary cap space to be able to increase their draft hands.
"Bring it in. I think everyone – players, the League and the clubs – all want to be able to move around and up and down the ladder a bit more fluidly than we currently can. And any ideas, such as [this] that would enable that, I think everyone wants to do," Mitchell said on Thursday.
"For every effect there's going to be ripples that we're not sure about just yet and I think the AFL has been really good at making sure clubs are kept within some parameters and they'll bring this in and do it reasonably quickly I would hope. But I think it is something that will come in in the next few years."
The Hawks are this year among the clubs who are paying part of salaries for players to be at rival clubs – Tom Mitchell at Collingwood and Jaeger O'Meara at Fremantle – which saw them leverage those pay arrangements to maximise trade outcomes last season.
The possibility of trading players without their consent has been floated as part of Collective Bargaining Agreement discussions, but the Hawks coach said pick purchasing was a clear way to help young sides increase their draft hand and use their cap space in proactive ways.
"I don't know any other ways, other than moving players without their consent, which I know there's been a small push for," Mitchell said.
"That's the only other one that would make it possible but I think there's going to be some challenges coming up with Tassie coming into the competition and there's going to be some variables in list management that are going to be challenging. But it's not my area of expertise and I'll leave it to the experts."
