Numerous AFL clubs reportedly resent the Western Australian clubs’ complaints about excessive travel, referencing “business class” perks to claim they are at “no disadvantage”.
Meantime, there are calls from a host of clubs and players for the league to celebrate more winning seasons and top-four finishes in addition to premierships.
The revelations come as teams and players voice feedback to the AFL as it conducts its competitive balance review.
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Speaking on Fox Footy’s Midweek Tackle, Herald Sun journalist Sam Landsberger revealed some of the “pushes” currently being made by clubs in relation to “celebrating” the game in a more expansive way.
“There are some pushes being made by clubs and players to find a way to celebrate more winners in the game,” reported Landsberger on Wednesday evening.
“Whether that is the creation of more trophies (or something else). They think that in football there’s a mentality of failure — there’s 17 clubs that fail every year and only one premier and 23 premiership players every year.
“There is a strong push tonight from some clubs and some playing groups that have submitted feedback to the AFL, that we need to find a way — like English soccer, where they have multiple trophies, like the US sports, where they have conference winners, or they celebrate winning seasons for coaches — we need to find a way to celebrate more players and more clubs in the game.”
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Herald Sun journalist Jay Clark specifically shone a light on the perception of AFL coaches, floating some ideas to formally recognise the successful mentors of the game.
“We crack Luke Beveridge, or Nathan Buckley back in the day,” he said. “(Do) we make it more like if you have more wins (or) if you coach your team to more wins than losses in a season — should we celebrate that? 13 wins, 10 losses (for example).
“Maybe it can be more of a media narrative, and then if we’re talking about top-four teams, is it a presentation on Brownlow Medal night? You get the captain up, (play) 30 seconds of highlights — we laud (successful home-and-away teams) Port Adelaide, Brisbane, something like that — how else? Is it cold, hard cash?”
Landsberger referenced a recent AFL initiative to incentivise clubs across their men’s and women’s programs.
“I think the McClelland Trophy, the jazzing up of that last year didn’t work,” Landsberger responded. “We gave a million dollars to Melbourne for winning the most premiership points across the men’s (and) women’s (competitions).
“I don’t think many Melbourne fans are sitting at home celebrating that. I don’t think that really paid off … It’s a great question. I don’t have the solution, but there is a strong push on (needing) to find a way to celebrate more than we do right now.”
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On the other hand, Landsberger also shared the complaints coming out of clubs regarding the WA clubs’ access to premium seating on coast-to-coast flights across the country.
“I can tell you tonight that some clubs are arguing that the WA clubs are not disadvantaged by the travel burdens they’ve taken on,” Landsberger told the Midweek Tackle.
“This is extraordinary to me, but they believe that under the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement), the WA clubs — they’re afforded 12 business class seats for every flight to and from the Eastern Seaboard — therefore they’re at no disadvantage for the travel burdens they take on each year.”
Combined, West Coast and Fremantle will have travelled interstate 22 times by season’s end.
For reference, Collingwood will have travelled outside Victoria just six times by the end of the 2024 season.
“That surprised me,” Landsberger continued. “But under the competitive balance review being put forward, there is a strong argument from some clubs saying they cannot have a whinge about the travel burden because they get to sit up the front of the plane.
“The other 16 clubs, they try and secure exit-row seating, they try and put two players in every three chairs to get a bit of extra space. They don’t believe that WA clubs are disadvantaged.
“I think that’s a pretty tough argument to make, but that has been put forward as part of this review.”
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As for the state of player movement within the AFL, Landsberger reported that North Melbourne “don’t think” free agency is effective.
“North Melbourne wants the AFL to open up list management quite some way,” Landsberger told Fox Footy.
“They need to find a way to accelerate their list build, and they’ve clearly put (it) on the agenda that they don’t think free agency is working. No players are going to the bottom clubs — how do we fix that, though?
“This is a great discussion (and) I don’t think anyone has an answer. You can’t really force a restraint of trade and stop players going to top clubs or leaving bottom clubs, so they’ve flagged it as part of this competitive balance review, that free agency isn’t working, but I’m not sure anyone has come up with an answer as to how we can fix this.”
North Melbourne General Manager of Football Todd Viney recently declared that requesting another AFL assistance package this year “won’t be on the cards”, despite his club continuing to languish at the bottom of the ladder.
Source Agencies
