Pandemic a chance to tighten cap spend

THE spending gap between Geelong and Bellarine clubs and their metropolitan rivals could tighten when community salary caps are slashed.

A silver lining to emerge from the pandemic will be the opportunity for country leagues to compete on the same financial playing field as their wealthier city counterparts.

AFL Barwon region general manager Will McGregor said it was a chance to close the spending discrepancy between strong country leagues and powerful Melbourne clubs.

There’s the prospect salary caps in metropolitan competitions will be halved to $100,000 from 2021-23.

“In the past, there has been some fair discrepancies in salary caps from our region to metropolitan Melbourne,” McGregor said.

“This may be an opportunity to potentially reduce that gap.”

Ex-AFL Barwon boss Lee Hartman said last month it would mark an end to players “shopping themselves around”.

Eastern league powerhouse Vermont had 16 former state league or ex-AFL players in last year’s premiership team.

Anglesea coach Paul Nigro, who has experience with metropolitan clubs Northcote Park, Doncaster and Mitcham, said it was important for country clubs to remain competitive in the player market.

“It’s a great opportunity for the AFL Barwon and Geelong region to equalise, or get close to equalising, the Western Region, Essendon and perhaps Eastern footy leagues,” Nigro said.

“They have been poles apart in the past over salary cap. Now is a great opportunity to get relatively close to that and maintain our standing in the football landscape.

“This would alleviate players looking around at other avenues and make our competitions even stronger.”

GFL clubs have payment ceilings of $145,000, BFL sides are limited to $110,000 and GDFL teams can only spend $90,000.

Top-flight clubs in the neighbouring Western Region competition have a salary cap of $195,000, but the pandemic will force players to take significant pay cuts from next year.

Eastern, Essendon District and Northern leagues had caps of $200,000 before the season was cancelled.

McGregor said a positive to emerge from the coronavirus would be the chance to close the gap.

“I suppose it’s a possibility and it would be one of the benefits if that’s the way it goes,” he said.

AFL Barwon clubs are also being surveyed on what changes they want introduced beyond this year, including adjustments to the salary cap.