It’s great there is a salary cap, and even better there is now a footy department spending cap, but I think the AFL needs to look at the limits within the salary cap. Personally, I’d raise the minimum salary, and put in a maximum salary (based on the number of years that player has played and percentage of the total salary cap). The superstars wouldn’t like it, but if LeBron James can accept earning less than market value salary for the benefit of his colleagues, so can Nat Fyfe (accepting of course there is a difference in scale and sponsorship opportunities). If you set the maximum salary at around 10% of the cap, that’s still $1.3 million a year. It also reduces the incentive for young superstars (or stars in the making) to swap teams, and encourages teams to develop from within.
I’d also be open to the idea of clubs being about to pay one or two marquee players a percentage of their salary outside of the cap if it gave clubs an advantage in re-signing players.
On the appointments, I don’t have any issue with corporate accountants being CEO. They need to understand footy, but it’s really up to the Board and President to have oversight of the direction of the club, including from the fans perspective.
Where Freo went wrong (or at least one of the ways) was that we had concurrently a CEO and President who seemed callously indifferent to the fans. That’s unforgivable. I don’t know if Garlick or Alcock are any good, but at least they seem to understand what it means to be a fan.