That’s the one memory I’ve been unable to erase, 90% of the side missing and a small few unable to get injured/dropped and thus avoid the reputational damage.
I understand the salary cap mate. It was just a smart a#se comment by me towards these tin rattlers clubs. These clubs and supporters fa#ken annoy me, in how they boast their clubs are great.
That’s not entirely true. There are still plenty of deals done with players with third party financial arrangements. Warren Buffets fortune would provide
a range of ‘other’ opportunities when attracting and keeping star players.
Yeah. Direct financial arrangements would mostly be covered by the ASA, but networking, investment opportunities, etc are definitely something that clubs can use to differentiate themselves. Just not officially.
If we had Buffett level cash You could start a - separate to the club - players retirement fund which hands out lifetime pensions to Essendon players based on their games played for the club.
So sure you can take the 9 mill over 9 years at the Roos, but how about 400k pension for the rest of you life should you take a shittier deal and play at Essendon.
As long as it is completely separate from the club, funded and payed outside the AFL they couldn’t do ■■■■ about it.
They were effectively stolen from us by the AFL/Vlad/Gill in their desperation to have a scapegoat that ended up in the Sorry Saga.
That the Saga caused them to leave was one thing. That the AFL hierarchy did nothing to see that we got anywhere even remotely near equitable terms for a player like Ryder just makes things even worse and makes those ( contemptible arseholes ) even worse in my eyes.