AFL Tasmania and the Tasmanian Football Council are setting about modernising regional football player payments and movements.
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The governing bodies will start discussions around a salary cap model for clubs affiliated with competitions such as the Northern Tasmanian Football Association, North-West Football League and Southern Football League this season.
TFC general manager Jackson Hills said a cap would partner a player points system to form a competitive balance across the state.
Hills said a salary limit or timeline for premier and country regional competitions is undecided with the State League cap set at $90,000 for 2017.
“The goal behind a cap is to make competitions more competitive and to manage payments,” he said.
“There will always be forms of player payment but it’s important to have a balance and managed at a sustainable level. The more money clubs spend on players, the less they are spending on their club.
“We are not looking at being policemen here, but we are looking at trying to have a mechanism that managed those movements and payments throughout the state.”
Hills said a similar model has been successful in Victoria that the AFL’s integrity unit would be involved in monitoring a cap and investigating any breaches.
“The AFL have talked about growing their resources in the integrity space and whether they can work with the states to get some staffing into those roles to assist leagues,” Hills said.
“The leagues are concerned that if a cap was in place now they wouldn’t have the resources to police it on a weekly bases.
“What we’ve seen in some Victorian leagues is that when there has been a breach, the penalty has been pretty stern and they believe that has then had a reduction on those sort of issues.”
He said seven senior leagues had signed up to the points system for this year with King Island, Old Scholars and ODFA to be considered in 2018. The NTFA are moving into year two, where each club in division 1 and division 2 is allowed 38 and 40 points, respectively.
Every player is attributed a value based on their experience, skill level and competitions they have played in previously.
Players are ranked across five categories with those loyal to their home club receiving a reduction the longer they stay put.
“The system aims to address unsustainable inflated player payments, transparency of payments, movement of players between leagues, player loyalty, club sustainability and competition equalisation,” Hills said.
“It’s something all senior leagues unanimously voted to implement at the Future of Football Forum last year.
“We feel we need to get the points system right first and then implement a cap in subsequent years.
“Leagues have been very supportive of the concept and appreciate the need to address it now.”