Pay rise for AFL players

[Rushby Hinds]

Expect the number of players retiring to decrease...

AFL announces massive salary cap hike*

The AFL's salary cap will go up by almost 25 per cent over five years under a new pay scheme announced by the League and the AFL Players' Association today.

The deal will take effect in yearly increments from next season and will eventually see each club being authorised to spend more than $8 million a year on player wages.

The deal also includes more cash for clubs and players who make the September finals series.

Clubs who make the finals will share a prize pot worth more than $1 million from 2007, with the AFL promising 40 per cent of the cash will go straight to the players.

Today's agreement also includes increased payments for rookies as well as contributions to the player retirement fund and a pledge to pay for health insurance for all players.

In total the deal will be worth almost $730 million to players over the next five years.

Funding comes largely from the AFL's $780 million TV rights deal - the richest ever in Australian sport.

The salary cap hike means that total player payments will rise from $103.6 million this year ($6.47 million per club) to $111.1 million (or $6,943,750 per club) next season.

In a statement on its website the AFL said that by 2011 the total player payment figure for each club would be $8,225,000.

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said the extra cash would help ward off competition from other sports.

"This is a great story for any young person out there who wants to come and think about playing AFL football instead of a rival code," he said.

"Come and play AFL football because you'll be renumerated at the highest level."

[JK]

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said the extra cash would help ward off competition from other sports.

"This is a great story for any young person out there who wants to come and think about playing AFL football instead of a rival code," he said.

"Come and play AFL football because you'll be renumerated at the highest level."

Doesn't sound like they'll have much money to throw toward DEVELOPING these young persons though?!?!

[MightyEagles]

Grand Final winner gets $1 mil.

[smac]

Time to make a comeback!

[Psyber]

Perhaps AFL players should be on a base salary of about 30 thousand and get bonuses when they don't stay out after 11pm, and don't get into brawls or assault women etc. They'd either grow up fast or the clubs would save money!

[ORDoubleBlues]

Interesting to read in the paper today that they've made it sound like Chad Cornes has bought home the bacon by signing a new 3 year deal for the Power worth 1.2 million dollars.
I know it's still a lot of money but you could argue that 400K a year for a player of Cornes standing is actually a bit on the low side in relative terms and I'd be pretty certain that he'll only just be in the top 10 of salary for Adelaide based players from next year.