The AFL salary cap situation appears to be at the forefront of his mind. McMahon is working in tandem with Collingwood president and former Broadmeadows resident Eddie McGuire on behalf of all Victorian-based clubs to mend the cracks which appeared in the salary cap. By Lance Jenkinson - Moonee Valley Community News Sydney Swans have access to a cost-of-living allowance $900,000 above the allocated salary cap, while back-to-back premiers Brisbane Lions receive a handy bonus of $600,000 on top of their cap to help develop football in Queensland.
McMahon hopes the issue is settled before his departure as Bombers chairman. What angered him most was the Bombers built a premiership winning squad from the bottom up and were forced to off-load four top quality players during the off-season. Shown the exit door was Blake Caracella, Justin Blumfield, Chris Heffernan and Gary Moorcroft. “You work your tail off as we did here to build a good list and you come through the ranks of 13th in 1997, eight in 1998, third in 1999, a premiership in 2000 and another grand final in 2001,” he said.
“(Then) suddenly you get told you can't do that any more, you can't keep those players, you have the argument with them (the AFL) and they say to you you're paying them too much. What we've done is reward them progressively each year because the list was getting better and better and then you get to the point where they say get rid of some of them - that's just cruel. The salary cap was implemented to keep the level of football at an even standard between the 16 clubs. The AFL clubs were unanimous that the introduction of the cap would make for better viewing and a more even scoreboard, but there are flaws in the system.
“The thing that is wrong with the salary cap at the moment is that you have two clubs in the competition with concessions, Sydney with $900,000 and Brisbane with $600,000, which is absolutely unfair and it has to be changed,” McMahon said.
“You cannot have a club like Brisbane who has now won two premierships, has got the best list in the competition and will be favourites to win a third premiership this year and they have not come under any salary cap pressure at the end of the year whatsoever. We've come under it, Carlton's been under it, Collingwood will be under it I'm sure because they've now played in a grand final, yet Brisbane and Sydney will be sitting there with those buffers - that is unfair. The cost of living allowance particularly raised the ire of the Bombers main man, who said the policy should be fair and apply to all states or be scrapped.
“The league says the one in Sydney is given as a cost of living allowance, it's more expensive for players to live in Sydney than what it is for players to live in Melbourne. I say it is more expensive place to live in Melbourne than it is to live in Adelaide or Perth. If you're going to give a cost of living allowance, let's do a cost of living allowance across the entire five capital cities - Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane - and allow for their players so it's fair and square. But that just adds another cost for the competition and it will send a few more clubs broke - so the right answer is to remove the cost of living allowance in Sydney.”
McMahon disagreed with the veterans list, which allows clubs with players over 30 to include only half of their salary in the cap - which further adds to expenses. The salary cap sent a shudder through the Bombers recruiting department as the four quality players were replaced with youngsters. McMahon was quizzed by a number of ardent supporters who said the club made the wrong choice by giving that particular quartet the sword.
“They were good players and there's no use arguing that we've thrown out players that weren't any good. The fact of life was we had to save x amount of dollars and you can't save that amount by getting rid of kids. A lot of supporters have said to me `why didn't you get rid of this player, why didn't you get rid of that player because they haven't played a game or they only played three games in the year. You can't get the savings because they aren't getting paid the money, so we had a certain amount of money we had to save and to do that we had to get rid of a lot of players or a few players that were being paid reasonably well.”
Adding a sour taste for the club was Caracella going to 2002 premiers Brisbane Lions. McMahon's main priority on a national front is to keep the AFL in its existing format, but with the financial situation facing a number of Victorian clubs, the future looks bleak. With more than 35,000 members last season, the Bombers, a powerhouse of the competition, struggled to make a profit of just more than $1 million last season, which was not directly funded by the football side of the business. Money came from the Windy Hill social club as well as the Bombers-owned Melton social club, but overall the football operations fought hard to announce a profit.
“Pure football operations for the year, the club made a small profit but it didn't make anywhere near as much as it had made in previous years. That's Essendon with a membership of 35-36,000 people, so if we're struggling to make a profit at Essendon - you can imagine how some of the smaller clubs are struggling. Several of them are in such dire financial straights, that they have already had to take borrowings from the AFL - not borrowings, advances - from the AFL.
“To be perfectly frank, the directors of those clubs could not have continued to trade unless they had some more money coming in.” McMahon warns all the doubters not to write off Essendon too soon and is confident his beloved Bombers will still be alive come September. “We've got a couple of young kids coming through who were here previously, we've picked up a couple of players we think will make it this year, (Jason) Laycock, (Jobe) Watson looks impressive, (Dean) Solomon will get back and he'll fill a slot,” he said.
“I think they're a bit silly in some of the things they're saying, we are confident we will make the finals this year. With any luck, if we have a run like Brisbane or Port Adelaide had last year with no injuries, we would give a lot of people a hell of a fright this year, but we'll wait and see.”
Story courtesy of Lance Jenkinson - Moonee Valley Community News
