There has been much said and written about the recent changes to the salary cap but what exactly does it all mean? How much more do club’s now have to spend and will it help Essendon maintain its current playing list.? The changes made to the Total Player Payment cap were agreed on by the AFL and the AFL Players Association and made public last week. We thought we should have a look at what it all means.

In season 2002, $89 million will be paid to players in the AFL competition. This means that each club is entitled to spend $5,562,000 on its player payments. This represents an increase of 7.25% on the figure that is being paid out this season. The agreement also spans season 2003. In that season a total of $95 million will be paid to players and that equates to $5937,500 per club – a further increase of 6.75%.

What is all boils down to is that clubs will have about an extra $400,000 to pay in player wages in season 2002. Essendon chief executive Peter Jackson said any increase was obviously going to help but what it means in terms of the Bombers’ player list is still being considered. “Contract negotiations are of secondary importance right now,” Jackson said. “It is getting to a very important part of the year and we want players concentrating on winning football matches. It will all be finalised post-season.”

There is no doubt the pressure is on the Bombers and retaining its required players won’t be easy. But Bomber midfielder Chris Heffernan said on Talking Football on Tuesday night that the players were prepared to make some sacrifices to stay together. “A lot of us would get paid a lot more at another club. We have spoken about it and we are all prepared to take a bit less to play in a good side,” Heffernan said. The fact that Bomber captain James Hird isn’t in the top 10 paid players in the AFL backs up Heffernan’s point. It is this good will the Bombers will be relying on when negotiations resume.

Other changes to the TTP will see club’s required to spend only 92.5% of the salary cap on player payments rather than the 95% which has been the case in previous seasons. Should club’s pay the 92.5%, they will save about $420,000. Prudent management at clubs struggling financially could see them take advantage of this rule change.

The new agreement also sees first and second year players receive base salary increases of up to 25%. “That increase offsets to some degree the increase in the Total Player Payment figure,” Jackson said. “But these rules are now in place and we will just have to do what we can – I’ve been saying for the past two years that we face an extremely challenging task to keep this group together.”