AFL players stitch up mega six-year pay deal
Crow turned Cat: Patrick Dangerfield will be key to Geelong's chances. Photo: Getty
The average AFL player’s wage will rocket by more than $60,000 this year, thanks to the new six-year pay deal.
The league and the AFL Players Association cemented the new agreement on Tuesday afternoon in Adelaide, ending drawn-out negotiations that became strained in the off-season.
A key feature of the $1.84 billion collective bargaining agreement is this year’s whopping 20 per cent pay increase.
It means that excluding rookies, the average AFL player wage jumps from $309,000 last year to $371,000.
The salary cap increases from $10.37 million per club to $12.4 million.
One immediate effect is that some players on higher wages will become instant millionaires, provided their contracts enable them to cash in on this year’s pay increase.
It will also give clubs more room in the salary cap and boost their war chests for going after big-name recruits later this year.
The pay increase is heavily front-loaded – it drops sharply to 1.2 per cent next year, 1.3 per cent in 2019 and two per cent per year for the last three years of the deal.
That takes the club salary cap to $13.54 million by 2022.
The pay deal is about 28 per cent of total industry revenue, but can be even more if club and AFL earnings go above what is forecast.
One of the major sticking points in the negotiations was the players’ demand for a fixed percentage of AFL revenue, something they failed to achieve in the last pay deal.
More than 99 per cent of players voted in favour of the deal.
The AFL Commission met on Tuesday morning in Adelaide and the players association signed off on the new deal ahead of the annual Hall Of Fame function.
Earlier this year there was talk of player protests or even strike action as the negotiations failed to make progress.
But within weeks the mood had improved considerably and for the last few weeks AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan had said the two parties were closing on the new deal.
-AAP