Collingwood president Eddie McGuire says Sydney’s $10 million offer to Hawthorn’s Lance Franklin shows the AFL’s cost-of-living allowance to the two Sydney clubs is a rort.
McGuire on Tuesday called on the league to do more to provide an even distribution of playing talent and said struggling Melbourne clubs had no hope of picking up a dual-premiership free agent like Franklin.
The Collingwood boss says the 9.8 per cent allowance the Swans and Giants are granted above the league-wide salary cap is unfair and is hurting the competition.
Sydney were premiers in 2012 and added ex-Adelaide star forward Kurt Tippett to their list and now after a top-four finish this season they appear set to claim Franklin.
“There’s plenty of people around the place saying this is just not fair,” McGuire told Fox Footy’s AFL360 program.
“Collingwood, the richest club in the AFL, who would love to have another power forward, didn’t even contemplate speaking to Lance Franklin because we can’t get at these third-party deals because the AFL is all over us.
“We do not have a cost of living component.
“If two of them (Tippett and Franklin) have got 20 per cent of the salary cap, they’re getting 20 per cent of the cost of living.
“This is ridiculous. It is a straight-forward rort.
“This is an ultimate poke in the eye and it’s not the Sydney Swans’ fault.
“Good on them for going as hard as they can. It is yet again the AFL’s problem.
“Hawthorn probably should lose a player after winning the flag but not to Sydney. They should have gone to Greater Western Sydney or somebody down that end of the ladder.”
McGuire says it’s no secret the success of the Swans is vital for the league’s national profile.
“They’ve got to go through these things and decide whether they’re running a competition or they’re running a marketing competition,” McGuire said.
“It has left a really nasty taste in a lot of people’s mouths today.
“I’ve been screaming about it now for 11 years.
“Should we just blow the competition up and just go stealing everyone’s players and not have Melbourne and St Kilda and Western Bulldogs in the future? Just have the top teams pulling all the deals together?
“Or do we sign up to what we all signed up to in the first place and that would be a fair and equitable salary cap to allow all clubs to have the chance?”
GWS on Tuesday withdrew their six-year offer to Franklin as Sydney muscled in.
“You’d have to ask yourself today is this the right result for the competition?,” GWS chief executive David Matthews told “AFL360”.
“The competition sets itself up with rules to try to equalise the distribution of talent and two years in a row you see a top club getting probably the highest-profile uncontracted free agent.”