Adelaide's Izak Rankine following his trade from the Gold Coast Suns (Image: Adelaide FC)

Former Magpies defender and long-term player manager Craig Kelly has claimed that forcing top-end draftees into signing mandatory three-year contracts is not the answer to solving player retention issues.

Speaking with News Corp, the 56-year-old also stressed that raising the size of deals before teenaged talents would effectively act as a restraint of trade.

As stated by The Herald Sun, both Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney have commenced conversations with league powerbrokers regarding their shared player retention issues that have plagued them since inception.

Both expansion franchises have reportedly expressed a desire to see three-year deals for high-end draftees, with "responsible pay rises", become the norm.

Still, Kelly, the chief of TLA Worldwide Management, professed that it is on the clubs, and not the league, to make sure blue-chip draftees opt to stay on.

“The reality is the player movement space is balanced quite well,” Kelly said.

“I think there are enough restraints around the industry in a broad sense that everyone should want some level of free movement of trade. We should want it to be as early and fluid as possible without being what it is in American sports."

Kelly also expressed that using Jason Horne-Francis' recent exit from Arden Street as a yardstick was fraught with danger.

“The reality is the minute a player goes early in the draft the club is asking whether you want to extend their contract. If they love where they are, the player will mostly do it. (Jason Horne-Francis) didn't, and probably rightly so," he added.

“Most clubs have players staying for between two to four years and at that point depending on the salary cap, discussions (around another extension) happen. But taking the North Melbourne situation (with Horne-Francis) in isolation would be the wrong thing to do.

“The reality is there were a lot of other factors in that situation. There are enough other restraints around, so sometimes if a kid wants to go home, you let him go home.''

Both the Giants and Suns have, once again, felt the pinch of losing first-round draftees with each of Tim Taranto, Jacob Hopper and Izak Rankine departing the northern franchise during the recent trade period.

The 2022 AFL Draft is scheduled to commence on Monday, 28 November and will end the following night.

 

1 COMMENT

  1. Actually – what gives the AFL the idea that all teenagers are so happy to leave their home state?

    From a player point of view – the whole draft setup is a restraint of trade anyway – given that they have no say in their employer….. the first foray to the High Court makes for a shitshow and the vfl knows it.

    The solution – give the kids a say at the beginning.

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