Former St Kilda head of football Chris Pelchan has revealed the extent of the club’s salary cap issues between 2011 and 2013.
Pelchan told SEN Breakfast that he had issues to deal with from his second day at the club and that the Saints are still paying for those issues today.
“I started with the Saints in August 2011,” he said.
“In August of 2011, my second day there, Michael Nettlefold came to me with a folder of the TPP and said you need to look over this urgently.
“It showed the club was on target, and this was Round 18, 2011, they were on target to be just short of over half a million over the salary cap in 2011.
“Everyone is aware of the sanctions in place if you do end the season over the cap, they’re quite significant.
“They also had the oldest list in the competition in 2011. So not only did they have the highest paid list, they had the oldest list. The club didn’t have any list management committee or any TPP committee. Those things were rectified.
“Ameet Bains and myself met with Ken Wood and the AFL weekly between Round 18 and the end of the season to correct the cap position for 2011, which meant referring payments into 2012.
“That subsequently caused the 2012 cap to be completely maxed out.
“So much so, one of the players from 2011 was still receiving payments for that year in 2013. You can imagine the constraints that placed on the cap in 2012 and 2013.
“To give you an idea, in 2012 the cap had ballooned to such a position that 63 percent of the total cap was being spent on 10 players.
“That meant the other 34 players were basically one third of the cap space. That’s unheard of.”
The Saints’ former head of football says these salary cap issues also played a part in the loss of Brendon Goddard and Nick Dal Santo from the club.
