2019 & 2020 Thoughts

[crashlander]

It's a great idea Crash but....
They've let the Free Agency Genie out of bottle and it will be hard to put it back.
I cant see the AFLPA agreeing to that restriction....and it would probably not survive a 'restraint of trade' action.

You are 100% correct, Lods. It is a restraint of trade. However, so is the draft, the salary cap and everything else. John Elliot was going to argue that in court during the Paper Bag Episode, and he would have succeeded. Easily. And the AFL knew it and did not want to go to court. The problem then would be how to deal with situation where money determined everything.
The AFL made sure that we could not prosper that way by removing our home games from Princes Park. At that point, the stands and things that were expected to be paid off over 20 - 25 years, a huge asset, became a multi-million dollar liability overnight. I can recall Ian Collins going over the finances at the AGM, and it made the difference between a small but reasonable profit, to the club being essentially insolvent. We've been struggling financially ever since, although we appear to be finally over that hurdle.
Had John Elliot succeeded, the AFL would have found other ways to ruin us. Elliot just didn't understand that. He thought he could win and that would be it. Collins did understand that, and he thought total surrender would get us decent terms. He didn't understand just how much the AFL hated us then. They wanted us to suffer. (I am not saying that they do not hate us now either.)

Free Agency had to happen in one form or another, or the players would go to court and the AFL rules would shatter. The question always has been, is the scheme well enough designed not to disadvantage the less affluent, less well performed clubs. It wasn't. It was not well thought out at all. It would take a lot of effort to get it to that point of 'being fair'. Effort the AFL have never wanted to expend. Nor would the players, having tasted the present method, be willing to back-peddle their right enough to make a tighter scheme work. The AFL realized this quickly and simply hoped that the Salary Cap would be enough to keep excessive player movement under control. It never has been and, under the present rules, never will: teams have been getting around it for decades.
We used to the experts at that. We would pay less because we could guarantee finals. We could also guarantee a strong team and a positive culture, with little extras on the side that didn't go into pay packets directly: things like off-field job opportunities, help with study demands, etc. If we can get back to the top echelon, it is a skill we will have to re-learn, or have our list disintegrate like GWS's.