THE new AFL Victoria initiative to allow the clearance window to open for the month of November appears a commonsense move in the current climate of local footy.
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List management is a term more commonly associated with AFL clubs, but it’s now more pertinent than ever under AFL Victoria’s Community Club Sustainability Program.
That’s a program that this year introduced the state-wide player points system, and will next season be coupled with the salary cap, with both designed to reduce player movement and the “inflationary nature of player payments”.
And that means clubs need to be able to plan ahead for the coming season with some certainty as early as possible to fit within the constraints of both their points allocation and the salary cap.
The clearance window being open from November 1 to 30 for the first time allows clubs the opportunity to do that as they will now be able to officially get players on their books through this period, rather than having to wait until February 1 when clearances have traditionally opened.
With the February 1 clearance opening date, a club could sign a player back in October, yet has to wait four months for the chance to officially register them.
But that’s four months in which a player can re-think their decision and when it comes time to officially commit and lodge the clearance in February, they backflip and pull out, leaving the club in the lurch.
A player may have signed a contract to join a new club, but can’t officially become that club’s player until cleared.
There’s also the chance come February that once a clearance has been lodged for a player there’s an issue at his previous club, such as owing money or is under contract, whereby a clearance wrangle then ensues and a player can be left in limbo as the season approaches.
Yet with the clearance window open for November, it presents the chance for clubs to be able to deal with such issues early in the pre-season and hopefully, resolve them to avoid situations like the drawn out South Bendigo-Nathan Horbury-Redan saga earlier this year that dragged into May.
Sure, clearance issues will still arise when they re-open again at February 1, but at least clubs have been given the early chance to get a leg-up in their list management through this November period.
Luke West – sports reporter