AFL
  1. Home
  2. AFL
  3. News

Craig Kelly slams clubs' push for reduced coach payouts

Caroline Wilson

Influential player manager Craig Kelly has taken a swipe at the growing trend among AFL clubs to push for reduced payout terms for sacked senior coaches.

Kelly, who is negotiating a new two-year deal for premiership coach Chris Scott at Geelong, said he would continue to reject the move towards three-to-six-month payouts for coaches. Although the Cats board has endorsed Scott's contract extension, Geelong wants its senior coach to fall in line with other contracted senior staff with six-month payout clauses.

Up Next

St Kilda pip Port Adelaide

null
Video duration
01:30

More AFL Real Footy Videos

null
Video duration
01:47

AFLW plays of round 3
null
Video duration
01:30

St Kilda pip Port Adelaide
null
Video duration
00:24

Inside Fremantle's new home
null
Video duration
01:29

Sam Day injured in win, North beat Swans
More videos

AFLW plays of round 3

McCarthy sprints to goal of the round, GWS and Freo can't take a trick, the Dees discover a power forward and Erin Phillips dobs one from 60 as the Crows remain top.

Kelly, who last year fought an attempt by the AFL to hold his clients Leon Cameron and Justin Leppitsch to maximum payout periods of no more than six months, is understood to have rejected the new terms discussed by Geelong for Scott. "Senior coaches have to be treated differently," said Kelly, whose TLA talent stable manages one-third of the AFL senior coaches, including Nathan Buckley and Scott's brother Brad. 

"They need to be protected more than anyone else at a club because when it goes wrong it's stressful, it's embarrassing and it really knocks these guys around.

"These guys can take a long time to recover and it's terrible for their wives and families as well. Then they have to face up to going out and finding another job under massive public scrutiny.

"It's good business not to be paying out contracts, and it's good business by clubs to contract their coaches for the correct period of time. And it's good business not to sack them."  

Advertisement

Geelong delayed renegotiating Scott's contract until its board was elected unopposed and then following the sudden death of his younger brother Ben. 

However, CEO Brian Cook has made it clear the Cats want the coach, who has missed just one finals series in six years and boasts a 72 per cent winning record, to stay.

Kelly last year refused an AFL push to limit Leppitsch's payout when Brisbane moved to extend the coach's contract by 12 months. He was supported by Lions then football director Leigh Matthews, and therefore Leppitsch received a one-year payout despite moving to Richmond as an assistant coach.

He also had Giants chief Dave Matthews on his side when the league tried a similar contractual move with Leon Cameron. Matthews said smaller clubs would struggle to lure talented personnel through their doors if the game refused to underwrite their tenure.

Clubs delivering payouts to their sacked coaches has become a major problem for the competition over the past decade. At a meeting of the 18 club chief executives last year the push to cap termination clauses on coaches' contracts was a major talking point.

Essendon, which faced million dollar payouts for both Matthew Knights and James Hird – not to mention a litany of compensation deals and the Dean Robinson seven-figure settlement – now has a policy of contracting football staff with payouts of no more than six months and generally three months.

These guys can take a long time to recover and it's terrible for their wives and families as well.

Player manager Craig Kelly

Even senior coach John Worsfold who has two years remaining on his contract would not be paid out for the full term if he were sacked this season.

 In one famous instance Port Adelaide extended the contract of premiership coach Mark Williams and then sacked him during the following season, handing him a six-figure settlement. This incurred the wrath of the AFL Commission which had just handed the cash-strapped club a similar sum of money.

Last year the AFL Coaches' Association drew up a standard coaching contract as a template for all 18 clubs. It included safety nets for assistant coaches in particular in a bid to ensure clubs honoured the payout terms of contracts.

The view of AFLCA boss Mark Brayshaw is that the game should also better protect assistant coaches who find themselves unwanted when a new senior coach moves into a club. The standard contracts also sought to protect assistant coaches elevated to the position of caretaker coach mid-season in the event of a senior coach sacking.

However, most clubs have rejected the AFLCA contracts as they move towards safeguarding their financial results against six and seven-figure payouts. Kelly said the AFLCA contracts had no relevance to senior coaches and their needs and circumstances.

"A senior coach is in a vulnerable position," he said. "It's very hard to get ongoing employment of you are terminated and not one circumstance is the same.

"There are varying levels of a termination and agreed numbers for all of our talent and they are all different. They have to be treated differently and it's up to the clubs doing the negotiations to get the terms right.

"Conversely I've had coaches I represent approached by clubs and I've been straight in saying: 'No, he has a contract and we're honouring that contract'."