THE stress a salary cap audit would place on clubs is a key issue for AFL North East Border ahead of the equalisation measure’s implementation in the Ovens and Murray.
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AFL NEB general manager John O’Donohue said it was important the salary cap policy was “fair and reasonable for everybody” before it was introduced.
A draft policy was released late last month with 12-month suspensions for players, heavy fines and stripping clubs of up to 20 premiership points among the penalties for those who breach the salary cap.
“The process of an audit would be a fairly arduous task on someone and could create stress. Then if they are found guilty, that’s further pressures and stresses on clubs and the penalties are fairly significant on players and clubs,” O’Donohue said.
“So we need to make sure we alleviate it getting to that stage by having the policy sound and we are educating people on what the policy contains as far as their requirements and expectations go so that we can limit the fallout and the potential for breaches.”
O’Donohue said AFL Victoria was still working on the framework for an audit panel to operate under so it was consistent with other leagues throughout the state.
“Is it going to be a requirement on the regions to do X amount of audits a year? Or will it be a process that if we act on rumour and innuendo, will there be audits going on all the time?,” he said.
“If it’s going to be random or targeted – what is the trigger point that says ‘OK, we are going to conduct an audit.
“There’s some education that needs to happen to get everyone up to speed before it is implemented.”
Ovens and Murray clubs are set to be able to spend up to $180,000 a season under the impending salary cap.
The league will have a salary cap of $160,000 but playing coaches will receive a 50 per cent discount of up to $20,000, meaning clubs can spend up to $180,000.
It comes on the back of the introduction of a player points system.
“What we don’t want it to become is: we implement it, we try to enforce it and we find we’ve got issues that the rules don’t line up, the processes don’t line up, there’s not enough detail,” O’Donohue said.
“We want to be able to have everything ticked off so there’s a smooth implementation like we had with the points system.”