Kennett blasts expansion plans
By Chip Le Grand
February 18, 2008
HAWTHORN president Jeff Kennett described as "ham-fisted" the AFL's handling of its expansion plans into western Sydney and Gold Coast, with the former Victoria premier demanding to see a business plan for a 17th and 18th team before his club backs either proposal.
Kennett, an in-principle supporter of an expanded national competition, said the AFL had continued a worrying pattern of disregard for the clubs by failing to consult them over plans for a second team in NSW and Queensland by 2012.
He questioned whether the league's priority was to establish two new teams, take "junket" trips to Dubai or plough money into the "rubbish" idea of international expansion in South Africa.
Speaking on SEN radio from Launceston, where the Hawks on Sunday played Sydney in a NAB Cup match, Kennett said the AFL even appeared uncertain about its own time frame, with commercial operations manager Gillon McLachlan contradicting commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick's 2012 deadline for a team in western Sydney.
"They haven't even got their storyline right," a frustrated Kennett said. "The reality is the AFL isn't very good at what they practice at times. My worry is that the AFL has these ideas, in part, off the top of their brain."
All clubs have long been aware of the league's long-term ambition to have a second team in Sydney, but the revised deadline - and particularly the way it was announced by Fitzpatrick in an interview in Saturday's Fairfax newspapers - has further strained relations between the competition's head office and the 16 teams.
The clubs were furious this summer when the AFL announced restricted interchange rules for the pre-season competition without consulting the coaches. Those not involved have since watched with bemusement the AFL spend-athon, first in South Africa and more recently in Dubai, as the league tries to secure offshore recruiting grounds and an international profile.
This followed the AFL's botched negotiations with North Melbourne late last year which resulted in the club spurning a $100 million offer to relocate permanently to the Gold Coast by 2010.
Until midway through last year, when the NRL Gold Coast Titans were well received by the local market, the AFL's deadline for a second Queensland team had been 2015. At the time its offer was made to a divided North Melbourne board, the league had not secured an appropriate Gold Coast venue.
"You have to admit, the AFL hasn't been too clever in the way in which they have handled the North Melbourne thing," Kennett said.
"They threatened them, they embarrassed them and they hadn't even delivered to North Melbourne the one thing that might have made the difference, the security of a venue.
"How can you expect anyone to give up a location, with all the heart strings at home, for a new environment when the AFL can't even deliver a ground?"
Kennett is also unimpressed by the league's budding presence in South Africa and Dubai.
"I think this overseas stuff is rubbish. Absolute rubbish. I would love to know how much it cost and who went.
"We are not going to have an international competition for an Australian game. You can go and play exhibition games if you like, but for goodness sake, what is the priority? Is it a 17th and 18th team or is it to extend the operations internationally? It just doesn't make sense to me.
"I am not opposed to it (a second Sydney team), but I am opposed to what I consider a ham-fisted way of going about it.
"You have to start by developing a business plan, then you have to share it with your shareholders, and we are the shareholders.
"Then, when you have got all that done, you can announce it," he said.
Kennett is not alone in expressing frustration with the way business is being done at AFL House. Collingwood led criticism over the way the interchange rules for the pre-season competition were introduced and Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, a vocal opponent of the draft concessions required to establish new teams, has queried the need for the AFL to bring its expansion plans forward.
Kennett said clubs which rely on the AFL for ongoing, additional financial support, the Kangaroos, Western Bulldogs and Melbourne, would be justified in questioning the league's funding priorities.
"They are working their butts off to survive and all of a sudden they know the AFL has got so much money they are going to spend tens of millions of dollars over the next 10 years to establish two new clubs," he said.
A more heated debate is likely to come when the AFL reveals the details of its plans to give the two new clubs access to 80 players, including some with AFL experience.
"The salary cap is going up every year as it must," Kennett said. "Our lists are smaller. Where are they going to get the players from and how is it going to be funded? These are big issues.
"I am not opposed to them having those thought processes.
"What I am upset about is here we are on the eve of another season, people have been gearing up for this season, and all of a sudden we are reading in the papers visions the AFL have that are not backed by a business plan."
