Former high-ranking AFL official Adrian Anderson says the league could be accused of helping Sydney to land Hawthorn superstar Lance Franklin if he takes up the Swans’ surprise offer.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire and former Western Bulldogs great Luke Darcy have suggested there will be outrage from other clubs if Franklin joins the Swans.
Both the Swans and Greater Western Sydney are given a 9.8 per cent cost-of-living allowance above the league-wide salary cap.
That arrangement was hotly questioned by rival clubs after the Swans snared ex-Adelaide star forward Kurt Tippett after winning last year’s premiership.
But that unease will reach new levels if the Swans thwart GWS’s efforts to poach Franklin with their own reported $7 million, five-year offer for the dual-premiership free agent.
“I think there would be a riot. There would actually be a riot in AFL football,” Darcy predicted on Melbourne’s Triple-M radio on Tuesday.
McGuire, a long-time critic of the Sydney clubs’ allowances, agreed, saying: “I think so.”
GWS is still considered Franklin’s likely destination, with their offer believed to be worth close to $2 million per season.
But given the youthful Giants took the wooden spoon this year, there would be considerably less angst if Franklin ends up in their colours.
Anderson, the former AFL general manager of football, said the AFL allowance for the Sydney clubs meant an argument could be mounted that if Franklin does go to the Swans, the league is helping to recruit him.
“You could look at it that way,” Anderson told 3AW radio.
“There’s a very vigorous debate.
“Sydney will say that the cost of living up there is higher and they spread it across all the players on the list and it doesn’t enable them to fund a player like that.
“But at the end of the day, the simple fact is they’ve got 10 per cent more.
He added there were aspects of the Sydney lifestyle that in many players’ minds meant the higher cost-of-living would be offset anyway, without the extra allowance.
“You look at a place like Adelaide.
“You could argue as a young player that it’s a more attractive, exciting environment to go to a place like Sydney, where it is more expensive, (but) it is exciting and fun, compared with Adelaide.
“I don’t want to throw any aspersions on Adelaide as a city, but it doesn’t have all the appeal and attractions for a young fella like Sydney does.”
Asked whether that meant the Swans didn’t need the AFL subsidy to recruit players, Anderson said: “Potentially.”