Sydney have snatched AFL superstar Lance Franklin from under the noses of Greater Western Sydney with a staggering nine-year offer that’s sparked fresh uproar over their salary cap allowance.
Franklin, 26, will be 35 when he completes the offered contract, reportedly worth $10 million.
The news that free agent Franklin, fresh from his second premiership with Hawthorn, is set to sign with the Swans was broken by the Giants, after they were shocked to have their own six-year $7.2 million offer rebuffed on Tuesday.
“It appears he has a significantly higher financial offer which we would not have been prepared to make based on our due diligence,” Giants chief executive David Matthews said.
The Swans later confirmed that Franklin wants to join them, but have refused to comment further until the free agency period opens on Friday, when they can officially secure the forward.
While the Giants’ offer was in itself worth less than that of the Swans, Franklin would have expected to have that supplemented with a substantial AFL ambassadorial package had he joined the expansion club.
The Swans, fourth this season, had already stunned rivals by finding the cap space to snare fellow high-priced star forward Kurt Tippett from Adelaide last year, immediately after winning the flag.
That had clubs hotly questioning the 9.8 per cent cost-of-living allowance the Swans and Giants are granted by the AFL above the league-wide salary cap.
That’s nothing compared to the storm brewing as Sydney now swoop on Franklin.
“It’s pretty apparent now that cost-of-living excess that they get is just going straight into the procurement of champion players,” five-time Hawthorn premiership player Dermott Brereton told Fox Sports.
Former Hawks president Jeff Kennett has called for presidents of all clubs to band together and demand answers from the AFL on how the Swans’ allowance is being used.
The AFL issued a statement saying they would thoroughly scrutinise the deal and interview the key parties.
They said with the cost-of-living allowance currently under review, the Swans understood they may need to accommodate Franklin’s contract in an environment in which it was removed altogether.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire and former Western Bulldogs great Luke Darcy predicted Franklin joining the Swans could cause a huge backlash.
“I think there would be a riot. There would actually be a riot in AFL football,” Darcy told Melbourne’s Triple-M radio.
McGuire, a long-time critic of the Sydney clubs’ allowances, agreed, saying: “I think so.”
Even former AFL general manager of football Adrian Anderson said it could be argued that the league is helping the Swans land Franklin.
“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.
Hawthorn recruiter Gary Buckenara said a lower media profile for Franklin in Sydney was probably part of the appeal.
“Not everyone likes that sort of stuff,” Buckenara told reporters at the AFL draft combine in Melbourne.
“I think Buddy’s a pretty private sort of guy, he’s pretty shy.”