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FREE agency is going to rip the heart out of Australian football.
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The privilege that the players have fought for will benefit only the wealthy clubs, and the star players.
Sure we will see fringe players move to the weaker, poorer clubs, and there will be success stories, but it is an instrument of privilege to be exploited by the rich. Rich clubs will become richer, as will rich players.
There can be no greater example of this than the Buddy Franklin trade.
It is unfathomable how a player turning 27 before the next season starts can be offered a nine-year contract, regardless of how many zeroes are in it.
It is equally unfathomable that the system allows a top team like Sydney to afford to have two million dollars players on its list.
It should be obvious by now that the AFL has blundered by allowing both a restricted and a non-restricted free agency component of the agreement.
It should have learned from the previous foray into free agency, when the then VFL introduced the ten year rule in the mid-seventies.
Then, a player who had given ten years service to his club could move to the club of his choice without a clearance fee.
North Melbourne acted quickly. It hadn't been a successful club but it had smart, influential people at the helm.
They offered the stars of the day, Doug Wade, Barry Davis, John Rantell, Stan Alves, and others, the same paper bag stuffed with cash - a lot more money than they had been playing for at their original clubs - to wear the Kangaroo colours.
Under the leadership of the highest profile coach in the land, Ron Barassi, premierships soon followed, but the VFL realised too late that a star player after ten years was still likely to be a champion, and the poorer clubs could never afford to attract them, nor could they afford to lose their own stars.
The 10-year rule was quickly dismantled. So to does this new free agency agreement need to be dismantled - despite the protests that will stream from the AFL Players Association.
Football is now the most professional sport in Australia but that doesn't mean that the old-fashioned ideals of loyalty and longevity of service have to be dispensed with.
It can not become like the other codes, particularly soccer, where you never know from one year to the next who will be playing for your team.
The English Premier League is the worst case example where the top teams are mostly nothing but foreign mercenaries.
That's why you have to love a player like Steve Gerrard, who has stayed fiercely loyal to his beloved Liverpool, but he'll never really know from one year to the next who his team-mates will be.
The Crows have moved into this free agency maelstrom as well by signing Carlton ace, Eddie Betts.
They have had to, given the draconian, unjust restrictions that the AFL placed on them after the Kurt Tippett wrangle.
Interestingly, Carlton, who had the chance to match Adelaide's offer to Betts, decided not to. So let's put our hands on our hearts here.
Does Eddie Betts really deserve to be one of the highest paid players at the Crows?
Admittedly, because of the AFL's folly, the Crows need to do what they have to to improve their list, but the question answers itself.
Perhaps it is a snapshot of what society has now become. We care only about success, regardless of the victims or those who are trampled on.
Hawthorn fans have probably been too intoxicated by their deserved grand final triumph to count up the number of players they had attracted from other clubs. Wonder why those players didn't go to Melbourne?
Prepare for the worst. If Sydney win another flag in the next two years, it will be further indictment on a short-sighted policy.
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