Salary cap

In sports, a salary cap is a limit on the amount of money a team can spend on player salaries, either as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster (or both). Several sports leagues have made salary caps mandatory, both as a method of keeping overall costs down, and in order to balance the league so a wealthy team cannot become dominant simply by buying all the top players. Salary caps are often the major issue in negotiations between management and players' unions.

Salary caps in Australia

The Australian Football League has implemented a salary cap on its clubs since the 1980s as part of its equalisation policy designed to restrict the ability of its richest clubs (such as Adelaide, Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon and West Coast) to perennially dominate the competition.

Related Topics:
Australian Football League - 1980s - Adelaide - Carlton - Collingwood - Essendon - West Coast

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The penalties for breaching AFL salary cap regulations can be severe. In 2002, Carlton was found to have systematically rorted the regulations over a period of some years. Resultingly, it was heavily fined and stripped of its top player picks in that year's national draft. Carlton is still recovering from these penalties.

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The AFL salary cap is occasionally controversial, as the cap is slightly different for each club. Some clubs in poor financial circumstances have not been permitted to use their full cap to ensure they reduce costs. The Sydney Swans, on the other hand, have a larger cap due to the increased cost of living in that city. Until 2004 the Brisbane Lions were also permitted a slightly higher cap. Both of these cap extensions were justified in the name of Australian rules football's expansion into Australian rugby league's heartlands in Sydney and Brisbane. However the Lions' astonishing success, winning a hat-trick of premierships from 2001 to 2003, resulted in a revolt by other clubs (most notably Collingwood, led by its president Eddie McGuire). In 2004 the AFL bowed to the pressure, reducing Sydney's cap extension and eliminating Brisbane's altogether.

Related Topics:
Sydney Swans - 2004 - Brisbane Lions - Australian rules football - Rugby league - Sydney - Brisbane - Eddie McGuire

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The National Rugby League adopted a salary cap based on the AFL model in the early 1990s. In the NRL, clubs found to have breached the salary cap rules usually incur a fine. For example, six clubs were fined for minor infractions in 2003.

Related Topics:
National Rugby League - 1990s - 2003

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However in mid-2002, the Canterbury Bulldogs were found guilty of serious and systemic breaches. In additional to a more substantial fine, they were stripped of their competition points accumulated to that date, and hence denied a place in the finals. As the club had been leading the competition table prior to the penalty's imposition, this was a shattering outcome for the club and its fans.

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