Changes needed to stop temporary deals making finals a joke
The Age
Monday February 8, 2010
COLLINGWOOD wizard Alan Didak goes down in round seven of the AFL with a serious knee injury. The Magpies nurse Didak along and don't put him on the long-term injury list in the hope that he might come good later in the year. He doesn't and, with the finals looming, Eddie McGuire and his management team are desperate to boost their firepower.Meanwhile, the Hawks are out of the race for the final eight with two rounds to spare. But Buddy Franklin would love the chance to play in another finals campaign.So, in round 20, the Pies announce they are signing Franklin for the next three months because the gun forward has terminated his contract with Hawthorn.The Hawks tell their bemused fans not to worry as Franklin will be returning a couple of weeks before the start of the next season.Sound ridiculous? Well, that's not far from what's happening in the A-League with Melbourne Victory's temporary signing of Nik Mrdja from Central Coast.Such short-term loan deals are not permitted by the AFL. But they are by Football Federation Australia, which this weekend was being asked by opposition clubs how, after the January transfer window had shut, A-League title favourite Victory was able to sign the injury-prone forward Mrdja on a six-month deal that will allow him to play out the remainder of the home-and-away season, the finals and the Asian Champions League for his new team.The answer is that the competition's injury-replacement provisions allow it to happen. Melbourne Victory's football operations department simply took advantage of the existing framework. No blame can be attached to it.The issue is really whether those rules should be changed to prevent such manoeuvres happening at such a late stage of future seasons.Maybe the FFA should police its injury-replacement provisions €” particularly the like-for-like injunction €” more closely. After all, Mrdja is a hulking great centre-forward and the man he replaced, Billy Celeski, is a medium-sized holding midfielder who was injured five months ago.The governing body says it will review its framework at season's end. If there is no change to the injury-replacement provisions, we could see the start of a trend, where star players from clubs out of finals contention €”as Mrdja's Central Coast Mariners are €” routinely ask for contract terminations and join a title-chasing team on a short-term agreement, having already sealed a deal to rejoin their old club in time for the start of the next season.And that €” as former Socceroo midfielder turned television pundit Ross Aloisi has suggested €” could turn the finals into something of a joke.
© 2010 The Age
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