The Sydney Swans can confirm the AFL has written to the Club outlining a number of restrictions in place throughout the free agency and trade period for the next two years.

The Club has been restricted to only trading in delisted free agents, players through the draft or rookie upgrades.

The AFL informed the Club if it doesn’t comply, the Cost of Living Allowance will cease immediately and not phased out over two years and replaced with a rent subsidy system as previously advised.

Swans chief executive Andrew Ireland said the Club is extremely disappointed.

“As you’d expect, the Club is very disappointed and we don’t understand why the AFL has made this rule specifically for us considering we’ve complied with their rules,” Ireland said.

“While we wholeheartedly believe players should receive the cost of living allowance due to the higher cost of living in Sydney, it was ultimately the AFL’s rule, it wasn’t optional and therefore we included it in every player’s contract.

“It doesn’t make any sense that we’re being punished for something that we’ve been told to do.

“It also doesn’t seem fair that we can lose players yet we’re unable to replace them.

“The only reason we’ve been able to recruit players in previous years is by creating salary cap room as a result of players departing the club, which is exactly the same as every other club.

“We’ll continue to discuss the restrictions in place with the AFL administration and Commission.”



The AFL released the following statement on Thursday evening:

The Australian Football League wishes to advise that it formally notified the Sydney Swans in writing last week of an AFL Commission decision around the Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA) for the club, that related to its options for trading during the NAB AFL Exchange Period.

In June earlier this year, after an AFL Commission meeting with the 18 Club Presidents and Chairs, the AFL advised all clubs that COLA for the Sydney Swans and GWS would be phased out over the 2015 and 2016 seasons, to be eliminated for the 2017 year. Since that time, the AFL has been in discussions with the NSW-based clubs on the implementation of that phase-out.

The Commission stated that the key principle was that the Sydney Swans should use the COLA transition amount to honour existing contracts and not to attract players from other clubs or use that transitional amount to compete with other clubs for the services of players not on their list.

Accordingly, the AFL advised the Sydney Swans last week that the  transitional amounts will decrease to zero if the Swans contract a player for their Primary List for either of the 2015 or 2016 seasons who is not currently on their Primary List or Rookie List.  The only exceptions to the foregoing are players who are drafted to the Sydney Swans via the National Draft in 2014 or 2015 or a delisted free agent who is added to the Primary List (the exceptions do not include Players in the National Draft who nominate their payments under AFL Rule 6.3(b) or Players who are delisted free agents who terminate their contract for cause pursuant to clause 19(c) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement).

The AFL also advised GWS that due to its TPP position, list structure and contractual commitments, it would be permitted to retain the COLA levels at $800,000 for the 2015 year and $600,000 for the 2016 year, with no restriction on any players coming into the club during the NAB AFL Exchange Period.