Trade Rules

[Albow]

I have an idea to improve trades when players have come out of contract. Using a similar system to the updated father - son trade rule and mandatory number of years service to the club they wish to traded from (I suggest 5 no less). In Luke Ball's case it may of went like this:-

Luke Ball has 8 years of service with Saints - Qualifys
Luke requests trade but does not nominate his chosen destination.
AFL requests all Clubs interested in Luke to nominate what draft pick they would sacrifice to retain his services.
After nominations are in Luke nominates the club he would like to join and the chosen club will trade their pick closest to the highest pick nominated by other clubs to St Kilda OR a player both teams deem equal value to this pick. If there is no agreed player the draft pick has to traded for the trade to be completed so there will always be fair compensation.

I havnt thought this through entirely but was wondering what your thoughts are guys?.

(Wasn't sure wether this should be in the trade section or not so mods move it if you wish)

[Bruno]

I think it has a lot of merrit. The only problem I ee though is that some players when moving clubs are deemed to be worth more then 1 draft pick (e.g. Chris Judd).

I agree the trade period needs to be fixed though. Because it is based on bartering it is too clunky. Something I suggested tp some friends was if the AFL issued "trade credits" to clubs each year based on ladder finish. Don't change anything about the draft or trade period in general but grease the wheels to ensure more deals can get done but allowing clubs to trade these "trade credits". Clubs could bank their trade credits for another year, cash them in with the AFL to improve their own position in the draft or trade them to another club to allow them to increase their position in the draft.

In the case of the Luke Ball deal, we could have offerred Pick 30, plus say "700" trade credits which we had in our bank. Saints could then cash these trade credits in allowing them to improve the Pick 30 up to say pick 22.

We'd need to call in Duckworth and Lewis or Ken McIntyre (or Penny Wong!) to work out the valuation of these trade credits but it would definately makes getting deals done easier. It might be a case that holding everything else constant that 500 trade credits would allow Pick 75 to be upgraded to Pick 60, but then the closer you get to the pointier end of the draft each trade credit is worth fewer a fewer spots in the draft. E.g. 500 credits would allow Pick 35 to move up 5 spots. It might be that to get from Pick 5 to Pick 3 you have to redeem 3000 trade credits.