From "The Age" Saturday October 14, 2000
Collingwood has the front-running to secure Richmond's Craig Biddiscombe following a contractual dispute that appears certain to end his career at Punt Road.
Richmond's salary cap problems could force Biddiscombe, 24, to play elsewhere next season and the Magpies have the next live pick in the pre-season draft.
The out-of-contract Biddiscombe has stopped training at Richmond after a breakdown of negotiations between his agent, Baker-Smith Management, and the Tigers. "We've been negotiating for the past month or so, but we can't come to terms with the figures that they are offering," his manager, Michael Baker, said. "What we want is not too outrageous, but we are competing with their cap problems.
"We were even prepared to help out in the first year of Biddiscombe's contract to have the figures loaded in later seasons to keep them under the limit. But we got nowhere with that offer."
Biddiscombe played 18 games this year and won Richmond's best clubman award after injury and poor form restricted him to just four games in his first season for the Tigers in 1999.
The flanker/wingman was traded for a first-round draft choice from Geelong before the 1998 national draft after 34 games in four seasons with the Cats, including a Norwich Rising Star nomination in 1996.
Biddiscombe is one of three experienced Richmond players who remain out of contract at Punt Road, along with Marc Dragicevic and David Bourke.
Richmond last month attempted to alleviate its salary cap concerns by trading Ben Harrison to the Western Bulldogs and then attempted to offload the highly paid Nick Daffy to Hawthorn.
But the Daffy deal broke down when the Hawks became aware of the huge marketing component in Daffy's salary and they were not prepared to pay that extra figure, believed to be more than $200,000 for the final two years of his contract.
Collingwood will have next pick in the December draft after the formality of St Kilda nominating out-of-contract Brisbane defender Brett Voss as its first choice.
Floreat Pica!
Neil
Magpie Biddiscombe?
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