Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

I believe there is still a way to recruit Nick Stevens to our club.

For the Pre Season Draft a player must nominate his "price" - i.e. his terms.

As we have seen in the past, certain players have "priced themselves out of the market" only to find that nobody has drafted them, thus putting their careers into limbo.

Now in this era of "back loaded" contracts, what prevents Nick Stevens doing the opposite (i.e. front load) and nominating an extortionate amount for a one year contract?

What I am getting at is that who else has as much cap room as us? Answer....nobody.

So, if Stevens nominates say a one year deal at $900,000, nobody could afford him except for us....

Once signed up to us, we are able to then "extend" his contract by adding on an extra 2 years at say $300,000 p.a. thus giving him the 1.5M over 3 years that he wants (or whtever the figure is).

So, by front loading Stevens contract in an initial one year deal, nobody could pick him up except for us.

Now if this is not violating any of the rules of the draft (and I cannot see how it does), we should try and pull it off.

Your thoughts please.

The Dude

cooldewd wrote:What I am getting at is that who else has as much cap room as us? Answer....nobody.

The Blues would have way more free cap space than us

Ratten, McKernan, Beaumont & McKay gone
Kouta on the veterans list

Even if they did....do you seriously think they will pay $900,000 to player for one solitary season if he is then a free agent at the end of that year?

Even Carlton aren't that dumb.

If they offered Nick Stevens 900K's for a year and then he left, there would be a revolution at Poonces Park.

I reckon it is worth a try.

The Dude

the blues probably do have more money than us, but they wouldn't pay Stevens 900k for one year only to lose him this time next year. I think we are still a chance.

you beat me to the punch by one min cooldewd.
damn you

I Can't really see it happening boys, Wouldn't that be deemed as draft tampering? Imagine the look on Port's faces if we pulled it off tho haha

coodewd,

I think you are confusing money in the bank with the salary cap. Collingwood doesn't have the room to pay someone $900,000 for a season. To do this we would have to get rid of some highly paid players.

labrooy,

Spot on, I was going to say the same thing.


However, could Stevens nominate that much, then conveniently change his mind and agree to say, $500,000 a season?

Correct me if I am wrong, I was labouring under the misapprehension that we had close to a million dollars freed up under the cap with the delistings, retirements and Buckley going onto the veterans list.

Maybe I am wrong, but if we have cap room, we have to investigate all possibilities.

My understanding is that we are only at 95% of our cap room.

No Tossa, Rawlings will be picked up by the Bulldogs....if we do nothing on Stevens Carlton are the next in line.

Eugene Arocca is an honourable man and I will not hear a bad word about him even in jest.

Just my thoughts (for what they are worth).

The Dude

i would love to see Stevens in a collingwood jumper more than any reason to piss port off, but i dont think it will happen. although stevens number one choice is collingwood, he is also prepared to go to carlton. the ony way he will wear a black and white jumper is to put a huge figure on his head.

gingerthedog wrote: although stevens number one choice is collingwood, he is also prepared to go to carlton. the ony way he will wear a black and white jumper is to put a huge figure on his head.

Incorrect. Port and Carlton struck a deal for Stevens to go to Carlton for their number two draft pick, however, Stevens reneged on what he had said earlier, i.e. that he was willing to go to Carlton. So that deal fell through. Then when Collingwood and Port couldn't come up with a deal, Port said stuff him, he is going into the draft then. Stevens does not want to play for Carlton.

Collingwood have to have 37 players on their list after the pre-season draft. We may well have the room under the salary cap at the moment to pay Stevens a lot of money but when it comes to completing the list we would need to find players willing to play for nothing. I don't think that will happen.

As for asking for $900,000 and then changing to $500,000, I think the AFL has rules against that as well. Lets face it guys, Stevens won't be playing for us next year. It doesn't matter, we will still be up there.

The only way I see it is for Stevens to say to all clubs he will only sign a one year contract under the grounds that they will trade him to the club of his choice in the following year.

By placing a huge figure to scare off other clubs will not work because the amount he specifies will be included in the salary cap regardless on whether he gets paid it or not. I dont see how we could have that much free cap room for it to work anyway.

There's a catch 22 in here Dude

The only way that could work and be legal is if there is no legally binding understanding that Stevens will extend his contract. If there is a demonstrable understanding then it could be successfully argued that the figures are rubbery (which they would be) and the contract misleading (which it would be).

So that leaves us with a 1 year $900,000 contract and a promise. Once the contract is signed we then rely on Stevens to hold up his side of the bargain, which, for argument's sake, he doesn't. Comes the end of the year and Stevens is no longer contracted and has a choice of staying with us for $300,000 or going elsewhere for much more. Are you going to trust his promise to re-sign under those conditions? If he renegged, we couldn't even accuse him of breaking his word because that would be a public admission that we had rigged the contract.

The catch 22? To justify the Club contracting to pay a player $900,000 in one year the Board would have to be able to show that we had actually secured him for 3 years for $1.5 million - yet if they have that evidence the initial contract becomes a meaningless shuffle of figures.

Any board that tied the Club to a $900,000 1 year deal with no security past that would be sacked.

Joel wrote:However, could Stevens nominate that much, then conveniently change his mind and agree to say, $500,000 a season?

He could nominate $900,000, and Collingwood could pay him $50,000 instead. However the $900,000 would count in the cap