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Simpson: Coaches don’t know how much players earn
SEN • May 24th, 2025 3:04 pm
Adam Simpson has given some insight into the amount of involvement that coaches have in signing players to their clubs.
Speaking about some of the contract negotiations occurring in the AFL, Simpson let on to the fact that when coaching West Coast, he was unaware of how much money his players were earning.
And he suspects that it is similar across the majority of AFL clubs.
“You know the coaches don’t know what the players are on,” Simpson said on SEN’s Crunch Time.
When asked to elaborate by Tom Morris, Simpson explained that the focus of his conversations with the list management team when coaching at West Coast was about whether the player complimented their list rather than the cost of their contract.
“Maybe that’s just me, we (coaches) just look at the talent and the availability, we don’t look at the cap.
“I couldn’t tell you what our players were on.
“There’s just so much going on, that’s the last piece.
“We spoke about tenure and how long or where do they fit in the list rather than ‘how bad do you want them?’
"It really didn't come up much too much."
Dermott Brereton also asked Simpson whether he would ask the list management team if they can afford certain players.
Simpson said he would ask but noted that there were strategies of being able to manage those concerns.
“Yeah, you do," Simpson noted.
"But there’s normally a way. There’s normally something you can do.
“If it’s an extra year or it’s a front end or a back end or you’ve got to lose someone.
“Or you’ve got to approach a player to re-adjust their contract. So, there are ways around things.
“It’s never like the TDK (Tom De Koning) one, that’s a different stratosphere, that’s new.
“But normally there is a way around things and it's less about that and more about ‘can we get them?’”
