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“When I read that… I nearly fell over”: Jenkins blasts the AFL’s ‘Buddy Franklin Rule’
Sam Watson • February 12th, 2025 5:39 pm
Josh Jenkins has taken aim at the AFL’s ‘Buddy Franklin rule’, which is making it mandatory for club boards to tick off on player contracts that exceed six years.
In Jake Niall’s piece for The Age, he explained how the rule is aimed to slow the huge growth in clubs handing out long term deals, but Jenkins believes the responsibility shouldn’t fall on board members with less knowledge of the players than club administrators.
“Three quarters of a club board would have no idea whether a player is or is not worth a five, a six, a seven or eight-year deal,” he said on SEN’s Sportsday.
“From memory, only one, maybe two people on the board are there from a football capacity.
“So, what would the board actually know about which players deserve six, seven, eight, nine-year contracts?
“The list managers are employed, last time I checked, to make these types of decision. The list managers are employed to decide which guys are worth eight years and which guys are worth allowing to walk (away from the club).”
Jenkins also had his co-host Kane Cornes in the gun for his thoughts about banning long-term contracts all together.
“That’s doing these people’s job for them,” Jenkins said.
“(Clubs are) paying Justin Reid and Blair Hartley and these guys a quarter of a million bucks a year to do their job, so allow them to do it.
“Let’s not intervene, let’s definitely not ask a board member, who owns a $75 million business selling tissues, to decide which players are worth seven-year contracts.
“When I read that (piece in The Age) from Jake Niall, I nearly fell over.”
After complimenting Josh Jenkins for his well-expressed opinion, Cornes explained why he disagreed with him.
“You need a risk mitigation strategy to keep coaches and by extension list managers accountable,” Cornes said.
“Craig McRae said last year ‘Don’t give me draft picks, I don’t want draft picks’… well how’s that going to look for you Craig when you’re not (there) anymore in four years, and (Collingwood) look up in 2029 and (they’ve) got no young players coming through?
“That’s the reason it is there, and this is the right move.”
