Former St Kilda head of football Chris Pelchen has lifted the lid the cap issues the Saints dealt with across 2011-2013.
As St Kilda seeks to build a list that can challenge for a flag in 2020, as laid out in their publicly revealed succession blueprint in 2014, Pelchen has explained how the issues he had to deal with when he arrived at the club placed numerous constrains on St Kilda.
“I started with the Saints in August 2011,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“In August of 2011, my second day there, Michael Nettlefold came to me with a folder of the TPP and said you need to look over this urgently.
“It showed the club was on target, and this was Round 18 2011, they were on target to be just short of over half a million over the salary cap in 2011.
“Everyone is aware of the sanctions in place if you do end the season over the cap, they’re quite significant.
“They also had the oldest list in the competition in 2011. So not only did they have the highest paid list, they had the oldest list. The club didn’t have any list management committee or any TPP committee. Those things were rectified.
“Ameet Bains and myself met with Ken Wood and the AFL weekly between Round 18 and the end of the season to correct the cap position for 2011, which meant referring payments into 2012.
“That subsequently caused the 2012 cap to be completely maxed out.
“So much so, one of the players from 2011 was still receiving payments for that year in 2013. You can imagine the constraints that placed on the cap in 2012 and 2013.
“To give you an idea, in 2012 the cap had ballooned to such a position that 63 percent of the total cap was being spent on 10 players.
“That meant the other 34 players were basically one third of the cap space. That’s unheard of.”
Pelchen also said the cap situation played a factor in Brendon Goddard and Nick Dal Santo entering free agency.
Listen to Chris Pelchen’s chat with Garry Lyon, Tim Watson and Bob Murphy on SEN Breakfast in the player below