Telstra AFL Trade Radio’s Damian Barrett has described the AFL’s free agency compensation system as a “rort”.
It comes as Richmond is tipped to receive a first-round compensation draft pick for losing dual premiership player Brandon Ellis, who decided to exercise his free agency rights.
“There is no way Richmond should be given a first-round pick for losing Brandon Ellis, and this my point, this is the problem with this system,” Barrett told Telstra AFL Trade Radio.
“There will be outrage in the AFL world if the Richmond Football Club – the two out of three years premiership-winning Richmond Football Club – is to get a first-round compensation draft pick for the loss of a player who they could not commit to a regular senior game for next season.
“That will become the biggest rort in the system if Brandon Ellis is to present Richmond Football Club with an end of first-round draft pick as part of this compensation.”
Barrett expanded on his frustration with the current compensation process when clubs lose free agents.
“From the very outset of the AFL introducing free agency to the operations, I had an issue with compensation being given to the club which lost the free agent,” he said.
“Initially because it was slowing up the entire trade process. They’ve now worked out a mechanism in which it can be dealt with separately. It still doesn’t ultimately change my view on compensation being a rort of the free agency system in its purist form.
“A pure free agency system does not compensate for the club that loses the free agent.
“This is the problem with free agency, that Richmond Football Club can bring in a a free agent Tom Lynch last year and not spent a cent to get him and win a premiership on the back of it.”
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Listen to Damian Barrett discuss his problems with the compensation system in the player below