Former North Melbourne president James Brayshaw believes West Coast will be the team disadvantaged most by the AFL’s drastic soft cap spending cuts because they are “the biggest team in our competition”.
The AFL will reportedly slash football department sending by as much as $4 million from its original figure of $9.7 million as part of saving money to get through the COVID-19 crisis.
While smaller teams will have to make the exact same cuts as the bigger teams, they will likely also need to dip into the AFL’s line of credit in order to stay afloat in 2020.
However, Brayshaw says the Eagles have enough money to keep themselves afloat and also pay the full soft cap meaning they are being brought down to the level of everyone else.
“Everyone talks about Richmond and Collingwood being the biggest clubs in the competition, they’ve got no idea,” Brayshaw told Sportsday WA.
“West Coast are by that far the biggest team in our competition it doesn’t matter. They’ve got more money times 10 than any other club.
“They don’t need the AFL’s money. They’ve got enough of it.
“So if you go and say ‘why should our footy department be cut along with everyone else’s when we haven’t got our hand out for money’?
“So they’ll probably be disadvantaged more than any others, but the North Melbourne’s, the St Kilda’s the Western Bulldogs’, the Carlton’s, if they want access to this line of credit, then they’ve got to cut their money and it is really as simple as that.”
The AFL is set to make an announcement about their plans to get the game back underway this week.
It is expected both West Australian teams will need to start the season in isolation hubs outside of WA, given the state government’s tough stance on mandatory 14-day quarantine periods.
