Carlton has already received commitments from star rebounding defenders Zac Williams and Adam Saad ahead of the 2021 trade period, but they have salary cap space to strike again.
The Blues have been stockpiling cap space in recent years for this trade period and have been linked to almost everyone on the market.
Club CEO Cain Liddle said they are excited about Saad and Williams, but can continue to be aggressive – pending the AFL’s announcement of the salary cap and list sizes.
“There is still room to move (in the trade period), but at this point we’re not even sure what list sizes look like,” Liddle told Carlton members in a video on Monday.
“We’re still not clear what the TPP (Total Player Payments) is going to be, so there is so much uncertainty.”
Carlton’s AFLW side was also quite successful in the trade period, landing Melbourne star midfielder Elise O’Dea as well as highly rated youngsters Maddy Guerin and Charlotte Hammans.
Liddle praised both sides of the organisation for their work in luring players to Ikon Park.
“What I will say is to have players wanting to get to your club I think is a great reflection of your culture and I think our coaches, both in our men’s and women’s program deserve a lot of credit for that, David Teague and Daniel Harford,” Liddle said.
“Equally, I think our captains get forgotten. The work that I see Katie Loynes and Kerryn Harrington and equally Patrick Cripps and Sam Docherty do behind the scenes to help us attract good players to the club is just outstanding.
“We’ve become a club that players want to get to, but equally we’ve become a club that players want to stay at and that’s a really important step in our progress that we’ve now got that culture.”
The COVID-19 crisis hit Carlton at the worst possible time, with the club originally set to finally pay off its historic debt this year.
Liddle stated that the Blues remain on track to get rid of the debt soon, thanks to the sacrifices of many at Ikon Park.
“I think the stakeholders that sometimes get forgotten are our players, who took massive pay cuts this year and equally our staff, there hasn’t been one staff member at Carlton who has got throw this unscathed (financially),” he said.
“There’s been huge commitments made by everyone across the club and I’m really pleased to report that at this stage we’re tracking somewhere close to breakeven this year, which in March I probably couldn’t have seen as possible.
“It’s only been through that incredible support of the members and staff that we’re going to get somewhere near that.
“What that does is it ensures that we’re not going into (2021) with an increased debt position, so we should get to the end of the year and our debt position should be exactly where it was 12 months ago, which is a great outcome.
“And presuming we can accelerate quickly out the other end of this, we want to get stuck back in and remove that debt, which we were tracking to have paid off in 2020 until COVID hit. That debt has been there since 1996.”
Carlton recorded a record membership tally in 2020 of 67,035 and Liddle hopes the club can push for 80,000 next season.
“The way we’re tracking right now, it’s not out of the realms of possibility that we’d be looking to hit 80,000 members next year on the way to that 100,000 target by 2023,” he said.