Carlton CEO Cain Liddle is completely confident the club will retain co-captain Patrick Cripps, who is a free agent at season’s end.
The 2019 AFLPA MVP has repeatedly stated that his desire is to stay with the Blues, despite the allure of a return to Western Australia.
Liddle admitted formal talks are yet to start, but will as soon as they get clarity on what the salary cap will look like beyond 2021.
“A lot of our staff have been away and only just come back and it’s been a little complex to dive too deep into any long-term negotiations for players the ilk of Patrick Cripps given the uncertainty around TPP (total player payments) last year and even the uncertainty moving forward now,” the Blues CEO told SEN Mornings.
“There’s absolutely been conversations going on all along. Never at any stage have we been told by Cripps or his management that they don’t want to talk to us.”
Liddle said Cripps is more invested in Carlton than any player he’s seen at any other club and the same goes for head coach David Teague and Head of Football Brad Lloyd.
Teague, Liddle and Lloyd have a wealth of football experience and have been around a number of teams, including Richmond, Fremantle and Adelaide most recently.
“David Teague and Brad Lloyd and myself often comment that given all of our experiences at a number of different clubs, we can’t ever recall a player being so invested in improving his football club like Patrick Cripps,” he said.
“Given the fact that he’s our captain and does have that strong investment we’re really comfortable with where things sit with him right now.”
Carlton has been incredibly active in the trade period in recent years, bringing in Adam Saad, Zac Williams and Lachie Fogarty in 2020.
Liddle said the club still has the salary cap room to be big players in 2021’s lucrative free agency pool if they chose to be.
“After going to the draft for those few years we’ve taken a more balanced approach and that balanced approach suggests if you can trade away picks for players who we think are going to add to our list and improve our on-field, then we’ve been more than prepared to do that,” he said.
“Given the fact that we underspent for an extended period and were only spending 95 per cent of the salary cap, we actually have some underspend we’re able to take advantage of both last year and this year, which puts us in a really strong position.
“It enables you to manoeuvre contracts in a way because you’ve got that extra five per cent and in some instances you can front-end some of those contracts.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that we will continue to be a strong player in free agency and we’ve got (Head of List Management) Nick Austin and (National Recruiting Manager) Mick Agresta overseen by (Head of Football) Brad Lloyd who are as focused on free agency and bringing in players from other clubs as they are the draft.
“If we have a draft pick and we’re confident we can bring a kid in who is going to develop into a good player, we won’t hesitate to go to the draft as well.
“Until that period comes at the end of the year I couldn’t comment because there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”
Carlton hasn’t played finals since 2013, with 2020’s 7-10 finish their best since that year.
The club remains steadfast on bringing home a 17th premiership flag within the next three years, to go with their recent off-field successes, including breaking their membership record for a third straight year.
“Absolutely (we want to win a flag in the next three years) and you’ll find that in our strategic plan which we launched in 2019 and let’s be honest, we didn’t exactly launch that from a position of strength, we’d just finished on the bottom in the men’s and the women’s,” Liddle said.
“We launched that plan to win premierships, to double our membership, to clear $7 million in debt and a whole range of another initiatives and not from a position of strength.
“Part of this plan is to put ourselves back in that position of strength, not only on the field, but equally off the field.”
The Blues announced on Monday that the club is debt free for the first time since 1996.