The AFL and Melbourne are currently negotiating the payout that Angus Brayshaw will receive after he was medically retired as a result of ongoing concussion issues.
While Brayshaw will be paid out the remaining five years of his multi-million-dollar contract, the question is whether that money will be paid out of Melbourne’s salary cap or not.
SEN’s Sam Edmund reported that there’s no blueprint for how such severance payments are conducted for a player who is medically retired.
In response to that report, Kane Cornes pondered why Brayshaw’s situation would be considered different to any other player who was forced to medically retire from another physical injury such as a broken leg.
Cornes thinks that Melbourne knew about Brayshaw’s concussion issues when they signed him to a six-year deal in 2022 and isn’t sure that they should be exempt from paying his deal out of their cap.
“The question I've got and the query I've got, and this is one of the reasons I dislike long-term contracts, is that Melbourne knew Angus Brayshaw had concussion issues before they signed him into that six-year deal,” Cornes said on SEN Breakfast.
“Why is concussion any different to (another injury)? Let’s use Wil Powell as an example because he's got a contract until the end of 2029.
“Now he's already fractured his leg and he's already had two really nasty ankle injuries.
“What if he fractured his leg again and he couldn't come back the same player that he was prior to that?
“Does Gold Coast get compensation and is Wil Powell’s payout excluded from their salary cap or is that included because it's an ankle injury and it's not as sensitive as concussion?”
Cornes believes that it’s one of the risks of signing players to long-term deals and he thinks that this is part of the buyer beware that clubs must consider before tabling such contracts.
“I played with a young forward by the name of Bowen Lockwood,” Cornes said.
“He was a prodigious talent in the early 2000s but his back was no good and he just couldn't get up because of his back.
“If he had a long-term deal, does his money get excluded from the salary cap?
“This is the risk that clubs take when you sign players to long-term deals.”
While Cornes is in full support of Brayshaw receiving his payout, he isn’t sure that the rules should be altered simply due to the sensitivities surrounding concussion.
“I get the sensitivities around it,” Cornes said.
“I'm not diminishing that side of it and I'm Angus is going to get paid regardless, it doesn't matter.
“But why should Melbourne have that money excluded from their salary cap when someone … just say Sam Walsh if he hurts his back again and he can't come back, do Carlton get compensation and not pay him out of their salary cap?”
Brownlow Medallist Gerard Healy compared Brayshaw’s situation to Lance Franklin’s when the AFL was adamant that Sydney would have to pay out his contract entirely in their cap if he went down with a career-ending injury during his nine-year deal.
“I'm fully aware of almost the earth ending when Buddy Franklin signed a nine-year deal with the Sydney Swans and he was supposed to go to the Giants,” Cornes said.
“Mike Fitzpatrick went ballistic, Gillon McLachlan went ballistic and almost everybody, every senior journo rang the AFL and said, ‘What happens to his money if he gets injured?’.
“To a man at the AFL, they were absolutely adamant that every cent had to be paid in the cap for the entirety of his contract … they were so adamant that a long-term contract was going to have to be paid.
“Their vehemence in arguing about the salary cap back then, I suspect is the rules.
“But your point is well made, it's a different era and we've got much more sympathy towards the concussion issue.”
