Sydney Blue wrote:
Kaptain Kouta wrote:
True, SB, and that areticle also says:
"...a socialist competition designed to reward the weak with access to the best young talent. Of course, Carlton is a special case because it was effectively removed from the early rounds of the 2002 and 2003 drafts for salary-cap cheating, an ill-considered and draconian judgement by the AFL Commission that will cost it millions of dollars, both in lost revenue and bail-out money required to keep the Blues afloat."
I think some in the wider media and community are starting to realise just how harsh and disproportional (given our predicament on-field at the time) the penalties were, and still are.
The penalties should be biting now thats what they were designed to do
We should not have been hurting this much the previous three years because of the penalties .
missing 4 kids should not equate to winning 3 spoons at some point you have to stand up and be counted .
The article doesn't criticise Pagan thats just me never missing the chance to rip it to him and to wake up monday morning and find someone has started another Pagan bashing thread . I just have to contribute.
I actually posted that article in his defence I am starting to feel sorry for the old bugger
Yes it should SB. It goes beyond not acquiring 4 top-line kids in the draft. It compromised our recruiting strategies whereby we looked for stop-gap measures with retreads to minimise the damage and this has compounded our plight. Also, our prolonged mediocrity has set a rot at our club that is now reaching permanent, if not, long term damage. Members are dropping off, attendances are down, revenues are down (sponsors, corporates, etc.), we are a loss making organisation that needs assistance to survive.
The AFL was negligent and derelict in its duties when it dished out those punishments and was too stupid to have the foresight a lot of us had as to the unreasonable and unnecessary damage the penalties were going to have. Now it has not only cost our club, but the greater competition by having a basket case club that needs welfare and detracts from the whole competition as a product.
I still think it is going to get worse for us this year and the AFL will have some very important meetings post season to figure out a way of resurrecting a once powerful club before its too late.
And as for the narrowminded, braindead media, there only NOW starting to realise the excessive damage the draft penalties had on our club! Weren't they all tapping their toes when the sentence was handed down??!! Idiots
