Sporting News Australia
The secret deals that agents do
By Ricky Nixon
Bottom drawer agreements are daily events in the AFL. Some of mine could have blown up the competition!
Mick Malthouse, you’ve been a naughty, naughty little boy, now go to your room.
How dare you tell the football world what probably really happened in negotiations between Adelaide and Eddie Betts?
How dare you lift on the lid on what happens in 99 per cent of players deals to exit one club and go to another?
Should you believe Adelaide FC, Steven Trigg, Betts’s agent Ned Guy, Betts himself and host of other administrators and coaches involved when they say hand-on-heart that Betts did not sign a contact with Adelaide 18 months before he exited Carlton?
Yes, you can believe them. Because he wouldn’t have “signed a contract”.
But might his agent have agreed verbally or via a side deal well before his time at Carlton expired?
If he didn’t, and I was Betts, I would have sacked him.
It’s Ned Guy’s job to get the best deal for his client. He can’t possibly do this within the rules and wait until Betts’s contract expires before talking to other clubs. Tell me any employee of any nature who doesn’t speak to a suitor regarding their employment behind their current employer’s back.
Get in the real world. It happens daily.
Go sit in an AFL agent’s office today and I guarantee you they will all be doing deals outside the rules of the AFL and in some cases contractually.
In sport and for that matter business the AFL requires a player to sign a contract to play in the AFL.
The contract is a tri-party agreement between the player, his club and the AFL. The contract encompasses all the provisions of the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement between the AFL Players Association and the AFL). Like most contacts of employment it has the standard confidentiality clauses and also the term of the agreement.
Of course Betts can’t “sign” a contract with another club while contracted to his present employer. From the day I opened my office door in 1993 to start my first negotiations on behalf of a young promising centre half forward Wayne Carey, I used a filing cabinet to store player files. It was always locked; no one had a key, not even my trusted PA Carlie Merenda (sister of Mark). It had a bottom drawer. If only that bottom drawer could talk! Boy, has it seen some amazing secret deals and boy could I bury just about every club in the AFL!
I hope you’re sitting down because I assume this will totally blow you away. Agents and clubs do secret deals outside the rules every day of the week.
Is it risky? Yep. Is it necessary? Of course. Why isn’t it exposed? Because an agent is not going to burn a club he probably has to deal with an hour later on another player.
Remember when North Melbourne was in serious financial trouble in the mid-90s and contemplating merging with Fitzroy (in fact they did, only for it to be overturned)?
It was around the time that Geelong was known as the handbaggers. They were in desperate need of a match winner. Somewhere in that bottom draw is a scribbled, hand-written deal. The note said something like this:
Wayne Carey – $1 million
North Melbourne – $1 million to help eradicate their debt and keep them afloat.
Ricky Nixon 3% of Wayne’s salary and 3% to get the $1m to North = $60K (“might start looking at new Alfa Romeos”).
Of course history will show it never happened.
But what history doesn’t show was the ground-breaking clause the greatest player of all time didhave in the bottom drawer that could have sunk North forever.
Carey was earning close to $1 million at the time. Because of the fear they could merge I came up with this:
“If North Melbourne merge and/or relocate at any stage during the term of this agreement the Club agrees to terminate this agreement and pay the Player $1M”.
I’ll never forget the sheer joy in the voice of a certain North Melbourne administrator when he rang and said: “Rick, great news, we’ve merged with Fitzroy. Wayne will be a North player forever.”
Me: “Aren’t you forgetting about the termination clause and payout? Wayne is now effectively the AFL’s first Free Agent and rich, very rich.”
There was a long silence. “Oh my God, I forgot about that!”
Fair to say Wayne was doing cartwheels. I’d told the wife to order the new swimming pool and was deciding between dark blue or black for the new Alfa Romeo.
Imagine for one minute if the King had gone to Geelong at the same time as a couple of young kids, Gary Ablett Jnr and Matthew Scarlett, emerged from the Geelong Falcons. They might have won 10 premierships in a row.
So what really happens in contact negotiations that the AFL doesn’t want you to know?
Firstly a club or an agent will initiate contact to discuss the interest level in a player about to come out of contract. This can be up to two years before the player’s contract expires.
Think Adelaide again, think Patrick Dangerfield.
As if his agent Paul Connors wouldn’t have been talking to every club at least a year a go about a possible move to a new club and a fat new contract.
Would Dangerfield have signed a contract with a new club? Of course not.
Would Paul have notes in his bottom drawer? Well, given the top seven agents all either worked for me or were managed by me I’m thinking some bottom drawers would make interesting reading.
If a deal has already been struck on Dangerfield then this is what we will hear for the rest of the year from Dangerfield and Connors: “No deal has been done. We are waiting until the end of the season to talk to Adelaide so that Patrick can focus on his footy.”
Haha, yeah right. He was able to focus on his footy for the past 15 years without too many distractions.
Now if you’re wondering what happened to the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet I’m pleased to tell you it’s in a very safe place under lock and key.
It now has scribbled across it in big black texta: “Ricky SuperFund”.
Ricky Nixon’s take on AFL #ChickenGoesBANG Mondays and Fridays 6pm Sporting News Australia
Contact Ricky Nixon via info@rickynixon.com.au
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Ricky Nixon 