Nick Bendel
Winner or loser?
October 22nd 2008 05:45
Even the most parochial Swans’ supporter would find it difficult to begrudge O’Keefe for wanting to leave the club. In more than 150 games in the red and white, he has proven himself to be a disciplined, hard-working and team-oriented footballer, who does all the right things on and off the field. While he must have concluded some time ago that he wanted to relocate, instead of announcing his intentions several months ago or agitating for a move last year, he dutifully waited until both the season and his contract had expired before delivering the news.
Predictably, a number of Victorian clubs showed interest during trade week, but none were able to offer the Swans the right combination of players and draft picks to persuade them to surrender their All-Australian. As a free agent, O’Keefe was then entitled to nominate for the pre-season draft, but because there was a danger that he might be selected by a South Australian or Western Australian outfit, he decided to re-sign with Sydney.
Examined in isolation, it is difficult to believe that this episode has ended in a way that O’Keefe deserved. Having fulfilled all his contractual obligations, surely he was entitled, as would any employee be, to move on to an organisation of his choosing. Whether he wanted to move on to be closer to his family, as he claimed, or to pocket more money, as some would doubtless suspect, is irrelevant. In signing a contract, he had promised to perform certain duties for a prescribed amount of time; thus, the moment that period came to an end, so did his obligations. The same, of course, applied to the Swans- with the player’s contract finished, they would have been entitled to dump him, in the same way that they did Nick Davis.
If an exemplary footballer like Ryan O’Keefe is denied freedom of movement, does that mean that there is something wrong with the AFL system? Legally speaking, there almost certainly is. The only reason that the NRL doesn’t have a draft is because its old centralised recruiting scheme was deemed unlawful in 1991 by the High Court. Given that precedent, if the Players’ Association opted to stop cooperating with the AFL draft and challenge it in court, it, too, would most likely be declared unlawful.
Only if one takes a big picture approach can the AFL system, and the O’Keefe episode, seem reasonable. The Australian Football League is a socialist utopia, in which nobody is allowed to rise too high or fall too far, and in which everyone takes turns in being successful. In this way, an unpredictable and exciting competition is contrived, and a greater public interest established. A greater public interest leads to increased television rights, gate receipts, merchandise sales and sponsorship, and all that leads to increased player salaries. It should also be noted that if not for the socialist model, several clubs would go broke, resulting in dozens of footballers being laid off.
So, the very model that frustrated O’Keefe has also been responsible for the handsome salary he has banked throughout his career. Although he has done everything required of him over the years, he has also been happy to pocket every cent that came his way. If it seems unjust that such an admirable character should be prevented from signing for whichever club he wanted, it would also be unfair not to acknowledge that he would be a poorer man if the complicated arrangement of salary capping, trading and drafting was not in place. The Ryan O’Keefe of the last few weeks may have finished on the losing side, but the Ryan O’Keefe of 2000-2008 has definitely been a winner.
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