Rucci’s Rip: Kurt doesn’t need extra cash

Sydney forward Kurt Tippett celebrates kicking a goal against Geelong. Picture: Toby Zerna Source: News Corp Australia

WHEN you are earning $1 million a season, does it hurt that much to pay 68 cents more for a loaf of bread after moving from Adelaide to Sydney? Or an extra three cents for a carton of milk?

Kurt Tippett hardly needs a 10 per cent cost-of-living allowance after coming off the richest (and most controversial) contract in the Adelaide Football Club's history to become a millionaire in the Harbour City. The Swans' key forward-ruckman would certainly notice paying an extra $300 a week in rent in Bondi rather than Henley ... but as an annual millionaire Tippett would surely be buying property in Sydney and holding it as an investment with significant capital gains.

Same for Sydney's other new millionaire player, former Hawthorn key forward Lance Franklin. His $100,000-a-year "bonus" as a cost-of-living allowance could not be matched in Perth — Franklin's home city — despite the West Australian capital having grocery prices that are six per cent more expensive than in Sydney.

Is anyone proposing a six per cent cost-of-living allowance to be added to the West Coast and Fremantle salary caps?

Or — in the spirit of equalisation that is consuming the AFL executives — that the Crows and Port Adelaide have their salary caps scaled back because Adelaide is the cheapest city in the land?

Sydney's "COLA" (cost of living allowance) is under fire again. The campaign started by Collingwood president Eddie McGuire almost a decade ago — with then Swans chairman Richard Colless infamously giving Eddie "the bird" on an ABC Television current affairs program — is almost won with fellow club leaders taking issue with the extra $900,000 in Sydney's salary cap.

The Swans' master strikes with Tippett and Franklin in the past two summers — Tippett as a free pick after the Adelaide contract farce and Franklin as a free agent — has put the COLA under attack for being a recruiting tool rather than a retention aid for Sydney. And there may be less support for the COLA at AFL House considering the league heavies appeared to want Tippett and Franklin at the new franchises at Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney respectively.

Sydney repeatedly argues the COLA is not used as a million-dollar bonus to sign up quality players. The Swans say they work to the same $9 million salary cap applied to every AFL club — and it is the league, not Sydney, that adds (and pays) the COLA bonus on each player contract.

So, if Swans defender Heath Grundy agrees to a $400,000-a-year deal at Sydney, it is the AFL that adds the $36,000 COLA.

Tippett's million-dollar deal has a $90,000 COLA bonus. That easily covers the extra 68 cents Tippett is paying for a loaf of bread when he looks back at his grocery bill from Adelaide.

Tippett does not need a COLA bonus. Grundy does not need it either.

But what about the newest draftees at Sydney such as Toby Nankervis who joined the Swans from his Tasmanian family home in the summer or Aliir Aliir who was recruited from Perth? As neither Nankervis nor Aliir are on million-dollar contracts, the COLA bonus is a handy — and appropriate — extra to cover the hefty rent bills in Sydney.

There is a good case to be made for removing the COLA from Sydney's millionaires, such as Tippett and Franklin.

But there also is a case to be argued for keeping the COLA for first-up draftees and players who are in their third and fourth years with the Swans and not earning more than $400,000.

If Sydney — as is quite possible — wins this year's AFL premiership with Tippett and Franklin combining as the game's most-potent attacking tandem, the COLA bonus in the Swans' salary cap will be under so much fire that it could not survive while the equalisation debate heats up. But the AFL Commission needs to think more of the young Swans such as Nankervis and Aliir's weekly rent bill rather than Tippett and Franklin's annual salaries.

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