AFL NSW-ACT put forward recommendations for Riverina and Farrer League salary cap and player points for 2023

AFL NSW-ACT official Marc Geppert unveiled the proposed player points and salary cap figures for 2023 at an AFL Riverina delegates meeting on Wednesday night.

Riverina League clubs will be the big winners with the player points system (PPS) limit to be increased from 36 to 39.

Farrer League's PPS cap will increase one from 36 to 37, while the salary caps of both competitions has been recommended to stay at $80,000.

A significant difference until the points system next year, with Riverina League's elevation to 'premier competition' status, will be the distinction in the points value of players when transferring clubs.

First grade players transferring from Riverina League clubs will be four points, while Farrer League footballers will be three points when moving elsewhere, given their 'senior community competition'status.

The new equalisation measures for 2023 are purely recommendations, at this stage, to be presented to the AFL Riverina board for endorsement but Geppert, the community football manager for ACT and regional NSW, said the model was simply a case of following what is being used across the country.

MORE SPORT NEWS

"We fall in line with everywhere else across the country now where we have what we classify as a premier competition, Riverina is one of four of those competitions across the state, and the rest of the competitions around the state, like Farrer and Hume, are community competitions," Geppert said.

Riverina and Farrer League clubs have been on a level playing field in recent times, with an $80,000 salary cap and 36 point limit this year.

Geppert said going forward it was about striking a balance about catering for the Farrer League's needs, while highlighting and treating the Riverina League as the premier competition.

"We couldn't really justify increasing the salary cap this year based on the last two years of COVID and to keep Farrer and Riverina on the same playing field in terms of salary cap is still important because the Farrer League has different challenges in terms of recruitment, in terms of smaller regional bases, lack of juniors, that type of thing," Geppert said.

"So we understand the need for that to be comparable but the point of difference between the premier competition and the senior community competition is the Riverina will get extra points.

"Clubs were automatically thinking that we were going to rip the guts out of the Farrer League and that's not what we intended to do and that's obvious in that we've actually given the Farrer League a point to bring them up to 37 and we've also kept the salary cap the same."

The AFL Riverina board will decide on the recommendations at a meeting hoped to be held in the first week of July.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: