Influential manager Craig Kelly has called for the AFL to take charge of player agents, saying the game's head office is better resourced and has more "clout" to control unscrupulous managers.
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Disenchanted by reports in recent days involving questionable behaviour by player agents, Kelly early on Tuesday passed on to the agents' watchdog an allegation involving another manager who had in recent days approached a junior star player during the so-called "blackout period".
He told Fairfax Media he was in the process of writing to both the AFL Players Association and the AFL, calling for change.
"I reckon we're better off being run by the AFL," said Kelly, whose company TLA Australia handles some of the game's biggest names, including coaches Nathan Buckley, Brad Scott and Leon Cameron.
"The players association has got enough on its plate. The league is governing the game, then they should govern the game. We need to be policed and governed by someone with more clout. Otherwise just let us police ourselves and allow the market to control itself. "We're dealing with younger people's lives here."
The AFLPA has to date resisted attempts by the AFL to take control of player agents' accreditation, with just one AFL official – Ken Wood – serving on the agents accreditation board.
That group helped to scheduled talks yesterday following the revelation that former player agent Michael Quinlan had been forced into arbitration due to a financial dispute with former clients Dustin Fletcher and Brad Green.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered another agent, Liam Pickering, to pay compensation to his old firm after he took clients including Lance Franklin and Gary Ablett to a new management company.
Shortly before Wednesday's meeting of the AFL Player Agents' Accreditation Board, Kelly asked the directors to look at the issue of managers breaking the rules involving the approaching of junior footballers contesting the national carnival.
"I'm not sure what laws we have in place and I'm not sure what stick we can wield here," he said. "But in recent days I've been told of examples where agents are contacting young players and their families at a time when they have exams and important football games and a blackout period has been enforced. I'd really like to think that we're better than that. The good agents believe we can police ourselves, but we need to follow through and allow market forces to get rid of the poor managers.
"I can understand the AFL saying they already have plenty to do, but they do have the resources and they do have the clout to handle people who should not be working in our industry."
