Mending the Hairbear Fiasco

By Phill Gutts


From the outside, it appears the Hairbear/Battered Savs situation has been handled poorly. Granted, we don't know details of the settlement; nor were we at the board meeting to hear all the evidence.
They want us to believe Hairbear has been a naughty boy and had to be cut. It's been reported that both parties are happy with the result.
I don't think either scenario is entirely true.
Several issues the club raised against Hairbear remain unproved.
Even if they were true, they could be best described as trivial and certainly don't warrant the sacking of any player, let alone a long serving local junior such as Hairbear.
My information is that Hairbear simply realised he was unwanted by the Battered Savs, so to avoid a lengthy legal battle over his money he has accepted a financial settlement and walked away.
In my column on October 15, I wrote: "Loyalty is the most overused and least understood word in Indoor Cricket . . .
"Many clubs have what I call selective loyalty. They are loyal when it suits them . . .
"If loyalty was at the backbone of Indoor Cricket then there is no way the Battered Savs would be trying to unload a player like Hairbear."
I don't think I need say any more.
However, I will continue down the path of criticising the FDICC salary cap laws, because there's no doubt in my mind that the Battered Savs' precarious salary cap situation has exacerbated the Hairbear matter.
At this point I turn my sympathy towards the Battered Savs because I think it's highly unfair they are in this situation.
As I look through their player roster for this season, I note that the vast majority of players are either local juniors or came to the club from country areas at a very young age.
From the top 25 players on the Battered Savs roster in 2005, only Slick, Reebs and Kel could really be classified as imports, having started their careers with other clubs.
In fairness, I could question why the Battered Savs would need to buy players from outside their ranks. This has obviously put unnecessary pressure on an already bulging salary cap budget.
How does a club get into such trouble?
I know sometimes match fees and bonus payments can be unpredictable but the Battered Savs' dilemma appears to be far more than just an accounting error.
What about greater safeguards from the FDICC?
How does the FDICC continue to register contracts from any club when a simple calculator could tell it the club was getting into the deep end of the pool?
Surely the FDICC could keep a simple running total as contracts are registered and question the clubs about overspending long before the clubs admit to the errors themselves?
But back to the Battered Savs.
As it stands, players such as Arjuna, Hollywood, Dabs, Hairbear, Grouch, Sneaky, Tempter, Tucan and Apoo have been with the club for many years.
Why should the club be forced to unload any of these players (or even some of the younger players in their ranks) simply because they have become great?
It's ridiculous.
Surely a discount system for talent development or long-term service is way overdue.
If such concessions existed in the salary cap laws today, I firmly believe the Battered Savs would have been able to honour their agreement with Hairbear rather than having him put through the public embarrassment we have just witnessed to get him off their books.
Go to the National Basketball League website (www.nbl.com.au) and study their salary cap points system.
All players from clubs are given a player rating out of 10 and each NBL team can total no more than 66 points.
The rating provides concessions and rewards for loyalty, long service and development of younger talent.
It makes for very interesting reading and could give us food for thought that when brain power and a little elbow grease is applied to a simple problem, more often than not a simple solution can be found.
Perhaps it will inspire someone out there to come up with a sensible alternative for the ridiculously unfair salary cap laws in the FDICC.
And it could save clubs and senior players from having to go through unnecessary public spats the like of which we have witnessed from the Battered Savs and Hairbear.