Recycled player

In the sport of Australian rules football, the term recycled player is used (mainly in the Australian Football League) to refer to senior players who, unwanted by their original club, continue a career at a second.

Recycled players are generally delisted by their club at the end of the season, and are then selected in the preseason draft by another. Alternatively, a recycled player is traded from his original club to a new club; since he is no longer wanted by his original club, his new clubs usually needs only to part with a fourth or fifth round draft selection, or another recycled player, to obtain him.

Recycled players have somewhat of a stigma attached to them, and it is considered that if they are seen to have played poorly at one club, they will not find things much better at another club. However, many recycled players work through this and go on to moderate success at their new clubs.

It is also often noted that recycled players will perform well in their first season at their new club, but poorly thereafter. It is theorised that players are eager to repay their new coaches' faith in the first season by working extremely hard, but that the reasons for their original delisting begin to become more apparent in the years that follow. An illustrative example is David Teague moved from the Kangaroos to Carlton in 2004, winning the best and fairest in that season; in 2005 he began to struggle, and in 2006 he played predominantly in the VFL.

Recycled Player Policy

The recycled player policy is a widely criticized list management plan where the primary source of recruiting is through recycled AFL players, rather than younger players or state leagues. A recycled player policy is the opposite of a youth policy.

The most common reason for a recycled player policy is the impending closure of the "premiership window." If a good team is set to lose key players to retirement in the coming two years, they will often adopt a recycled player policy to make a final push to win a premiership. While the recycled players will not be expected to be long-term champions of the club, they will be expected to be better for the team in the immediate future than an eighteen-year-old draftee. The negative side effect of such a policy is that the team will often fall very quickly from the top eight to the bottom four after their window has completely closed.

Carlton's 2004 Recycled Player Policy

The Carlton Football Club adopted what was probably the AFL's largest ever and most talked about recycled player policy in 2004, due to an unfortunately timed series of events:

• In the years from 1999 until 2002, the champions who had kept the club strong throughout the 1990s began to retire, leaving the list increasingly weakened. Eventually, the lack of experience led to the club capitulating in the 2002 season, winning only three games and earning the club's first wooden spoon, and most commentators agree that this outcome was inevitable with Carlton's list management strategies through the 1990s. The retirements continued into 2003, finishing with the retirements of Brett Ratten, Craig Bradley and Andrew McKay.
• In 2002, Carlton had tried to bolster the list, perhaps for one final push for the premiership, by trading for recycled players with the Kangaroos, giving up their first and second round draft picks.
• An AFL investigation revealed details of serious and deliberate breaches of the salary cap by Carlton through the 1990s. As punishment, the club was fined and stripped of their first and second round draft picks for 2002 and 2003, and the priority draft pick they would have received in 2002.

So, with an extremely young and weak list, and only one top level new recruit in three years to improve it (Andrew Walker, taken with their 2003 priority draft pick), Carlton turned to a recycled player policy, recruiting at least eight ready-made rejects from other clubs. As is often the case, they performed well in the first year, and the club won ten games. In the years that have followed, most have been delisted or relegated to the VFL, and Carlton have won another two wooden spoons.

Many are quick to criticize the recycled player policy, but Carlton probably had no other short-term option. Had they not recruited recycled players, the club's list would have been so poor that they could realistically have lost every game in 2004. This would have led to losses in members and revenue from which they may not have ever recovered. Once full draft privileges were reinstated, the Blues were able to implement a longer-term youth policy, with a group of young players that could be realistically marketed as a future top eight prospect.