"With these contracts the coaches are paying the price for incompetent boards,"said Brayshaw."We say to these coaches depending on their deal'you are not signing a three-year contract,you are signing a three-month contract'."

Brayshaw said the enforced contract restrictions would disadvantage non-Victorian clubs."It's much harder to get a coach to move interstate with a three- or six-month escape clause."

'If the president and the CEO are going to sack the coach then they should be automatically sacked too.'

Craig Kelly

Kelly,who manages one-third of the game's senior coaches,including Melbourne's Simon Goodwin,Collingwood's Nathan Buckley,Geelong's Chris Scott and West Coast's Adam Simpson,said he wanted the rule reviewed at the end of the season.

"The AFL has been very strong on coaches'terms and conditions,"said Kelly."The environment has changed and these hard,firm calls will play out in the long run but if the president and the CEO are going to sack the coach then they should be automatically sacked too.

"I understand as an industry we've got greedy and lazy and we've got to pull out heads in and that includes the players. But there needs to be a sensible conversation with[AFL CEO] Gillon[McLachlan] and Travis and they need to be fair and reasonable. These are stressful jobs we are talking about.

"It amazes me how we blame one person for what is going wrong.''

'With these contracts the coaches are paying the price for incompetent boards.'

Mark Brayshaw

McLachlan,who has been at odds with Kelly for some years over the cost to the game and the clubs of lengthy coaching payouts,mandated the new contract restrictions after mass football department sackings last year at recipient club North Melbourne and Adelaide.

Both sacked a number of contracted coaching staff last year leaving them with massive payouts,North to the tune of seven figures. Rookie coaches Rhyce Shaw and Matthew Nicks,who are vying for the wooden spoon,faced severe football department budget cuts enforced by those payouts in 2020 even before the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Crows,who settled with Don Pyke after he walked away from his lucrative agreement,had previously sacked and paid out Brenton Sanderson with a year left on his deal. The practice was at its worst under Andrew Demetriou's regime at the AFL when Matthew Knights was paid at least $1 million when he was sacked two years early by Essendon.

Cash-strapped Port Adelaide enraged former AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick when it re-signed Mark Williams only to sack him in 2010 at a high six-figure cost to the club even while being heavily funded by the AFL.

The new AFL rule stipulates that every contract exceeding $215,000 struck with coaches and staff at debt-ridden and AFL-assisted clubs must be approved by Auld and include a settlement of no more than six months. AFL executives,albeit on massive wages to be reviewed due to the cost-cutting,work under the same conditions.

North in 2017 extended Brad Scott's contract until the end of 2020 only to remove him with more than a season-and-a-half remaining. Senior assistant Leigh Tudor,who had a difficult relationship with Shaw,was also paid out for a full season. Shaw's deal,signed during last season,only runs for one more year and does not include a minimum payout clause.

The Brisbane Lions,with St Kilda boasting the highest multimillion-dollar debt in the competition,enforced a similar maximum payout clause on coach Chris Fagan,who signed a contract extension until the end of 2021 back in 2018.