Sports agent Craig Kelly has called for an audit of the expanding Australian Football League industry, which he believes is in danger of becoming "an inbred public service-style bureaucracy paying too many people to shift paper and not contribute," according to Caroline Wilson of THE AGE. Kelly, whose Elite Sports Properties manages some of the game's biggest names, said that "the AFL community over-handled its players and wasted money and drained sponsors by holding too many big off-field, back-slapping functions." Kelly "also questioned the role of the AFL Coaches Association," which is funded by the league to the tune of almost A$1M each year. Kelly said, "There's no need to have it. Why not have that service within the AFL Players Association as a career choice for players?" Kelly said that he had made no secret of his fears for the industry -- "which he believed was over-spending and creating too many unnecessary jobs" -- in recent conversations with the heads of the AFL and the AFL Players Association. Kelly: "There is clearly a requirement for the players to be an independent body, but the AFLPA needs to be accountable" (THE AGE, 9/9).
