Australian Football League investigators flew to Sydney Thursday "to interview Swans administrators Andrew Ireland and Dean Moore over the complexity" of the club's A$10M ($9.4M), nine-year offer to Lance Franklin, according Denham & Smith of THE AUSTRALIAN. AFL Integrity & Investigation Managers Brett Clothier and Ken Wood Wednesday "interviewed Franklin and his manager, Liam Pickering, at AFL headquarters." The league "has described the deal as 'like no other club document they have had to consider before.'" Even if the contract passes the strenuous probe over its legality within AFL rules, it "still faces a league judgment over whether it is in the spirit of the laws, an area the league has acted on previously." The AFL also confirmed that "all club and player allowances, including the cost-of-living allowance, are being reviewed." Sydney "has been made aware of its total player payments obligations and the possibility that the cost-of-living allowance" -- worth about A$930,000 this year -- may be removed or altered (THE AUSTRALIAN, 10/3).
