Collective Agreement confirmed for 2013 ANZ Championship Season

TTNL, Netball New Zealand, the five New Zealand Franchises and the New Zealand Netball Players’ Association have concluded negotiations for a new Collective Agreement to take effect for the 2013 ANZ Championship Season. 

ANZ Championship General Manager Andy Crook said he was pleased that all parties have now agreed a final position for the collective negotiations.

“The ANZ Championship continues to develop as a league and the position reached with the collective agreement supports the objectives of the players, teams and the league itself ensuring the growth of the ANZ Championship continues on an upward curve”, he said.

The Collective Agreement contains a number of changes but the key initiative is the introduction of a $380,000 salary cap for all teams and stricter control and monitoring of that spend, including a contract approval process.  The result is a harder salary cap for teams, although there remains an opportunity for franchises to enter into commercially beneficial third party arrangements for players.

Another exciting change introduces the ability for teams to contract between 12 and 14 players in their squad.  This is designed to increase the number of players exposed to the high performance environment and to introduce a greater degree of selection within each squad which will aid high performance.

There is an increase to the minimum retainer where a team contracts 12 players which Tim Lythe from the NZNPA says is a “significant and important step forward”.

“The parties have recognised the need to attract and retain players and increasing that minimum retainer is a very important part of that and a significant step towards the competition becoming a more viable profession for players” Lythe said.