http://news.smh.com.au/international-rules-set-to-return/20080429-29e8.html

Without pads, the bruising can last a lot longer and a little known face (except to those who play it) is that Australian Rules actually rates higher in terms of serious injury than sports like rugby.

Most amateur players can have long careers. While the great AFL players though can play on for over a decade, the pressure is a lot higher for elite AFL athletes. They don’t have to just stay healthy, but have to continue to play well while the club continually pursue younger, fitter players. Even Jonathan Brown, who is a big guy by any standards, has had to stay sidelined to injury for over a year at a time to continue his illustrious career.

Mind you, in Australia, the money that guys like Jonathan Brown and Chris Judd is what we’d call here the “big bikkies”.

While Judd seems the sort of guy who’d be lured by big money (like he was to Carlton) to a sport like soccer, an Aussie country boy like Jonathan Brown would seem completely out of place playing for Man United and driving round in a Lamborghini. I’m sure he’d want to play footy in his own country.

And as we have seen for the party guys like Ben Cousins and Wayne Carey, for the superstars there is still plenty left over to snort up your nose and kiss your life away.

The fact is though that in Australia, there has historically been very little awareness of the monetary opportunities that foreign sports offer. But this is changing with more and more snippets of the salaries and lifestyles of players like Harry Kewell appearing in the Business Review Weekly sport star column. While kids will continue to want to pursue the dream of playing in an AFL premiership, mums and dads will pretty soon start pushing their kids towards soccer careers. The facts though are still that is if they miss out, they’ll be running around in the A-League earning pocket money. Most kids know this. Even in a globalised world, Australia is still pretty isolated.

Though it is refreshing to see that players from overseas are wanting a piece of action in the AFL, regardless of what salaries other sports offer. I think it is because once you play it, you realise what a great game it is. Sport isn’t all about money. So why would you want to play a boring sport for years just for a crack at the major league ??

And if you’ve ever been to the MCG in Melbourne, you’d know what a thrill it would be to play in front of 100,000 people. Just ask Collingwood’s Irish import Martin Clarke, who plays week in week out in front of bigger crowds than he’d ever dream of playing Gaelic Football in Europe.
Or these guys from Papua New Guinea most of whom who grew up in poor rural villages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6acgjXG_FHk

A couple of young Americans, the Brunmeier boys have made the grade in semi-pro state comps in Western Australia and a young Canadian, Scott Fleming recently made his debut in the Queensland AFL. I’m sure that the big bucks is the last thing on his mind.

And if NFL players seem overpaid, it’s because their careers are likely to be much shorter than players in other football codes, just because of the more violent nature of the game itself. The average NFL career is less than 4 years. I suspect that number is much higher for AFL players or league footballers in England.

AFL is one of the few league comps that actually have one. It makes the teams more even unlike other comps were the club with the most money wins the majority of the premierships (ie: Chelsea, Man United etc)

I’m not sure if that was your point or not, but in reading the post that’s my stance.