FOR the first time, the AFL trade period will play out — and be complicated — with clubs, players and managers unsure where the salary cap stands for the next six years.

But Port Adelaide will — as forecast in The Advertiser at the start of the season — get a salary cap “bonus” of about $600,000 by not including the suspended wages of ruckman-forward Patrick Ryder and specialist forward Angus Monfries in this year’s wage count at Alberton.

The Power stopped paying the pair in late January, as soon as they were hit with the season-long WADA bans from the Essendon supplements saga. These salaries — that make up a compensation claim against the Bombers — are out of Port Adelaide’s salary cap for this year.

The significant savings from the Ryder and Monfries deals can be rolled into next season’s salary cap, giving the Power an advantage during this month’s trade talks.

Next year’s salary cap is still unknown and impossible to estimate. As the long-running collective bargaining agreement between the AFL, representing the 18 clubs, and the AFL Players’ Association drags on, this vital question in list management and recruiting is unlikely to be answered before the trade period ends at 1.30pm next Thursday.

Already the AFL clubs’ uncertainty in the salary cap has stymied trade talks, particularly with Port Adelaide vice-captain Hamish Hartlett.

His five-year, $3 million contract at Alberton became a stumbling block to one club — said to be St Kilda — when the midfielder tested the market in Melboure last week before deciding to stay with the Power.

Clubs and agents are currently having to work to the 2016 salary cap ($10.37 million plus $1m for third-party deals) — and put clauses in contract offers declaring the final salary will depend on the percentage increase sealed in the new AFL-union deal.

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan is hopeful there will be a new collective bargaining agreement with the players by the end of the current deal on October 31. But, as the union demands a shared percentage of AFL revenue, the trade period will unfold with no salary cap tables.

“Hopefully in the next three or four weeks,” McLachlan said. “There’s a bit of time for everyone now through the end of the season to focus.

“They’ve been having ongoing discussions every couple of weeks and now we just need everyone to come with conviction to get the deal done.”

michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au

Originally published as Port’s salary cap victory