AFLPA awards Life Membership to Peter Allen

26 Sep 2005 - Jason Murnane

The formal announcement and presentation to Peter was made by the Victorian Minister for Sport and Recreation, the Honourable Justin Madden MLC. It was appropriate that Justin made the presentation and paid tribute to Peter, because as a former AFLPA President Justin worked very closely with Peter over a long period of time. 

No one has served the AFLPA for as long as Peter Allen.

Peter joined the VFLPA (as it was then known) in 1979 as Manager of Administration, Marketing and Public Relations, along with Len Coysh (Industrial Relations) and Brian Roberts (Legal).  The President at the time was legendary Hawthorn ruckman Don Scott.

In 1985 Peter was appointed Executive Director, assuming day to day leadership of the AFLPA and remained in that position for a further 13 years. Peter resigned in 1998 after a 20 year involvement with the AFLPA.

Without the contribution of people like Peter Allen one could almost argue that an AFLPA wouldn't exist today, or if it did, if would be significantly weaker. Peter persisted in putting the interests and concerns of players on the agenda, in an environment where firstly, widespread player apathy often meant that he couldn't rely on the full support of the players and secondly, more often than not the AFL was unwilling to listen.

The 1980s and early 1990s were difficult times for the AFLPA. On several occasions AFL withdrew their recognition of the AFLPA as the representative body of AFL players.  This lead to rumblings of threatened industrial action and culminated in a visit to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in 1993.

Throughout these difficult times Peter's leadership resulted in a number of important achievements for the AFLPA. In 1990 Peter successfully negotiated the first Collective Bargaining Agreement (then known as a Deed of Agreement) with the AFL. Further agreements were then negotiated in 1992 and 1993/94.

These CBAs laid the foundations for terms and conditions of employment that AFL players now take for granted.