“In addition to the [AFL and AFLW] increases, further expenditure capacity will be made available through new and expanded deductions,” the AFL said.

“In total, across limit and deduction adjustments, it is projected that clubs will have expenditure capacity in 2025 in the range of $11 million-$11.5 million on average in their football program across both AFL and AFLW.”

The league also announced an extra $50,000 deduction available for AFL and AFLW clubs required to travel interstate for grand finals.

Brisbane Lions CEO Greg Swann said his club was happy with the outcome, saying the increase would allow the Lions to hire more staff and help retain existing employees.

“The cap had to rise because there’s competition for good staff, and because we were limited in what we could pay and what we could do,” Swann said.

“The industry was losing staff to other sports, other areas, things like that, so it probably just helps us retain our good staff, that’s probably the main thing.

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“We can pay your existing staff more, or put more staff back on that we lost during COVID, when the soft cap initially was reduced, so it gives us those two choices.”

He said more resources could also be directed towards the playing group. “We used to have a pre-season camp, but we cut that out because we couldn’t afford it.

“Maybe we’ll do that again this year. So there’s some things you can look at there, and then there’s obviously personnel things.”

Swann said that finding and retaining staff was more difficult in a developing AFL market.

“That’s always been a little bit of a challenge. We don’t have a pool as big as Victoria, so a bit like our players, you have to pay people a little bit over to get them to come,” he said.

“But in the main, we’re not complaining. We’ve got good staff here. That’s probably not even a soft cap issue to be honest; that’s just the football fraternity in Queensland isn’t as strong as it is in all other states, other than maybe New South Wales.”