Carlton Football Club salary cap breach

The Carlton Football Club salary cap breach was the breach of the Australian Football League's salary cap by the Carlton Football Club, primarily in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The breaches were a major scandal for the club, and resulted in the club being fined almost one million dollars (a record fine for an AFL team), and restricted from recruiting players via the AFL Draft, both of which had lasting implications on the club's position.

At the end of the 2002 AFL season, shortly before the 2002 AFL Draft was to take place, the Australian Football League announced that it had found the Carlton Football Club guilty of "deliberate, elaborate and sophisticated" breaches of the salary cap during 2000 and 2001. The breaches were related to "under the table" payments made outside the salary cap to four players: Craig Bradley, Stephen Silvagni, Stephen O'Reilly and Fraser Brown.

The club had previously been found guilty of minor breaches of the salary cap, as had many other clubs in the league, but this was the largest and most systematic case of salary cap cheating that had been proven in the league's history. The AFL accordingly reacted with strong penalties. The club was fined a total of $930,000 (including $57,576 which had been suspended from previous breaches). The club was also stripped of several early draft picks in the 2002 and 2003 AFL Drafts, specifically:

Carlton later earned a priority draft pick for the 2003 Draft, which it was permitted to keep, even though that selection took place prior to the first round of the draft. This was used to recruit Andrew Walker.

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