THE AFL executive has drawn up plans that will ensure the 16 clubs will not be forced to give up players to seed two new franchises in the northern markets.

The plan, to be shown shortly to all clubs, will ease the deep concern among them that their player lists would be raided to establish teams on the Gold Coast in 2011 and western Sydney, possibly as early as 2012.

And to avoid the compulsory acquisition of players by the new franchises, the AFL is considering a limited form of free agency in 2010 for the 670-plus players on AFL lists.

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said yesterday that the league had learnt painfully from the imperfect experiment in establishing the Brisbane Bears on the Gold Coast in 1987 and the more successful introductions of Fremantle in 1995 and Port Adelaide in 1997.

"The fact that we have a longer lead-in time means we can be much better prepared," Demetriou said.

The league was aware the great fear from the 16 clubs was how the teams would be resourced, given the time and energy they have put into developing their own players.

It is the very reason the clubs asked the AFL commission to put relocation and merger packages back on the agenda, hoping Victorian clubs might move north and therefore ensuring other clubs would not be required to supply players to a new franchise.

"We are lucky that we have some precedents. What we want to avoid is clubs having to give up a number of players of a certain age and who have played a certain number of games. It wasn't successful initially with the Bears," Demetriou told The Australian.

"So one of the options we will put to clubs is that the new franchise on the Gold Coast can take one uncontracted player per club at the end of 2010.

"It will allow the 16 clubs to contract all the players they want and then those who remain uncontracted can choose to go to the Gold Coast if they wish. It is a form of free agency."

The proposal still leaves clubs vulnerable to losing an elite player. In 1996, Essendon lost its Brownlow medallist and premiership player Gavin Wanganeen who returned to Port Adelaide as an uncontracted priority selection. Fremantle also picked up Ben Allan from Hawthorn in the same way in 1994.

While the system proposed by the AFL removes the priority selection for uncontracted players and replaces it with limited free agency, player agents would be able to position their elite clients so that they might not agree to contracts beyond 2010 and thus be available for lucrative deals from the Gold Coast.

A group headed by former Brisbane chairman Graeme Downie and Alan Mackenzie, president of the strong local club Southport Sharks, have been granted an exclusive six-month window to lobby for the new franchise.

"The bid will not include the Southport club itself but the group has been given an exclusive opportunity to gain the licence," Demetriou said. "They have been given time to show us that they can hit certain key targets."

The executive team, headed by chief broadcasting and commercial officer Gillon McLachlan and strategic planner Andrew Catterall, has drawn up the first blueprint for the Gold Coast. Legal adviser Andrew Dillon and football operations manager

Adrian Anderson have been co-opted where necessary.

Their plan will offer the clubs options of how the new teams can be established. The clubs will be offered alternative strategies including priority picks in the national draft, salary-cap concessions and possibly zones. Demetriou said the AFL was looking forward to feedback from the clubs.

Demetriou said a form of the new Gold Coast team would be operating next year with a budget between $3-$4m. It would have in place a high performance coach, chief executive, team manager, it will be a club in its own right.

Already Downie has nominated former Brisbane Brownlow medallist and triple premiership player Michael Voss as his preferred coach. In 2010, the AFL has agreed to a club budget of $5m or more.

Demetriou said: "It is important to build the culture of a club and you do that by having footballers playing together."

He would not specify which competition the team would participate in but said it would not necessarily be the QAFL. Neither did he rule out the VFL or the TAC Cup, suggesting the new licence might field two teams - a senior line-up and a development squad.

Demetriou has also said previously that the AFL would appoint a heavy hitter as chief executive, an administrator with proven excellence in club management. That immediately puts Geelong's Brian Cook, West Coast's Trevor Nisbett and Carlton's Greg Swann at the top of the wish list.

Work on the western Sydney licence will begin soon with the AFL making available extra resources, both in money and personnel. "We will have people on the ground in Sydney very soon," Demetriou said.