Essendon's spending spree on its dream-team coaching panel, headed by James Hird and Mark Thompson, has prompted the AFL to again examine the idea of a salary cap on football departments.

Some senior AFL figures are known to support the move, fearing a growing disparity between the rich and poor clubs, and a kind of 'arms race' developing in which wealthier clubs would continue to buy ever more coaches, sports science technology and training facilities each season. 

But others around the commission table are yet to be convinced of the merits of a cap, mindful of the perceptions of too much intervention from the league, and also recognising that there should be some reward for successful clubs.

All understand, though, that they will be under pressure to act if Collingwood, another club with a burgeoning football department, were to have continued success in the next few years, or Essendon was to make an immediate impression with its full-to-bursting coaches box. 

Essendon's new panel is headed by Hird, who has presumably commanded a hefty fee to move from his sports consultancy business Gemba, dual premiership coach Thompson, who would also not come cheap, and is rounded out by a raft of experienced assistants, such as Brendan McCartney, Sean Wellman, Dean Wallis and Shannon Grant, and the recently retired Adelaide player, Simon Goodwin.

It is believed Goodwin, for example, is earning $250,000 a year. If that is true of the least experienced member of the eight-man coaching staff, then the entire panel would cost well in excess of $3 million per year. 

That is the sort of figure that impoverished clubs such as the Western Bulldogs, North Melbourne and Port Adelaide could only dream of spending on their panels.

While a salary cap on AFL players has been in place since 1987, and has been successful in evening up the competition, there has been no such restraints placed on other aspects of the clubs' operations.

Collingwood, for example, spent $2 million more on its football department in 2010 than it did in 2009. That took the total investment on coaches, equipment, facilities, dieticians, physiotherapists and so on to over $19 million.

The Pies also recorded a profit of $5.4million - but that was only after the club wrote down the value of the Diamond Creek Tavern by a scarcely believeable $4.4million, and paid off $8 million on loans associated with the purchase of two hotel leaseholds. 

At the other end of the spectrum, the Western Bulldogs have just four assistants to help out senior coach Rodney Eade.

Speaking to BackPageLead, Eade said he was in favour of a football department cap because, over time, the richer clubs would gain a big advantage over the smaller clubs by simply having more coaches and better resources, especially in the sports science area.

''Of course it's going to help a club like ours,'' Eade said. ''But it needs to be a cap on the whole football department not just the coaching staff - otherwise the line will get very blurry. Clubs will try to avoid the cap by calling an assistant coach a member of the phys ed staff and so on.''

But Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said the notion of a cap was the ''most ridiculous theory ever floated in the history of football''.

McGuire said clubs needed to be given free rein by the league to expand, invest in new resources - such as the Magpies' Westpac Centre - and progress. ''You can't wind back the clock and you can't halt progress,'' he told BackPageLead. ''The essence of sport is higher, faster, stronger - get better, not weaker.

''We're not franchises of the AFL .... It's the AFL's job to supplement those clubs that don't have the wherewithal to do some of the things Collingwood and Essendon are doing.

''The world won't wait for the likes of North Melbourne and they wouldn't want it to be the case.''  

THREE AFL CLUBS &
THEIR COACHING PANELS*

Collingwood:

Michael Malthouse, Senior Coach
Nathan Buckley, Assistant Coach
Scott Watters, Assistant Coach
Matthew Lappin, Assistant Coach
Mark Neeld, Assistant Coach
Max Hudghton, Defensive Coach
Tarkyn Lockyer, VFL Coach/Development

Essendon:

James Hird, Senior Coach
Mark Thompson, Senior Assistant Coach
Brendan McCartney, Assistant Coach
Sean Wellman, Assistant Coach
Simon Goodwin, Assistant Coach
Dean Wallis, Development Coach
Shannon Grant, VFL Coach
Stuart Cormack, High Performance Coach

Western Bulldogs:

Rodney Eade, Senior Coach
Paul Williams, Assistant Coach (forwards)
Peter Dean, Assistant Coach (defence)
Peter German, Development Coach
Chris Maple, Development Coach

(* As listed on afl.com.au)