MELBOURNE has proposed to the AFL that the new Gold Coast team be limited to signing only uncontracted players who are 25 and over before it enters the competition in 2011.

And Carlton, also mindful of the impact of the new team upon other clubs' playing lists, has suggested Gold Coast be compelled to trade a third of the nine first- and second-round draft picks the AFL has proposed it receive in 2010.

The Demons, who are in a rebuilding phase, have told the AFL that the new club, which is likely to be given the right to sign 12 uncontracted players, should not be picking off young out-of-contract players in 2010 while it already has access to the best kids via its plethora of picks in the national draft.

Melbourne has argued that while concessions to the Gold Coast are based upon past expansion teams, the club will place a premium on obtaining uncontracted players in their early 20s. "One of the recommendations that we made was that uncontracted players must be over the age of 25," Demons football operations manager Chris Connolly said last night. He said the "real danger" for the 16 clubs was that the "uncontracted players they attract are under the age of 21".

Connolly said the combination of the huge draft concessions — the new club is proposed to be given picks 1-5, 14, 15, 24 and 41 in the 2010 national draft, plus the best 17-year-olds in 2009 — and young uncontracted players would create a super team. "Within five years, they'll be a super team," he said of the current proposal, which the AFL has indicated is not set in stone.

Under the Melbourne plan, the Gold Coast club would be allowed to sign St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt, who is 25 now, but would be barred from snaring Hawthorn's emerging superstar Lance "Buddy" Franklin, who would be 23 in 2010. Both Franklin and Riewoldt's contracts expire at the end of 2010, when the Gold Coast team will have its first intake of out-of-contract players from other clubs.

Melbourne's Ricky Petterd, a promising 19-year-old and from the Gold Coast (like Riewoldt) and an obvious target for the new club, would be ineligible to be snared as an uncontracted player.

Clubs have expressed the view that while the concessions are based on the past experiences of Port Adelaide and Fremantle — and must be reasonably generous to avoid the disaster of "another Brisbane Bears" — the officials who form the new club will be more astute and will not trade away good picks and players for journeymen.

They believe the new club will place a higher premium on early draft picks, depriving clubs of trading opportunities and locking up much of the talent.

Carlton has told the AFL that it should be mandatory for the new club to trade three of the nine first- and second-round picks that the AFL has proposed it receive.

The Blues have said the new club would be guaranteed a premiership within five years under the first proposed recruiting rules, which included the pick of Queensland and the Northern Territory, the nine early draft choices, the pick of elite 17-year-olds in 2009 (who would be ineligible for the 2009 draft, due to the raising of the draft age) and the 12 uncontracted players (10 "free agents", plus picks one and two in the pre-season draft).