Swans football manager Dean Moore told AFL.com.au the club had frozen ongoing player contract negotiations last month and would not start negotiations with other out-of-contract players until the new COLA rules were announced.
"At the moment we effectively don't know what our TPP (total player payments) is for next year, but in saying that the player managers don't know what it is either," Moore said.
"So it is difficult, if not impossible, with that uncertainty to move forward with contracts.
"There are four or five guys that we are in discussions with that are immediately affected, but that number will obviously increase if this were to drag on."
Moore said the disruption to the Swans' contract negotiations was "not a major worry" and expected an AFL announcement on the new COLA scheme was "imminent".
Swans players set to come out of contract at the end of this year include free agents Adam Goodes, Nick Malceski, Ryan O'Keefe and Lewis Roberts-Thomson, along with Mike Pyke, Rhyce Shaw, Craig Bird, Harry Cunningham, Alex Johnson, Jordan Lockyer, Tim Membrey and Xavier Richards.
Under the existing COLA rules, the Swans and Greater Western Sydney are allowed to pay their players an extra 9.8 per cent above the salary cap – nearly $1 million in 2014 – because of the higher costs of living in Sydney.
Some opposition clubs, in particular Collingwood, have long been vocal critics of the arrangement.
That opposition became deafening when the Swans lured Lance Franklin north last year on an extraordinary $10 million deal over nine years, a recruiting coup that came just a year after the Swans snared Adelaide spearhead Kurt Tippett on a lucrative contract.
Despite initial suggestions that the Swans' COLA might be scrapped altogether from 2015, AFL.com.au understands it will be cut back so that only players on the bottom half of the Swans' wages scale will receive an extra allowance for living expenses.
It is believed the AFL will announce its revamped COLA rules and wider equalisation policy ahead of the Australian Hall of Fame function on June 4, the night before outgoing CEO Andrew Demetriou's final day at the League.
Moore said the Swans believed that the existing allowance should be retained, but fully expected it to be scaled back.
"It's 9.8 per cent at the moment, so if it's cut to 5 per cent, we will have 4.8 per cent less to work with, which is going to impact on the players," Moore said.
"We have put our position to the AFL. It's been well reported that we support no change to the current COLA because of the significantly higher costs of living in Sydney.
"But the AFL has indicated that COLA won't continue in its current form and we're just hopeful now that a resolution is around the corner."
Twitter: @AFL_Nick
