Have your say on the AFL’s fixture

The AFL today announced it would ask the football community for feedback on a range of potential fixture-construction options as the competition expands to an 18-team league for the 2012 season onwards.

AFL Chief Operating Officer Gillon McLachlan said the introduction of Gold Coast (2011) and Team GWS (2012) over the next two years had prompted the AFL to re-examine its current structure of the competition.

A range of alternate scenarios for each of the pre-season, home and away season and the final series were today detailed on the AFL website – www.afl.com.au/myaflseason – and the football public will be asked over the next month for their views on the various models.

“The AFL has used a four-week pre-season period to launch our competition, leading into a 22-match home and away season and culminating in a four-week finals series, for a considerable time now,” Mr McLachlan said.

“The football public is already aware that a four-week knockout competition cannot continue to work with 18 teams in the league, so this has prompted some considerable internal work at the AFL to examine all the options that may be available to us in the future.

“We want to hear from the football public on key questions surrounding our season, such as what is the appropriate length of our premiership season, what is the appropriate number of weeks for the finals series, how many teams out of 18 should qualify to play finals, should we look at various options such as conferences for our competition.

“There are a number of options across each part of the season, if we wanted to change any part of what we currently do, and it’s important for us to hear from our supporters on whether change is required, or do we retain the status quo?,” he said.

Mr McLachlan said each discussion stage – pre-season, home and away and finals – was presented with key parameters that any system needed to meet, to ensure the AFL competition met its various contractual requirements and agreements, such as six-day breaks for players under the CBA agreement, match scheduling requirements as part of ground contracts, scheduling requirements for the broadcast contract and the development and promotional requirements of the AFL itself.

Mr McLachlan said fans would be encouraged to log on to www.afl.com.au/myaflseason and provide their feedback, and to submit any ideas they may also have. 

Please click here for a summary of the various options.