New AFL Draw proposal

The structure of the Australian Football League fixture has been a mess for years now. Many of the clubs complain that the fixture needs to be more fair. The AFL how ever constantly ignores these requests because they want to stage the block buster games more often in a season. The AFL would prefer to have clubs such as Collingwood and Essendon play each other twice every season, or both Perth teams etc.

In 2012, amid controversy Adelaide received a very easy draw which saw them play Greater Western Sydney (new club), Gold Coast (new club) and Port Adelaide (greatly under performed) twice. This east draw saw them finish in second place at the end of the home and away season. Adelaide went on to lose easily to Sydney even as they hosted a home final.

The finals draw for 2012 has seen a potential top six being capable of winning the Grand Final, but realistically only the top four have a chance of winning. After the first two games of week one of the finals, it became clear that Hawthorn and Sydney will mostly likely contest the Grand Final. The following six games before the Grand Final are almost meaningless.

The AFL are scared that they will not deliver to the tv networks the highest ratings for the $1.253 billion contract that was drawn up in 2011.

I have a solution that will deliver both fairness and even more blockbuster games.

1) During rounds 1-17 all 18 clubs will play each other just once. This will be done on a purely home and away system. If Sydney were to play Collingwood at the SCG in 2014, then they would play at the MCG in 2015, and then alternate every year. If Collingwood had 9 home games in 2014, then they would have 8 home games in 2015.
This is the only fair format with the current number of clubs, unless a conference system is put in place, which has other draw backs. The team at the top at the end of round 17 would be the minor premier.

2) After round 17 the finals would start. All top 8 teams would play each other once. The finals series would have a new ladder. The points from the first 17 rounds would not count. Home games would be played on rank from the first 17 rounds.

3) After the 7 week finals series the teams would have a new ranking of 1-8. From this the top four would go through to direct knock out semi finals, followed by a Grand Final.

This new system would not involve less blockbuster games. In fact there would be four blockbuster games every week for the duration of the finals series. The finals series would remain competitive to the very end as all top eight teams battled to earn their place in the semi finals.

Under this system every game would count for the entire season.

The ten teams that did not make the finals could play an 'International Cup' exhibition series. The ten teams could be split into two groups. Group A would play each other once (four games per club) in a European Pool. Group B would play each other once in a North American Pool. There would be a final in each group with the winners playing a Grand Final in either London or New York (to be rotated each year).

Societal sin- let's forgive Ben Cousins

On many occasions I have felt that Australian society is extremely lacking in grace. It has become legalistic and condemnatory. Perhaps I am just noticing more the things that have always been here, and just see them as I come back to the country.

Every time I return to Australia, one of the things that bugs me the most is the campaign to cut down the road toll. This campaign has been going on for many years now. Somehow the police and the government are convinced that they will cut out road deaths altogether. The latest campaign particularly bugs me, "We'll catch you before someone gets hurt!" Who are these police, do they think they are God, that they can somehow stop every speeding motorist out there? Either this message implies that they will actually catch all of the dangerous drivers, or that every driver who speeds a little is actually dangerous.

The current speed limit on the Monash Freeway is 80 km/h. This is because the lanes are narrower due to roadworks. I do my best to stick to the speed limit while 90% of the traffic zips past me at 90 or 100. I find it awfully frustrating, and remark to myself how hypocritical the police are that they are allowing thousands of murderers to stay on the road. (Murderers from their own implication that is.) In reality most of these drivers are not causing much risk.

The other day we were behind a police car that pulled a car over. We were sticking at the speed limit of 60 km/h. It appeared that the police car was too, and the car in front. The driver did not appear to be speeding, but was likely driving at the criminal speed of 63 km/h. The police pulled the driver over, and likely brought in more revenue (which I am sure is their real bottom line). This fits with their policy of fining all drivers who drive 3 or more kilometres over the speed limit. I sure feel safe, now that they caught that maniac before he hurt someone.

For all their pride, there is nothing that the police can do to catch the really dangerous drivers. At least one recent tragedy had the driver doing speeds of above 170 km/h. No amount of threatening billboards or speed cameras were going to catch that driver, who actually did become a murderer. Patrol cars can do some good in stopping serious speeders and taking away their licenses, but perhaps that may still not stop some.

All this to point out that condemning the public when they drive a few clicks over is an adverse form of legalism and is not helping the situation at all.

Speeding is now officially a societal SIN.

But really it is not the fault of the police. Society actually wants these strict measures. On at least a few occasions I have spoken to people who defend the drachonian measures in Australian society today. Let's move on to another of my pet peaves, the ostracism of smokers in our society. A recent news report boasted that the Quit campaign over the last two plus decades has seen the reduction in Australian smokers from 33% to 19% of the population. This campaign has been going on for over two decades now. So in many ways that reduction is not a very good victory. If the campaign was going to succeed there would be no smokers left in society. Even though the percentage has been decreased, the actual number of smokers has not been dented that much, as the population of Australia has risen from 14 million to 21 million in that time.

Smokers are seen as the number one evil in Australian society. They are a drain on the health system, or so we are told. But how much money has been spent on the Quit campaign over the years? How much tax have the smokers paid over the years themselves? I'd love to see a study done on the money involved. It would be my guess that when a smoker needs an operation for lung cancer, that they have more than paid for it with their taxes by the time they arrive in the hospital.

This approach from government has seen the policy extended to the furthest reaches of society. Smokers can no longer find a pub or club to hang out in. There is no such thing as social smoking any more. Office workers are condemned to hide underground in some dark and damp corner of a car park, they are not even allowed to smoke out the front of the office building because it would make the company look dirty.

This is not to say that smoking is smart or healthy. But it seriously irritates me to see that condemnation handed down upon smokers.

Smoking is no longer just a societal SIN, it is now also a social SIN.

Let's take the fight to Ben Cousins. Ben Cousins has been on a long and difficult journey in his battle with narcotic drugs. I'm not making excuses for his decisions, but I do have compassion for him. I am very happy for him that he has been drafted by the Richmond footy club. I'm happy for a few reasons. I think it's great that he has a second chance. The testing regime that he will be under will help him stay accountable, and give him the best chance to turn his life around. I am impressed that Richmond took him when no other club would. As a Richmond supporter I am proud of my club for going against the flow. Fourteen of the fifteen other clubs opposed Richmond's moves to draft Ben Cousins. I hope God blesses Richmond for showing compassion where no one else would. (Of course the cynic in me says, that Richmond was just taking their typical approach of selecting a proven player instead of youth. I hope that's not the case, and I don't think it is here.)

The media doesn't like a good news story. The same day that Ben Cousins trained with Richmond for the first time, the media were on his case because he has had past associations with an underworld figure who has recently been arrested. The media doesn't want to give him a second chance. I fear that much of society does not either, as indicated by 14 of 16 AFL clubs.

Jesus had some challenging things to say about sin and it's affects on us. He told people that when they judge others they should first examine themselves. He is quoted as saying, "Before you remove the speck from someone else's eye, remove the plank from your own." All of society should examine themselves a little more, instead of taking such "self righteous" attitudes with speeding drivers, smokers and failed AFL footballers.

Footy in Russia

Spring is settling in at last, and that means more opportunity to get outside and play some sport. Today is a public holiday (Victory Day) in Russia, so I was hopeful to have a game of some kind with the local kids. I packed my bag with my footy, baseball bat and tennis ball and headed over to the local sports ground. The baseball bat was for a game of Lapta (the kids have just been using sticks), if that were to happen.



When I arrived, there were four kids taking shots on goal with one of the two local forms of football. I wasn't going to rain on their parade, so I quite shamelessly started kicking and bouncing the ball around at the other end of the field (not full size). After a little while, one of my friends, Rustam was coming by and he joined in kicking with me. We have had a kick once before. Rustam enjoys kicking the footy a lot, and it was very therapeutic for me to get a chance to have a kick, especially after the long Winter.



With the two of us now playing, this attracted more attention from the local kids as we were able to kick the ball further and higher. I could see that some of the kids were interested so I sent them some kicks. It proved a little difficult for a couple of the boys and they just tried a couple of times, watched some more and played soccer again. One of the boys, Vlad was really keen to join in. He had great ball handling skills. We got talking, and it turns out that he plays in a Rugby team. There are five professional Rugby teams in Krasnoyarsk, and according to Vlad, lots of junior clubs. This kind of suggests to me, that Aussie Rules has the best chance of take up in the world, where ever Rugby is played, as the ball was not a problem for him what so ever. Vlad asked me if he could do a Rugby pass in Australian Football. I explained that Aussie Rules is a cousin of Rugby's and taught him the hand pass. He had no problem picking this up either. It was all a bit of good fun. For an Aussie Rules club to be formed anywhere in the world, it helps to have enough expats to start the thing off, so I can't ever really see that happening where I live. But a kick to kick is good enough for me. As we finished up for the day, the kids asked me when we were going to play cricket. Hopefully tomorrow.

A solution to the AFL's fixturing problems (Australian Football.)

Recently the AFL players association came up with a proposed solution to fixturing problems in the AFL. For the uninitiated, let me explain the problem. For a long time the VFL (Victorian Football League) was a 12 team competition. This worked out as a neat 22 round season; 11 home games and 11 away games. With an additional 4 weeks for the finals this made 26 weeks, which is exactly half a year, allowing the other 6 months for cricket. The draw was fair and everyone was happy.
The first expansion with the relocation of the South Melbourne Swans to Sydney in 1982 did not affect the draw, although Sydney began to play their games on Sundays, and the tradition of 6 games on a Saturday was over. In 1987, the VFL added West Coast Eagles (Perth) and Brisbane Bears, to make a 14 team competition. This did have an effect on the draw. To avoid stretching the draw to 26 weeks some teams were only played once. (13 teams twice and 9 once.)
Further expansions happened in 1991 with the addition of the Adelaide Crows; Fremantle Dockers in 1994; Port Adelaide Power in 1997. The merger of Fitzroy and Brisbane played as the Brisbane Lions in 1997, so the competition never grew larger than 16 teams.
The AFL now plan to add two more teams to the competition; Gold Coast in 2011 and Western Sydney in 2012, which will create an 18 team competition. The Players Association have complained that the current draw is already unfair. Some of the higher ranked teams end up playing lower ranked teams twice in the season, and effectively get a free win. The proposed solution from the Players Association is a 17 round competition, where each of the 18 teams play each other once. This is not realistic though, as the AFL will never agree to this. The AFL would be giving up TV revenue when the next contract is due.
There has been debate over the years about splitting the AFL into a two conference fixture. Many are against this, as the Melbourne teams (still 10) would have to be split in half and would play each other less often.
The simplest of solutions would be to recognise the inequality of the current draw and seek to rectify the problem. A win is currently worth 4 points, and a draw is worth 2 points. The solution could be to award only 2 points for a win to games against teams that are played twice in a season. This would mean such games are not "free kicks" to the top ranked teams.
A conference system could still work and is worth considering:

Western Conference:
West Coast
Fremantle
Adelaide
Port Adelaide
Geelong
Western Bulldogs
Essendon
North Melbourne
Melbourne

Eastern Conference:
Carlton
Collingwood
St Kilda
Richmond
Hawthorn
Western Sydney
Sydney
Brisbane
Gold Coast

In a conference system each team from the opposite conference would be played once, (9 games). A further 8 games against each team in the same conference would make 17 games. This would leave 5 to make up the 22 traditional rounds. The 5 additional games would be drawn randomly from the same conference, with the extra games only worth 2 points. It would be important to keep the conferences the same from year to year to keep the draw fair. Another step in keeping the draw fair would be take the top four teams from each conference to play in the finals series.

I appreciate that the Players Association would like to see equality in the draw. The above solution could see some equality. Discussions on the ABC "Offsiders" show recently suggested that if the AFL did not choose the proposed solution from the Players Association, that the AFL would not be interested in the quality of the game, but only in money. This is a little shortsighted of "Offsiders". They need to realise that the world of sport has changed for three decades now. Professional sport is about the money. The solutions to problems need to be found within the framework of profit making.

Tasmania to get an AFL team?

Some further discussion of AFL representation in Tasmania is warranted. Tasmanian people have stated that they are not very interested in supporting a Melbourne team, playing in Tasmania. Experiments over the last number of years have seen teams like Fitzroy, St Kilda and Hawthorn play "home games" in Launceston. There could have been a small chance for Fitzroy to relocate to Tasmania, but the AFL were in favour of them merging with Brisbane. Admittedly that was a very successful move for all involved, and the Brisbane Lions have been a very successful team.

It remains to be seen how successful the new teams on the Gold Coast and Western Sydney will perform, or how good their supporter base will be. The AFL are prepared to put a lot of money into making their expansion endeavours successful. It seems the AFL were waiting more than a few years for a Victorian team to choose to relocate. It was obviously the AFL's preference. North Melbourne stubbornly resisted this, and that could be their demise in the end. North Melbourne supporters were making stupid decisions back in 1896 before the formation of the VFL. In an 1896 VFA game their supporters bashed the umpires and players after they were unhappy with the result. The VFL decided they did not want North Melbourne in 1897 when they formed. Now, North Melbourne supporters chose not to relocate to the Gold Coast, and will probably miss out on staying in the AFL too.

Hawthorn have enjoyed their relationship with Tasmania, so much so that when St Kilda pulled out of playing two games per season there, they increased their schedule to four games in Tasmania. The Tasmanian government have enjoyed this relationship too and have chosen to be Hawthorn's major sponsor. So their current corporate name is the "Tasmania Hawks." Tasmanian supporters however would like a team that they can truly call their own. If the Tasmanian government are serious about having an AFL team in Tasmania, then their best bet is to lure a Victorian team to move there. Hawthorn, may not be the club to do that, because they are financially strong now. Yet the management of Hawthorn is undoubtedly smart enough to do what is necessary for the long term survival of their club. It seems that there is a big enough niche for them to survive in Melbourne.

North Melbourne have already proven themselves too stupid to make a move, they flirted with the idea in Canberra, Sydney and the Gold Coast over many years. This leaves the three other candidates for a possible relocation as St Kilda, Footscray and Richmond. St Kilda may have shown their disinterest, may not be out of the running. The Tasmanian government need to put forward a deal to a Victorian club that will be more than attractive, that they would be stupid to stay in Melbourne, a deal that would guarantee their long term survival.

Basic mathematics would probably show that in a pro Aussie Rules state, it takes around 500 000 people as a demographic foundation to support a professional AFL team. Perth and Adelaide have a population of around 1 million each and they both have 2 AFL teams. They can probably not support any more than this in the next decade or two. Geelong do extremely well to support their team with a population of 350 000, but then it could be argued that regional south western Victoria make up the rest of the 500 000. This leaves Melbourne with a population of 3.5 million. At 500 000 people per team, Melbourne is probably capable of supporting 7 teams at strength. This means that 2 teams may not survive. Tasmania's population is 500 000 over all. The state is the smallest and people are prepared to drive a couple hours to watch an AFL match. Launceston is able to support 4 games a year at strength, but they may not be able to support 11 games a year. But if Launceston could support 4, they could possibly manage 5 or 6. Likewise Hobart, with a slightly larger population could support at least 4 games. Therefore, arguably Tasmania could easily support a minimum of 8 games a year if split between the two cities. They could possibly support 11 games.

If Tasmania is to lure a Victorian team to change their name officially to Tasmania, i.e the Tasmanian Hawks, Tigers, Devils, Saints or Bulldogs, then the team could play 8 home games in Tasmania, and perhaps 2 or 3 "home games" in Melbourne. This would please their Melbourne supporters and ensure that the team would not be too heavy a financial load for Tasmania. As Tasmania's population grows, they should eventually be able to host a full season of home games. Tasmania may not be able to convince the AFL to let the Devils advance to the 1st division, but they may be able to convince a Victorian team to relocate. The AFL will hardly be able to argue with that, if a Victorian club choose it of their own will. The final question remains, will any of the Victorian clubs be smart enough, or will they eventually disappear from the AFL altogether?

Early history of Australian Rules Football, and the future expansion of the game

Australian Rules Football will celebrate its 150th anniversary this year on August 7th. This is actually an inaccurate reckoning of history. It is more accurate to place the origin of a code of football at the date of the codification of rules which was first done on May 17th, 1859.
Some historians like to argue that Australian football can be traced back to the Ballarat goldfields in 1853. There can be no doubt that games of football were played there, but these were likely of varying rules just as the many varied games played by public schools and clubs in England at the time. It has been argued that Gaelic Football had an influence on Australian football, and if this is true, the goldfields are certainly a place where this could have happened.
The only code of football that existed in 1853 was Rugby. Some schools and clubs played by Rugby rules and others had their own rules. Before a game of football the two teams would have to agree upon the rules of the game. Agreeing upon the rules was actually a tradition for a long time even after rules had been codified. Such traditions could allow for a New Zealand Rugby team to play some Australian Rules games when touring, or a Melbourne Aussie Rules team play Rugby rules against a Sydney club. So the various games of football played on the goldfields would likely have been played to varying rules.



(An Australian rules football match at the Richmond Paddock, Melbourne, in about 1866. The building in the background is the Melbourne Cricket Ground pavilion.)


Tom Wills is credited with being one of the original inventors of the rules to Australian Football. Tom Wills' life is an indicator of how important the game of Australian Rules is to our culture. He was the grandson of a convict, and as such his influence was denied in the early decades of the game. Wills was born near Gundagai, NSW 1835, but spent most of his childhood in the Ararat District of Victoria, moving there at the age of 4. He grew up with the Tjapwurrung people and even spoke their language. He knew the dances and games of the Tjapwurrung people. Although there is no direct evidence that he played the game of Marn Grook, it would be very likely. Wills was sent to the Rugby School in England at the age of 14 (1849) and returned to Australia in 1856 at the age of 21. By that stage in his life both the games of Marn Grook and Rugby were a big part of who Tom Wills was as a person.
Tom Wills also had an extensive cricket career, representing the colony of Victoria on numerous occasions. Great significance should be attached to the fact that Wills was the coach of the first Australian touring cricket team to England in 1868, which was made up of all indigenous players. Wills had a close relationship with many indigenous Australians and it is clear that his relationships were genuine. The stake holding of indigenous Australia in the game of Australian Football was high from the beginning and this can be seen today in high representation in the AFL. (2006 figures place the indigenous representation at 10% in the AFL, where as indigenous people in the general population are at 2%. See Traditional Recreation.)
Sadly, Wills later life ended in tragedy. His family moved to Queensland in 1861 and were massacred by a group of local indigenous people while Tom was away for a couple days. The perpetrators of the massacre had no idea who they were hurting, their vengeance poorly placed it only resulted in more pain and suffering. This tragedy caused Wills to turn to alcoholism and although he maintained good relationships, (the 1868 cricket tour was after the massacre), it took him on a path towards suicide in 1880 at the young age of 44. His contribution to Australian sport was none the less invaluable, and his efforts still provide today one of the strongest possibilities of reconciliation between European and Indigenous Australia.



(Aboriginal cricket team with Tom Wills at MCG in 1867.)


The AFL would like to celebrate the game between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College on August 7th, 21st and September 4th, 1858 as the first Australian Football Rules game. In reality it was a game with few rules, similar to many public schools in England, but with perhaps even less rules. Wills was one of the umpires in this game and it would have had some similarities to Rugby. The rules of the AFL game we know today were still under development.

The codification of the rules is the true birth of the game. Events prior to codification were simply formative and embryonic. The rules were drawn up at the Parade Hotel in East Melbourne by Wills, W. J. Hammersley, J. B. Thompson and Thomas Smith on May 17th, 1859. These rules were established on behalf of the Melbourne Football Club, three days after its founding. The game was based heavily upon Rugby with some obvious influence from Marn Grook. Other creators of the rules had experience at Irish games, which also had some level of influence. The original Melbourne rules did not require the ball to be bounced. Geelong Football Club formed on July 18th, 1859. While they did not codify their rules as Melbourne FC did, they did play with a rule that the ball needed to be bounced every 20 yards. In 1866 agreement between clubs led to the Victorian Rules, which required the ball to be bounced.

The game spread to various parts of Australia at a fairly rapid pace. Adelaide formed a club in 1860 (now defunct), by 1877 the South Australian Football Association was formed, months before the Victorian Football Association. The game was played in Tasmania by 1864, Queensland 1866, New South Wales 1877, Western Australia 1881, Northern Territory 1916. While the game continued to be successful and grow in most parts of Australia it had greater competition from Rugby League and Union in Queensland and New South Wales.


The New South Wales Football Association was formed in 1880. A game was played against Victoria in 1881. The first recorded game in NSW was between Carlton Football Club and the Waratah Rugby Club in 1877. The Waratah club enjoyed the game so much that they switched codes in 1882. The NSW Football League was formed in 1903. By 1911 it was more popular than Rugby Union in Sydney. Rugby League was formed in 1908 in NSW. The NSWRL was denied access to many grounds by the NSWRU. The NSWFL graciously allowed the RL two weekends at the SCG in 1908. Rugby League performed very well infront of healthy crowds over those weekends and Australian Rules lost their impetus. As the Rugby League game was professional many players switched to that code. Professionalism was approved by the Australasian Football Council in 1911, for a limit of 30 shillings per game, but by that stage Rugby League had taken a big lead in Sydney. Australian Rules never caught up again. The game has always been popular in the Riverina region of southern NSW.

The history of Australian football in New Zealand is largely another unknown story. The game in New Zealand also had an early chance of success. The Christchurch Football Club played a game very similar to Melbourne Rules in 1863. Many men from the Australian colonies first came to the Otago region in the 1860s for a gold rush. There was another large migration of Australians to New Zealand in the 1890s, some of those men looking for work had played in the VFA and VFL. By 1882 there were 36 clubs in New Zealand, by 1901 there were 115 clubs in New Zealand. The game was so popular in New Zealand that they were a founding member of the Australasian Football Council in 1890. The name of the game was officially changed to Australasian Rules Football to reflect this change. The highpoint of New Zealand football was the Jubilee Carnival in Melbourne in 1908. New Zealand defeated NSW and QLD and finished fourth out of seven teams. World War 1 halted the development of the game in New Zealand. For what ever reason. many of the Australians who migrated to NZ in the 1890s returned to Australia after the war. Many of the NZ players of Australasian Football were killed in WW1. Australasian Football never really recovered in New Zealand and it died out by the 1930s. In 1927 when the Australasian Football Council met, there were no delegates from New Zealand, so it was voted to change the name to the Australian Football Council. (The council no longer exists. The game is now administered internationally by the AFL.) Australian Football was reestablished in New Zealand in the 1970s, and there are now three leagues in the country.



The New South Wales and New Zealand stories are interesting accounts of what could have been. AFL is a minor code of football in today's world. It is however a force to be reckoned with in Australia. It is now undisputedly the largest code of football in Australia based upon attendance figures. It is second to soccer in terms of participation, which is largely due to many parents feeling that soccer is a safer game for children. AFL games regularly attract more people than Rugby League games in Sydney and Brisbane.

The market for football codes is by no means fixed or saturated. Soccer and their A-League have had some real success in the last few years in Australia. While Rugby League may be expanding on the Gold Coast in Queensland, it is not growing as a game in Australia. It was greatly hurt by the Super League division of the 1990s. Rugby Union turning professional in 1995 has further eaten into the Rugby League market with the introduction of the Super 14 competition against New Zealand and South African teams. Soccer is AFL's biggest threat in Australia in the long term. The AFL still have a clear lead, but they can not afford to rest on their laurels. They are well aware of the situation, thus their current expansion plans for Gold Coast and western Sydney. The AFL plan to have a Gold Coast team in the league by 2011 and a Western Sydney team by 2012. These plans of expansion are wise and will keep the AFL on a strong course of growth, by taking in new markets.



The AFL's recent rejection of a Tasmanian government petition for a team seems harsh in some ways. The issue of debate is whether the AFL is an open market and if anyone should be allowed to compete. The AFL have no desire to stretch themselves too thin, They will need to inject a lot of capital in the early years to the 17th and 18th teams before they turn a profit independently. Tasmania have not lost their chance for an AFL team. Either they need to be prepared to wait longer until the new teams are established or they should continue to court a Victorian team. The Hawks have a good relationship in Tasmania, but may be unwilling to leave Hawthorn behind. A second Victorian team could set themselves up for 4 games a year in Hobart like the Hawks have done in Launceston. A total of 8 games for the state would be only a little less than the 11 they would have with their own state team. A state team would likely split their games between Hobart and Launceston anyway.

The game of AFL (the official international name now) has established leagues in 14 countries. This is a long way behind Rugby Union which is played in 129 countries and Soccer which is played in 207 countries. But the game of AFL is expanding healthily none the less. Over the last couple decades there have been a handful of players recruited from Ireland, as the game of Gaelic Football is similar to Australian Football. The exciting new success story is in South Africa. There are currently 10000 people participating in the sport. The exciting factor is that people from all races participate, where as only white people play Rugby and only black people play Soccer. AFL is becoming the game for all people and has even been officially recognised by the South African government as the football code of reconciliation. It is not hard to establish AFL in South Africa as it is best suited to cricket grounds which have remained unused in the Winter (Rugby and Soccer have their own stadiums.) The business plan in South Africa is to see 30000 people playing the sport within 3 years. It is widely hoped that players will be recruited to the AFL even within the next 5 years and that the competition there will be as strong as South Australia or Western Australia within 20 years.

To be continued....

References:

Laws of Australian Football.

History of Australian Rules Football.

Geelong Football Club.

Australian Rules Football.

Indigenous Australians.

Australian Rules Football in New South Wales.

Oldest Football Club.

"Rules" almost had Sydney's paddock.

Aussie rules almost had Sydney.

History- Australian Football.

History of Australian football in New Zealand.

History of the game in New Zealand.

International Leagues.

AIS tour of South Africa.

Australia's battle of the codes- statistics.

The English origins of Australian Football.

Australasian Football Jubilee Carnival.

Rugby vs Soccer

In researching the history of football and learning about the development of Rugby, Soccer and Australian Rules football, a large question has developed in my mind. What are the reasons that Soccer has been more successful than other codes of football in spreading around the world?

Rugby developed the original rules to their game in 1845. There was then a set of rules developed called the Cambridge rules in 1848 that was a mixture of the games of Rugby and Soccer. In 1863 an attempt was made to standardise the rules of football. During this process there was a falling out. Association Football came out of the 1863 talks and the Rugby people went their own way. They continued to play with their 1845 rules until they established their Rugby Union in 1871 and then established the Laws of Rugby.

Australian Rules football had already established their rules by 1859. The first clubs Melbourne and Geelong were established in 1859 and Adelaide in 1860.
The early expansion of Rugby and Soccer was similar. Rugby had their first international match against Scotland in 1871, Soccer had their first international match against Scotland in 1872.
The Scottish FA established themselves in 1873, the Welsh in 1875, and the Irish in 1880. Rugby was a little earlier in its expansion. Sydney University in Australia established a club in 1864, Queens University in Ireland in 1869, Nelson Football Club in New Zealand in 1870, Le Havre France in 1872, Heidelberg Germany in 1872. The Scottish Rugby Union was formed in 1873, the same year as the Scottish FA. By 1874 Rugby had spread to USA, Canada and South Africa. If Rugby spread faster than Soccer, then why did Soccer spread more successfully in the long run?

Perhaps the first reason is that Soccer established a formal competition before Rugby did. Various Rugby clubs played each other for fun but did not have established leagues. The FA established the FA cup in 1871 with 50 teams; a knock out tournament. The next big development was in 1885 when Soccer turned professional, something which Rugby Union was loathed to do and caused their split with Rugby League in 1895. By 1895, the Rugby game that had spread around the world was Union not League. Rugby Union insisted on their amateur status for the next 100 years until it turned professional in 1995.

Soccer established their League Championship in 1888 as a response to the development on professionalism. So Soccer already had a professional league in 1888, while Rugby was still an amateur game without leagues, even though it was still played in more parts of the world at the time.

Australian football had their first leagues in 1877, both the South Australian Football Association (12 teams) and the Victorian Football Association (8 teams) started official competition that year. The Victorian Football League established itself as professional in 1897 when it split from the Victorian Football Association. Australian Football spread to New Zealand in the 1860s when there was a gold rush in the Otago region. By the 1880s the game was officially called Australasian football. There were 115 Australasian football clubs in New Zealand in 1901, with New Zealand a member of the Australasian Football Council. In 1908 New Zealand competed in the Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival in Melbourne. But the first world war ravaged the ranks of New Zealand Australasian Football players. After the war the game never really recovered. As Rugby was more popular, Australasian Football had died out in the 1930s, but was reintroduced there in the 1970s. Australian Football did not spread anywhere else in the early years of the game, although some argue that it had an influence on Gaelic Football in Ireland. The reason that Australian football did not spread very far is that Australia was so far from the rest of the world. Soccer spread throughout Europe and the British empire as Britain was a world power. Australia was just a collection of colonies at the end of the world.

The truth is that Soccer organised itself into leagues and professionalism a lot earlier than Rugby did. The games of Rugby and Soccer spread at similar rates in the early years. A Rugby Union was formed in Argentina in 1899 just six years after an FA was formed there. FIFA established itself in 1904 with 7 national members (with the noted absence of England). FIFA did not spread the game as such in the early years. The IRB (International Rugby Board, established in 1886), did not spread the game of Rugby either. Both games spread naturally as cultural ideas spread across borders. But it seems that where ever soccer spread it did so upon a larger base of organisation in England.

Rugby's decision to remain amateur statues most likely harmed its popularity around the world. While soccer players would not lose money for taking time off work and in later decades they could make a living from the game, Rugby players could not do so for another 100 years or so. It is true that the Rugby League in northern England was professional, just as Australian Football was, but Rugby League was not the game that spread around the world.

This has given soccer a head start of 100 years over Rugby. Soccer has had a similar break over Australian football, due to Australia's isolation. But Rugby is a thriving international professional sport today. Italy recently joined the six nations Rugby tournament in Europe in 2000. Argentina is poised to join the Southern Hemisphere tournament against South Africa, Australia and New Zealand within the next few years. Rugby is expanding at a fast rate and is even experiencing a revival in Canada and the USA.

A history of the development of football codes from proto football (the Rugby and Soccer split)

An early Australian Rules Football game in 1879.

I find the history of football interesting, no less because Australia is poised for the great football wars. What many people do not realise is that the sport we call "footy" in most of Australia is actually older than soccer. It always helps to have an understanding of history before making judgements in these issues. Recently I read a blog about soccer by an American who claimed that Americans didn't like soccer because it is an "ethnic sport" (i.e Mexicans). There have been similar arguments about soccer in Australia in recent decades.

To understand the history of all football codes better, it helps to understand the concept of "proto-football." Much like an ancestral language such as Proto Indo-European, there was a proto form of football that no longer exists today, and is the ancestor of all modern football codes. In fact there were proto football games in many cultures around the world, just as there were proto versions of bat and ball games. However it is the English proto-football that all modern codes are descended from. No other versions were ever formalised in other countries.

Proto-football was a game with sometimes a round ball and sometimes an oval ball. The basic concept was to move the ball to one end of the field. Sometimes this was done with only feet and sometimes with hands too. There were not a lot more rules than this. Modern sports began to be formalised within the 19th century. There are perhaps many reasons for this, which I have not researched closely, but emancipation is probably a big one.


Rugby School, 1859.

Rugby Union is actually the oldest of the formalised codes. Perhaps its history could be traced to 1823, when during a game of proto-football William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it. This story has been disputed though. In 1839, the world's first formal football club of any kind was founded, the Barnes Club in London, it was a Rugby club. Then in 1845 the rules of Rugby were formalised. These rules were accepted by some football teams and not by others. Also in the 1820s, boys at the Eton school made a rule that the ball should not be touched with the hands, which could be seen as the embryonic development of soccer. At that stage there were still many varieties of football played and teams often had to agree on the rules before the game began.

I have mentioned in a previous post some of the story behind the development of Australian Rules Football. There are perhaps many factors involved in the birth of Australian football, but it was definitely a descendant of proto-football. There was even a proto-football game called Marn Grook played by Australian Aboriginal people with a possum skin, which was a foundational influence in the game. Considering that the Australian Aboriginal peoples are the most ancient peoples on earth, proto-football could possibly have existed for millenia.

Australian Football Rules were codified in 1859 by Tom Wills and the Melbourne Football Club. Geelong had their own rules which did not require the ball to be bounced, but by 1866 they accepted the Melbourne rules. The Melbourne Club was founded on May 14th 1859 and the Geelong Club shortly after on July 18th, 1859. Australia being so far from the rest of the world, and transport being what it was, Australian football began to develop on its own. The game was played a little in South Africa and Scotland circa 1900. In 1900 there were 100 clubs in New Zealand. New Zealand was a founding member of the Australasian Football Council. (See- Australian Rules - from Colonial past-time to World Footy.) The biggest reason why soccer did not take off in Australia is that it was only birthed as a sport long after Australia was formed. This is different from cricket, which was well established before Australia was ever settled by the English.

Soccer, or "Association Football" was not codified until 1863. There were many football clubs in England at the time who had to agree on the rules of the game before it started. Some played a game more similar to Rugby, some more similar to Soccer. An association of clubs came up with the rules for the game that is soccer or that much of the world call football. It is important to understand that even though this code is considered "the world game" it has no stronger claim on the name football than any of the other codes. It's birth came in the same time period as Rugby and Australian Rules Football (indeed a little later). Soccer is a derivative of the word association, from Football Association.

During the codification of rules for the Football Association there was a dispute at the final meeting on December 1st 1863. The initial treasurer for the FA withdrew the club of Blackheath over two important rules that had been withdrawn. These two rules were 1) being able to carry the ball in the hands or under the arm and 2) being allowed to kick, trip, tackle and knock a player down (hacking). These are the fundamental differences between Rugby and Soccer. F.W.Campbell the treasurer of Blackheath was recorded to say, "hacking is an essential element of the 'football' game that this club (Blackheath) wants to play. To eliminate hacking would "do away with all the courage and pluck from the game, and I will be bound over to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week's practice". These differences began in the 1820s and were still being sorted out in the 1860s. The game of soccer as we know it today did not exist before 1863. This dispute lead other Rugby clubs to break from the Football Association and to form the Rubgy Union in 1871.

Australian Rules Football and Gaelic Football have an interesting relationship. There are arguments that each sport was influenced by the other. What ever the case, the Gaelic Athletic Association codified their game in 1887. Rugby and Soccer had been played in Ireland during the 1860s and 1870s and were both influential in the game of Gaelic Football. Hurling probably also has some influence on the game and controversially also Australian Football.

American Football diverged from Rugby and no other sport. Rugby was played in both America and Canada in the second half of the 1800s, but with the development of their own versions of Football, Rugby faded in both of those countries and is only beginning to increase in popularity now. American Football can trace its history back to the first recorded game in 1892. The American Professional Football Association was not formed until 1920.

Rugby League split from Rugby Union in 1895 over a dispute regarding payments. Northern Rugby teams in England were mostly made up of coal miners who could not afford to take time off work to play without compensation. The southern clubs believed that Rugby should remain an amateur sport and disagreed. This led to the formation of the Northern Rugby Union. The rules gradually changed over the next 12 years. In 1907 the rules were codified separately from Rugby Union and in 1922 the name of the NRFU was changed to the Rugby League.

Soccer may be the most popular version in the world, but it is not the oldest form of the game. Rugby has a stronger claim than soccer to being the older game. Soccer does not have an exclusive claim on the word football. It would in many ways be more accurate to use the word "football" as an umbrella term for the 7 codes of the game (Rugby Union, Australian Rules, Soccer, Gaelic Football, American Football, Rugby League and Canadian Football). Each of the seven codes have terms to refer to themselves. I resent the marketing approach of Soccer in Australia, that they claim to be the true version of Football, and that they have a greater claim on the name. This is historically, grossly inaccurate. Australian Rules Football or Footy is an older game than Soccer and Soccer did not even exist before 1863, when it split with the then dominant version of the game, Rugby.

Footnotes:
Further evidence that Aussie Rules is the reconciliation code of football.

A history of Rugby, demonstrates that proto versions of football from around the world are common ancestors of both Soccer and Rugby. Soccer does not have an exclusive claim on this.

Australian Rules - from Colonial past-time to World Footy- www.worldfootynews.com

Wikipedia articles were consulted on the history of all football codes.
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Appendix: Codification of major world sports:

1571: Tennis. The game was popular in both England and France and dates back to Norman times. Modern rules have diverged from this earlier game, which was clearly none the less Tennis. Historians now refer to the historic game as "Real Tennis." The first modern tennis club was formed in 1872 in England.
Golf- dates back to the 1100s, but the laws were codified in 1754 by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrew's in Scotland.

1716: Curling- popular in the 1500s. The first club, Kilsyth Curling Club in Scotland constituted the laws in 1716.

1728: Cricket- Articles of Agreement, 1728. Laws of cricket codified, 1744. Amendment of Laws (LBW and middle stump added), 1774. Cricket was popular from the 1600s onwards.

1845: Rugby

1845: Knickerbocker Baseball rules. The Knickerbocker club was founded on September 23, 1845. The 20 original rules were written down at the same time. Earlier claims to baseball games played are made before this date, such as a June 4, 1838 game in Beechville, Ontario, but this can not be deemed to have been played to the same rules. A game was played on September 11, 1845 in the New York area, and it is more possible that it was played to similar rules to the Knickerbocker club. The first official game after the Knickerbocker club was formed was on October 6, 1845. First professional club (Cincinatti Red Stockings), 1869. National Association, 1871. National League, 1876.

1848: Lawn Bowls- this would have been a lot earlier. It was already popular in the 1300s, but was banned by the King in the fear that it would detract from Archery practice, needed for battle. The law remained a long time after gunpowder.
Croquet- 1868 (also popular from the 1300s)

1849: Field Hockey- Blackheath, England.

1859: Australian Rules Football (AFL, Footy).

1863: Association Football (Soccer), England.

1871: Rugby Union.

1877: Ice Hockey- the origins of Ice Hockey are hotly disputed as it could have originated from many European versions of the game. In fact a Society for International Hockey Research has been founded to come up with a definitive historical answer to this question. It developed throughout the 1800s in Canada and the first official club was formed in 1877 at Mc Gill University in Montreal, Canada, they are credited with codifying the laws.

1884: Hurling- Modern Laws by the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884. Evidence of the game dates back to 400 AD.

1887: Gaelic Football

1907: Rugby League- Yorkshire, England.

1920: American Football.

1946: Basketball- the game was deliberately invented in 1891. The Basketball Association of America was established in 1946. Significantly however, dribbling was only introduced in the 1950s, when the modern ball was introduced. Originally a soccer ball had been used.

1961: Canadian Football- first club University College, University of Toronto.

1984: International Rules Football. (A hybrid between Gaelic and Australian rules for the purpose of matches between Australia and Ireland.)

World Cup Soccer (Football) 2018 bid

I hate soccer.

It is lauded as the "world game." So often in Australia people cringe at the dominance of American culture and resist it as strongly as possible. So why then are people falling so madly in love with the dull round ball game? To do so is as much an abandonment of Australian culture as pursuing American culture is.

Kevin Rudd has announced that Australia will bid for the 2018 soccer world cup. Arguments are always made about the economic advantages of large events. No doubt that is true. But arguments have also been made that a world cup would help "social cohesion" for Australia with the rest of the world.

Australia needs to be secure in its own identity. The Australian populace right now thinks that we need to get with the rest of the world and join in the "world game". As an Aussie living in Russia I feel I have something to say about the "world game". Russia is another country that is often insecure in its identity and wants to be like the rest of the world. Russia used to be a champion nation at ice hockey. Canadians remember the glory of defeating the Soviet Union at ice hockey in the early 70s because the Soviet Union ice hockey team was a force to be reckoned with. There are still Russian players in the NHL, but I think that will decline in the future.
Ice hockey is dropping in popularity in Russia because of soccer. There are outdoor ice hockey rinks in neighbourhoods all over Russia, but they don't get used any more. People play soccer on them, all year round. I have often marvelled at the craziness of people running around playing soccer at -20 degrees. Russians are now mad about soccer. They want to be like Europe. Young people want the money that soccer offers in Europe. But somehow they have forgotten that the NHL also pay big money in ice hockey. Soccer is killing Russian culture. Russians do ice hockey well, but not soccer.
The Russian national team can not even qualify for the world cup. Russia is the most populated country in Europe. Europe have more seeds at the world cup than any other region. All of Russia's sporting muscle is being poured into soccer these days and yet they still can not qualify for the world cup. They have thrown their ice hockey legacy away for the dull round ball game.



If Australia insists on pursuing this love affair with soccer we will also throw away much of our heritage. We actually already have two world games that we are very good at. Cricket is a world game. No one can dispute this. Cricket is only growing in popularity in the world. It may not be as big as soccer, but it is actually second. There is more and more money in cricket all the time, due to the booming Indian economy. We have a world game that we are champions at, why do we need to pursue soccer at the expense of other sports?
Rugby Union is another world game that Australia is good at. Rugby is also growing in popularity in Europe. The Rugby Union world cup was held last year in France. France won the Rugby world cup in 1999. Italy are also pursuing the game of Rugby. Australians feel we should pursue soccer because it is big in Europe. But this is simply an attitude of following. If we want to be leaders then we should continue to lead in the sports we are good at.

If Australia is to host the 2018 soccer world cup then the AFL and NRL will have to suspend their seasons in the middle of the year in June and July. This is because the soccer world cup has to be held during the European off season. It seems ludicrous that Aussie Rules and Rugby should have to shut down so that Australia can watch soccer. This is a bit strangulating and arrogant of soccer. They would have to take over all of the large stadiums in Australia to make the world cup happen.
The AFL and NRL have legal rights to the stadiums during the winter. So legally they should have the power to stop the world cup from coming to Australia. The AFL were pressured by the government to accept an international drug code that they were not keen to sign for various reasons. It would be a shame and disgrace if the governments of Australia pressure the AFL and NRL into suspending their 2018 seasons.

Aussie Rules football is the only truly Australian game. It was invented in rural Victoria in the 1850s. It has its roots in three sports- an Australian Aboriginal ball game played with a ball made of possum hide and certain aspects of Gaelic Football and Rugby. Tom Wills is credited with the invention of the game in 1858, Wills grew up playing the Aboriginal game with Aboriginal children in western Victoria during the 1840s.
If social cohesion is something we desire in Australia then Aussie Rules Football is well qualified to do this. Aussie Rules is the most popular sport in indigenous Australia. Recent programs in South Africa have seen white and black children playing Aussie Rules together. It is viewed as the sport of reconciliation in South Africa, as soccer is the sport for black people and rugby for white people. Soccer however in Europe has a long history of racially motivated violence. How is this good for social cohesion?

Of course the biggest indictment against soccer is that it is boring. Many of the games end in 0-0 or 1-1 draws. Many soccer world cups have been decided on penalty shoot outs. Cricket has been accused of being boring in the past. But draws are almost non existent in test cricket these days. In limited overs cricket a tie is extremely rare. Draws proliferate in soccer.
Soccer scores are always low. Even in professional ice hockey, scores are regularly 6-5 or 4-3 etc. Scores in Rugby usually get up to 20 or 30 points. Scores in Aussie Rules football usually get up to 100 points. An Aussie rules game will usually see around 10 or more goals per team.

Soccer is boring and a dull cancer on the cultural heritage of Australia. Soccer is greedy and wants to crush all other sports in its wake including ice hockey and Aussie rules football.

I hate soccer and hope it never succeeds in Australia.

The AFL has set a date

Late last year the AFL brought down an ultimatum on the North Melbourne Football Club to move to the Gold Coast. When the NMFC declined the AFL's $110 million offer the AFL were forced to come up with a new plan. Shortly after plan A failed the AFL announced that they would bring a 17th team into the competition by 2010.
This week the AFL have made a new announcement. They will not have a new team by 2010. This has been due to the fact that many Melbourne teams have dragged their heels. The AFL have been forced to finance completely any expansion. The first of these new teams will be in 2011 on the Gold Coast. It may be a little later than ideal considering that Soccer and Rugby League are expanding there also, but in the scheme of things it will not be too late. The second new team will be in 2012 in western Sydney. This will bring the competition up to 18 teams, assuming that the 10 Melbourne teams continue to survive.
The AFL will need to spend a lot of money to prop up these two teams in the early years as NSW and QLD are rugby states. But the teams will turn a profit in the long run.
New teams in NSW and QLD will mean there will be new rivalries with two teams in each state. This will only strengthen the sport in the long run too.
I for one am excited about this growth. I just wonder how long it will be before a VIctorian team goes under.

Musical chairs in the Australian Football League

Like any good Aussie, I like my vegemite, Aussie rules footy and a cold beer. I reacted in shock when I heard back in June from a visiting Australian that crowds of 50 000 have been know to attend soccer league matches in Melbourne. That would certainly make for some culture shock upon my return to Melbourne. If you can see that I don't like the idea of one language dominating the whole world, you can also guess that I don't like the idea of one sport dominating the whole world. Soccer is so mundane and uncreative. I lament the fact the ice hockey is greatly decreasing in popularity in Russia and that young guys can be seen running around playing soccer in the snow. Why are we giving into this world deception in Australia too. Anyway, I take solace in the fact that the A-League only have 7 teams in Australia, and they are too afraid to play in winter because they know they would not get crowds during footy season.

So for now footy is still strong, and the AFL is working hard to keep it that way. The AFL are on a new expansion drive. They can see that Aussie rules is growing in popularity at that the market on the Gold Coast and in Sydney is ready for new teams. I am excited to hear this, and would love to see the AFL keep growing.

It is a tough question to know how many teams can really flourish (not just survive) in the AFL. If Adelaide is taken as an example, it may provide a rough mathematical formula for how many teams a population can support. Adelaide has a population of roughly 1 million people and comfortable supports two AFL teams. But could they support more? The Adelaide Crows have 47 000 members, but have had to cap membership there because Football Park in Adelaide can not hold more than 47 000 people. If there was a larger ground, Adelaide could surely have more members. If there was a third team, they could surely attract members can not get a membership with the Crows. So Adelaide could potentially support 3 or more teams. They do however easily support 2 teams. This is a ratio of roughly 500 000 people to one AFL team. The ratio is similar in Perth. Perth has two AFL teams and a population of roughly 1 million.

If this same formula is applied to Melbourne, how many teams can Melbourne support? Melbourne has a population of 3.7 million people. There are currently 9 AFL teams in Melbourne. At least two of these teams are severely struggling to survive. Melbourne used to have 11 teams. (I am not counting Geelong which has a separate geographical supporter base.) These 11 teams were supported by a then smaller population. As the competition has gone national (the best players from SA and WA always came to Vicotoria in the past) Melbourne has been less capable of supporting so many teams due to a diluted player base. It is my hypothesis that Melbourne can currently only comfortably support 7 teams, at an average of roughly 500 000 people per team. According to these crude calculations, two teams need to leave Melbourne.

The AFL have indicated that they would like to add teams in Sydney and the Gold Coast by 2010 or 2011. They have financially propped up teams in Melbourne for a while now. It would seem logical that the two weakest clubs in Melbourne, (Footscray) Western Bulldogs and (North Melbourne) Kangaroos, should be the teams to relocate. Both clubs dropped their suburb name some time back to broaden their supporter appeal and even to prepare in advance for a possible relocation. They could easily have been the Gold Coast Kangaroos and the Western Bulldogs (but in Sydney instead of Melbourne).

But the Kangaroos recently rejected a $100 million proposal to relocate by 2010 to the Gold Coast. They asked the AFL for an extra 12 months grace in making their decision. But the truth is that (North Melbourne) have been deliberating over a decision to relocate for years. They have flirter with Canberra, Sydney and the Gold Coast. The AFL have seen that the Gold Coast market is ripe and wanted to strike while the iron is hot. But the parochialism in the North Melbourne tribe has got in the way of common sense. They rejected the AFL proposal, and instead now intend to change their name back to North Melbourne again, putting to death any plans to relocate.

Fitzroy were smart to get out while they did. Especially as they avoided a take over (merge) by North Melbourne that would have ended in eventual death of the new merger anyway. In relocating to Brisbane the Fitzroy Lions kept much of their identity. Melbourne based Lions supporters enjoyed three successive premierships in this decade, and will be sure to see more success in the future. They can relax knowing their club will never die. In the game of musical chairs, Fitzroy and South Melbourne are the winners. They got the best pickings for future growth markets in the AFL. They both have steady memberships and large attendances at their games.

In the continued game of musical chairs there are still some potential markets to be filled, but they will never be quite as good as first cab off the rank in Sydney or Brisbane. North Melbourne have missed their chair. I think it is safe to say that North Melbourne's life expectancy is now limited. Their future is either a permanent relegation to the VFL or extinction altogether. Since their members have shown that survival of the North Melbourne name is more important than anything else, they should probably take the opportunity to drop down to the VFL before they do go bankrupt. When a 17th team from the Gold Coast does enter the AFL, they days will be numbered to less than 10 years. (They could go back to being the North Melbourne Shinboners and give up the Kangaroos name for an AFL club.)

Will the Western Bulldogs be stupid enough to miss their opportunity in Sydney. This is yet to be seen. But if they let their hearts rule over their minds, then they too will sink.

I still think that Tasmania and Canberra can host teams in the future. Tasmania has a population of 500 000. If games were split between Hobart and Launceston then most of that population would have the chance to see 5 games a year. But the AFL must first expand further in the bigger cities. This will increase their overall market share. The AFL will become a stronger brand name than the NRL or Rugby Super 14 or the A-League in soccer. When the AFL is clearly the strongest brand in Australia (it is not far from this now) then some of the smaller markets will also be able to support a team.

I am looking forward to an 18 team competition. I don't see how a two conference system could work well though. It would seem illogical to split the Victorian teams into different conferences. But this is a topic for another day.

North Melbourne have been foolish to give up their chance of relocation. The clock is now ticking on their existence. Footscray should not make the same mistake when their chance comes. If the bell comes tolling for St Kilda or Richmond, then neither should they.