AFL chief Andrew Dillon says the AFL has answered the calls of fans who have begged for years for the game to be left alone, by extending the finals to a top ten system and giving it a silly name cooked up in a marketing off-site brainstorm session.
“The message I hear again and again from fans is ‘just stop mucking around with the game’” Dillon explained. “So we thought, let’s overhaul a system that’s worked perfectly well for over two decades and use a term from cards to describe it.
“I can’t tell you the number of times a fan has come up to me and said, ‘let’s give the team that finishes 10th a chance to win the flag’. I can’t tell you, because it’s never happened. But, you see, one of the principles that I’ve always adhered to is, if something’s working, it’s time to change it”.
He said the league had considered adopting a radical idea whereby all eighteen teams had a chance to play finals, determined by twenty-three wildcard rounds called ‘the home and away season’. “But we dismissed that as being too ridiculous,” he said.
Dillon pushed back at concerns the AFL was driven only by commercial interests. “That’s not true at all. In fact, I’m very excited to announce that in 2026 we’ll also be launching Tuesday Night Twilight Footy, kicking off at 3:50pm”.
He also hinted at plans to implement a new “Reverse Round” where the crowd plays and the players watch. “We’re always looking for ways to innovate the product,” he said.
