Why the AFL would benefit from an English football-style system

MUCH needs to be said for supporters of over a dozen AFL sides who each and every year turn up to games never really expecting to win. Supporters who year after year know very well they won’t feature in September and most certainly won’t get their hands on any silverware.

The Hard Word admires you. It really does. We’ve all confronted the beginning of a season fearing the worst, in the knowledge that our side will at best only win a handful of games and should we win a few more, scrape into the final eight, only to be pummeled from pillar to post in the first elimination final.

Much maligned Collingwood has won only two premierships since 1958. St Kilda has won only one premiership since it was founded in 1873. Over the past eleven years eight sides have secured the premiership cup. This might seem like quite a spread across the competition. Indeed it is. But truth be told each and every year the race for premiership glory is only ever between three sides at best.

There should be another knockout competition played at some stage during the home-and-away season, with the 18 existing clubs competing for another cup. But it needs to be more than that. It should also include the 13 VFL sides. Yes it may only be considered a ‘semi-professional’ league but it’s full of league players and the standard can often be as high as some of the rubbish the lower league sides produce week-in-week-out.

Forget the AFL State of Origin. The concept was an enormous hit right up to the early nineties, when it was given the flick in 1999 because clubs weren’t releasing star players and crowd numbers had dwindled. The last time an interstate match was played was in 2008 when Victoria played against The Dream Time. For this scribe it was one of the most despicable displays of Australian Rules Football we had ever seen. Opposition players seemingly in awe of one another glided around the oval for four quarters, ignorant of the fact it was meant to be a competition. This is where the NRL State of Origin gets it pitch perfect. The NAB Cup too is a farce, merely a chance for sponsors to make a bit of money from advertising. The players and coaches couldn’t care less.

For those unfamiliar with English football, it’s made up of a host of adjoining competitions, some not restricted to just English sides; the FA Cup, Europa League, Champions League, Premiership, League Cup and the Charity Shield to name a few.

The FA Cup is an example of a similar system that could work in Australia. Teams from the Premier League, the Football League and the first five tiers of the National League compete against amateur clubs. Since 2000 six clubs have won the cup, yet on seven occasions the winners’ opponents have been relative minnows, including Millwall, Southampton and Portsmouth.

Of course some of these competitions open themselves up to managers fielding weaker sides and assigning them less importance, but the FA Cup is the oldest existing club competition in the world and is considered a prestigious tournament. And yes all of these competitions are typically dominated by the bigger clubs but it’s the opportunity for smaller clubs to win it, for which they thrive. History dictates they won’t but that isn’t the point.

A second cup in the AFL would bring millions of dollars in extra revenue every year. It would increase already ballooning television rights even further, and could allow a network without the rights to broadcast this cup exclusively. Less successful clubs would have the chance to play at the MCG in a grand final setting and fans across the country could find a new set of bragging rights. Instead of increasing the existing home-and-away season, shorten it and create a separate tournament.

Why not give the poor souls constantly barracking aimlessly for their clubs something to cheer about.

Not sure who to support in the English Premier League? Read this and choose a team based on your favourite AFL teams.