- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
There’s been a bit of talk this week about introducing a system of promotion and relegation, à la the English Premier League, to the AFL. While the league has locked in the current structure of 22 rounds and a final eight until 2013, it hasn’t stopped many speculating what may lie beyond then.
(Personally I’m a bit cynical and think the AFL have already decided what the league will look like beyond 2013, as it seems unlikely the broadcasters who signed on for the new TV deal in April would not have known how many games they were buying. But that’s just a theory.)
Former Richmond vice president Brendan Schwab, now in the soccer community in the role of chief executive of the Australian Professional Footballers Association, has suggested dividing what will be an 18-team competition in half to create two nine-team divisions.
Based on 2013 finishing positions, in 2014 the top nine teams would be in the higher “Premiership” division and the bottom nine in the lower “Championship” division.
According to The Age: “The home-and-away season would comprise 25 matches, with each team playing those in its division twice and those in the other division once. Division one would return to the McIntyre final-five system, with the side finishing on top having a bye in the opening round of the finals.”
“Teams that finished sixth and seventh in division one would join teams finishing 12th, 13th and 14th – the latter three in division two – in playing off to avoid relegation. Teams finishing eighth and ninth in division one would be relegated. In division two, the top two ranked teams would automatically be promoted.”
It’s a slightly complicated system (read the article for a colourful depiction) however that fact alone shouldn’t rule it out.
What should rule it out is one or two obvious – and highly concerning – flaws.
Even leaving aside the potential financial ramifications for relegated sides, and looking at it purely from an on-field perspective, all you need to do is look at what the divisions would look like this year had the system already been in place and you get a worrying picture.
Carlton, currently one of four genuine premiership contenders, would be in the second division. The eighth-placed side of the previous season gets relegated, meaning the Blues would not be part of this year’s premiership race at all.
West Coast, the big improvers of 2011, would be stuck in the second division also and thus be unable to compare with the best teams.
St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs would both be first division teams – albeit first division teams facing relegation – and would probably be a far more realistic chance of making the finals at this stage of the competition with less teams to leapfrog.
Basically, Schwab’s plan messes with the natural ebbs and flows of the current system. A team’s rise or fall can be rapid and the example of applying the proposed relegation system to this season exposes this.
Schwab argues that with two more teams there will be an increase in “inconsequential” matches, but you have to wonder if the difference caused by just two teams will be all that noticeable.
The way things are now are fine. There’s simply no need for a radical overhaul.