Nathan MottonClub presidents suddenly in a hurry for 18 teams
March 15th 2008 05:33
Eddie McGuire would have described it best.
'What a big week it has been in football.'
All 16 club presidents unanimously and enthusiastically supported the expansion of the league to 18 teams on Thursday, boldly stating that it should be implemented sooner rather than later.
AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said it was a historic day for the game. "The club presidents are excited by the future and expressed their unanimous support... for the principle of expanding the game from 16 teams to 18 teams," he said.
Whatever happened to the complaints that followed Fitzpatrick's revelation only weeks ago that he would push for 2 new teams by 2012.
Concerns were raised about the cost, the ability to introduce such a large amount of new players, and some were left perturbed by a sense of being ignored of the details.
And suddenly they fear the AFL are not moving quickly enough.
One scribe is certainly a little confused.
McGuire collated a series of questions together with nearly all of the other presidents, regarding what he dubbed the "seismic issue" of the 18 team expansion.
No doubt this canvassing of concerns allayed many fears, but surely there is more to it.
I'm amazed that there is such little backlash, for what will change the AFL landscape forever.
And although I still believe the expansion should be postponed, at least until the AFL can sort out the problems of some of the existing 16 teams, I guess I will have to accept this as reality.
In exchange for their support of the move, the clubs want the AFL to improve stadium deals for clubs such as North Melbourne, which has pretty average arrangements now.
"We will make sure we do not forget those clubs," Fitzpatrick said.
Rubbish.
The commission has had more than enough time to fix these issues since their last foray interstate, and the same teams still face similar problems.
"We have learnt some lessons from the past, we went through a variety of scenarios with the clubs today: talked about rookies, talked about pre-season drafts and priority access to players and we tossed those up, put them all out on the table. But nothing was determined today," AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said.
One can only hope this debate and constructive discussion continues into the future.
This is the biggest thing to happen to the AFL, and now that it has the official backing of the clubs, it will be interesting to see how the fans react.
Watch this space.
'What a big week it has been in football.'
All 16 club presidents unanimously and enthusiastically supported the expansion of the league to 18 teams on Thursday, boldly stating that it should be implemented sooner rather than later.
AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said it was a historic day for the game. "The club presidents are excited by the future and expressed their unanimous support... for the principle of expanding the game from 16 teams to 18 teams," he said.
Whatever happened to the complaints that followed Fitzpatrick's revelation only weeks ago that he would push for 2 new teams by 2012.
And suddenly they fear the AFL are not moving quickly enough.
One scribe is certainly a little confused.
McGuire collated a series of questions together with nearly all of the other presidents, regarding what he dubbed the "seismic issue" of the 18 team expansion.
No doubt this canvassing of concerns allayed many fears, but surely there is more to it.
I'm amazed that there is such little backlash, for what will change the AFL landscape forever.
And although I still believe the expansion should be postponed, at least until the AFL can sort out the problems of some of the existing 16 teams, I guess I will have to accept this as reality.
In exchange for their support of the move, the clubs want the AFL to improve stadium deals for clubs such as North Melbourne, which has pretty average arrangements now.
"We will make sure we do not forget those clubs," Fitzpatrick said.
Rubbish.
The commission has had more than enough time to fix these issues since their last foray interstate, and the same teams still face similar problems.
One can only hope this debate and constructive discussion continues into the future.
This is the biggest thing to happen to the AFL, and now that it has the official backing of the clubs, it will be interesting to see how the fans react.
Watch this space.
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