AFL relegation plan

[adz]

Some interesting stuff here. As the AFL is looking to expand to 18 teams, they are throwing the idea of a two tiered system, with promotion and relegation. The cool part of this particular plan is all the teams play each other at least once still.

FORMER Richmond vice-president Brendan Schwab believes there will be an increase in ''inconsequential'' matches in an expanded 18-team competition from next season and has devised an alternative two-division system that involves relegation.

Schwab, the brother of Melbourne chief executive Cameron Schwab, and the president of the Australian Professional Footballers Association, presented his plan to The Age after reading comments made by Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse flagging a reduction in the number of teams playing in the finals and the possibility of relegation.

Schwab said the AFL should use where teams finished that season to split the league into two divisions for season 2014, with the top nine in division one and teams 10 to 18 in division two.

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.

Schwab, who sat on the Tigers' board from 1998 to 2004 and is one of the country's top sports administrators, said there was strong merit in a relegation system.

''I have been a great fan of the AFL's for many years and the AFL's right to expand but the real risk, and I know this from being a passionate Richmond supporter, is that expanding now results in an 18-team competition that can take away some of the genuine hope that is so important for fans and may result in there being too many inconsequential games,'' he said.

''If it is possible to schedule a 25-round home-and-away season in lieu of the NAB Cup, then here we have an opportunity that will achieve sporting balance to create a situation where nearly every game would be of monumental importance to the teams.

''It would also introduce something which I have seen firsthand in soccer, which is such a compelling part of the season, and that is the threat that if you don't perform to the necessary level, then you could find yourself relegated and out of contention for at least another season.''

One criticism of having two divisions is that there could be a reduction in traditional and lucrative blockbusters if, for instance, Carlton and Collingwood were not grouped together.

However, Schwab, who has worked on this proposal for a year and plans to seek AFL feedback, felt that wouldn't be too great an issue.

''Based on last year's results, Essendon, Carlton and Richmond would all be in division two this year so they would be playing each other twice and Collingwood once,'' Schwab said.

''Big rivals will play almost as much but for bigger stakes. But what I think will happen is, if there is a loss of artificially scheduling them to play each other twice a year, that will be replaced by a genuine contest. Some of the games between lesser-traditional rivalries will take on a much greater significance.''

Schwab said his plan would not alter the salary cap or national draft or the way clubs now build their playing list.

''You still have to take a long-term approach to building premierships. But it tempers that with the fact you can be either rewarded greatly or penalised greatly through success or failure in any given season,'' he said.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-relegation-plan-20110607-1fr2x.html#ixzz1UGbg4uDz

 

[midfielder]

Be interesting if they could sell it too the public and the media..

 

[adz]

I like the idea. There is a fairly big divide between top and bottom clubs in the AFL, so realistically half the comp has no hope of getting the premiership anyway, and this gives the bottom half something to aim for. The issue of not seeing all the teams play is taken care of by having 1 game against the other division. That could be interesting if there are a few upsets in those games!

 

[midfielder]

I like the idea. There is a fairly big divide between top and bottom clubs in the AFL, so realistically half the comp has no hope of getting the premiership anyway, and this gives the bottom half something to aim for. The issue of not seeing all the teams play is taken care of by having 1 game against the other division. That could be interesting if there are a few upsets in those games!

I understand the issue ... but will the media buy having a second division because that's what it sounds like and how much will the greater public pay to watch...

Football codes world wide have a huge nay massive gap between the top division and lower divisions in terms of media income... so why would I want to pay to watch the second division unless that was my club... especially in the non AFL areas of Australia...

 

[midfielder]

ADZ

Interesting interview re the thread topic...

http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-premiership/collingwood-coach-mick-malthouse-says-lopsided-scorelines-are-a-worrying-trend-for-the-afl-in-2011/story-e6frf3e3-1226110155744

 

[adz]

Yeah Mick Malthouse having a bit of a go at the one-sided games and the length of the games... usually because one side is banging in so many goals. He didn't put up any solutions though.

The proposal is basically for a second division, but not exactly like the ones established in football around the world. AFL controls where all the money goes, so they would be pretty stupid to make a second division and then only pump cash into the top one. Also with the teams playing each team in the other division once, it brings them together more. It just means that the bottom half is not playing for premiership, which realistically they aren't anyway, but for promotion to the top half, so fans would at least have something to get excited about.

"Why would I want to pay to watch the second division unless that was my club"? I guess you could ask that about the first division too!

I just thought it was an interesting idea, two divisions, but keeping the interest in there, if your team is stuck in the second division they still play a regular season round against each of the top teams anyway.

 

[midfielder]

ADZ

Tho I would put this article on this thread .... a very tongue in cheer article by one of the ages top AFL journalist ...

Living the Great Con

Peter Hanlon

November 26, 2011

WE'VE vaguely heard of this Pat Cummins, but we didn't see his name on that long list of Greater Western Sydney draftees, so we're sure he won't amount to much.

And really, who needs an 18-year-old who has actually done something amazing in sport when there's all of those teenagers to fawn over who might one day do something - maybe, perhaps, a few years from now - for a team that hasn't played a game and no one will care about when it does?

Not us, because we've fallen for the Great Footy Con.

We don't need some upstart leather-flinger with a winning smile who has just made the best Test debut in eons gatecrashing our little world and messing with our myopia.

No sir, not when there's the heart-wrenching story of some poor kid from Sandringham who likes surfing, but who's about to be dragged ashore and packed off to Blacktown, where there's no surf.

Don't think we're the least bit interested in Patty Mills leaving the Melbourne Tigers to go and play basketball in China while he waits to get back to his day job in America. Oooh, travelled, have we? Don't like your own country, is that your problem? What's wrong with staying home and playing a proper sport?

Not us. We're happy right here, lapping up the Great Footy Con.

What about that Harry Kewell, anyway? All of that living overseas in exotic places like Leeds and Liverpool hasn't done much for him, has it? Couldn't get a kick in a stampede.

Not that we've been taking any notice. We're too busy living the Great Footy Con.

Besides, if you want a world game, we've got international rules! We don't see any of your namby-pamby basketballers or soccer players representing their country against Ireland's finest school teachers and postmen, in a game that's so international it's a hybrid of two sports only played in certain bits of two countries on opposite sides of the globe.

Pah! How can soccer expect to compete, when all a boy could ever hope to be when he grows up is a famous international ruleser? They get to fly around the world and everything … once every couple of years.

And please, don't start carrying on about cricket again. You're not going to convince anyone that whether Ricky Ponting gets a game against New Zealand is a bigger talking point than the news that Richmond made an operating profit last year, or that Bob Murphy reckons being back in the Bulldogs' leadership group won't stop him writing about his dog.

Take your bat and ball and go home. We'll stay here and keep cheering on the Great Footy Con.

We don't need other sports, not when footy never stops - and we know it doesn't because the AFL told us.

So what if there hasn't been a game for 57 days and it's 119 more until the next one? We're proper sports fans - we don't need people actually playing sport to call it sport.

Not since we discovered the Great Footy Con.

There's been a new and exciting event to keep us entertained virtually every week - it's almost as if they planned it that way! And let's face it, there's not many better spectator sports than the release of the AFL fixture!

Except maybe trade week, which is so big it's got its own radio station, so you can listen all day long to confirmation that Ivan Maric has gone to Richmond for a second-round pick in a three-way deal involving a bloke who had a forest-worth of stories written about him when he was drafted at pick 13 three years ago, and who has played six games since.

Without the Great Footy Con, we'd be so lost that an 18-year-old kid who had already played basketball for Australia would probably take that college scholarship in America, and four years later maybe land an NBA contract, or at least a nice earner in Greece or Croatia or Spain and the chance to go to the Olympics.

At worst, he'd have got a free tertiary education and some life experience.

But why would you want that, when you can go to an AFL club for a guaranteed two years, on $50,000 a year! And after that, even if you're told that you weren't really a footballer, but actually a basketballer after all, that will be OK. Sure, it will be too late then for the States, or the Olympics, maybe even too late for the Melbourne Tigers. But you'll have been an AFL draftee, and there's nothing in the world bigger than that.

Just imagine the alternative: a world where children's little heads are so full of Pat Cummins, they never know the simple joy of dreaming sweet dreams of Blacktown. It makes you shudder to think where we would be without the Great Footy Con.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/living-the-great-con-20111125-1nz0o.html#ixzz1elslunAt

 

[adz]

LOL that's insane. Looks like those grapes are really sour for that cricket fan if he has to rave on about how passionate AFL fans are.