AFL great Gerard Healy has explored the struggles of football participation in western Sydney, and found a very concerning stat.
Healy attempted to answer the number of boys 13-and-under who have registered to play AFL football in 2026.
The answer was 97 across 14 clubs in the west, from Parramatta to Bankstown, over to Ingleburn and Camperdown.
"Last week, I was given some disturbing, although not that surprising data, by someone very close to the greatest trainwreck in the game's history," Healy wrote on SEN.
"I could swear, I could carry on, on behalf of those who have told this story before again and again, but the shockingly low number tells the story of abject failure and mismanagement itself. 97."
There are roughly 22,000 boys from that area of New South Wales in the 9-12 age bracket.
Healy noted that three quarters of $1 billion has been funnelled into growing the game in western Sydney, but for very little reward.
"We think we are expanding the game, putting up with empty stadia week after week. But the joke's on us all who have been fed the expansion fable," Healy continued.
"Some say I've been hard on the commission, Richard Goyder and the executive, but clearly I wasn't being hard enough, for without NSW, Queensland is our only growth corridor, and there's already four NRL teams established there.
"Growth is king, and Peter V'landys is charging while we've sat like frogs in the boiling water.
"It's worse than bewildering, and no doubt a few on the commission are now angry at themselves for being deceived, but their eyes told the real story, so the excuses are limited."
Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham reiterated the struggles the AFL has in making inroads in the "complex market" that is western Sydney.
"(It's a) vast place," Pridham said on SEN.
"No (we're not making inroads in western Sydney). None. Because it's a vast place and very complex.
"The Giants do a very good job in difficult circumstances with limited resources. It's not easy. It's not their role to develop the game in western Sydney, per se. They are a football club, like we are, trying to win games.
"They're in Canberra. They've done a great job there. It's very hard getting the attention of western Sydney."
The AFL commission underwent changes in recent weeks, welcoming former Geelong president Craig Drummond to the group, while Andrew Ireland, former Sydney CEO, who is well aware of the struggles for the AFL in the NRL-dominated state, will need to recharge the league's efforts to compete with the rival code.
