Former players suffering from debilitating injuries can now access $600,000 sums as part of the new revamped $54 million injury and support fund under the updated 'Severe Injury Benefit' banner.
In a deal structured by the league and the player governing body, AFLPA, and outgoing president Paul Marsh, was outlined on Tuesday of the new fund allocations, which sees the total figure more than doubled (previously $24 million) as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
Among the new additions, the 'Severe Injury Benefit' payments pose as the most significant, which applies to players who have suffered cognitive or bodily injuries that reduce their earning capacity by 40 per cent.
The pair of organisations is in the process of determining a third, independent body to help oversee and implement the upgraded model.
"We're trying to provide a really significant benefit for someone who is permanently and significantly injured from playing football. Obviously, that includes AFL and AFLW," Marsh said, according to AFL Media.
"This is going to be administered by a third party, and it will kick off from July. There will be some complexity to these claims, we have no doubt. Players are going to come to us, and we're going to need them to go through a formal process.
"Really, it's going to focus on cognitive and bodily function and an impairment around those things. It's got to be a football-related (injury).
"The test will be, do the experts that we're working with here think that the player's had their earning capacity reduced by 40 per cent or more? That will be a challenging test as they work through that. But this is not dissimilar to what you would see in Work Cover or other compensation-type schemes."
A host of players have been forced into retirement, which includes but is not limited to Melbourne's Angus Brayshaw, the Western Bulldogs' Aiden O'Driscoll, Adelaide's Paul Seedsman and Collingwood's Nathan Murphy and Josh Carmichael, who all were medically retired due to concussion.
Former Crows captain Rory Sloane, who was also medically retired last year due to a severe eye injury, lauded the organisation's ability to help past players.
"I've lost some eyesight over time too, so there's some future issues I'll have."
Rory Sloane reflects on his own experience after being medically retired, and applauds the hardship fund for past players, as explained by @tommorris32.#9FootyClassified | Watch on Nine & 9Now ๐ฅ๏ธ pic.twitter.com/HAwR865iUL
โ Footy on Nine (@FootyonNine) May 27, 2025
"It is one of the great things the AFLPA has set up," Sloane said on Footy Classified.
"To look after their past players, not only with hardship funds like this, but medical assistance, physiotherapy, hospital cover, health cover.
"They really do take care of their past players."
More than 1200 former players have accessed support since being written into the previous CBA at the start of 2017.