Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has proposed a brand new way of assembling the AFL season.
McGuire's proposal involves a conference style fixture and an incredible 12 teams featuring in finals footy.
“We need to get the purity of the game back as much as anything,” McGuire said on Triple M.
“We need to get the ‘fix’ out of the ‘fixture.’”
“So here is where I put a bomb in the water… As soon as this tennis finishes, we should be ready to go. Whoever wins the NAB Cup, gets a wildcard finals place.
“The first thing you hear the commentators say when they get on is ‘this is just a hit and giggle, no one is really caring.
“This was an idea that was put to me buy a man called Peter Scanlon… he is one of the smartest business people I know. Basically he’s a genius.”
The fixture would be as follows:
- 17 Rounds where every team plays each other once.
- After 17 rounds competition breaks into Top 12 and Bottom 6.
- Top 12 then play the last 6 rounds to determine finals positions.
- Bottom six play off during the last six rounds for a wild card entry into the finals.
- 10 finalists and 2 wild cards break into seperate 6-team ’conferences’ culminating in the Grand Final
McGuire said his new idea for the fixture would be fair to all teams and every game would have meaning.
“Under this fixture, it’s fair and every game means something,” McGuire said.
“The good teams will still win the flag. But what it means is more teams are going to make the finals, more games are about something. It means everyone trying right to the very end.
“By Round 12 the bottom five or six are cooked anyway usually. Nobody jumps up from there. In fact from Round 10 the top eight is just about set most years.”
Add two teams from Darwin, Canberra, and Tassie (or something like it to bring the competition up to 24 teams). Split the competition into two divisions of twelve teams each who play each other twice (22 weeks). Bottom two teams in Division One are relegated to Division Two, top two teams in Division Two are promoted. Back to the final four (or six if you’re as greedy as the AFL is) for four weeks of finals in each division … Division One play Friday night and Saturday, Division two play Saturday night ans Sunday. Share television rights for season and finals.