The New AFL

I know I've laboured this subject lately, but it's so good I've added another instalment.

John Birmingham's view from the Bulletin:

If the Vics think a Brisbane-Port Adelaide final is about as humiliating as it gets, then they haven�t spied the groaning banquet table full of shit sandwiches yet to be eaten. A couple of finals played without Melbourne teams and there�ll be no earthly reason why the rest of the country has to put up with watching their teams play the season decider in a footballing backwater like the MCG. If Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth continue as the engines of the AFL, why shouldn�t they receive the prize of hosting a grand final? Tradition? Not a chance. The league auctioned that off to the highest bidder when it set up the subsidiary interstate businesses that now dominate head office.

The Lions, with three premierships in a row and aiming for four on Saturday, might make soothing noises about the honour of playing at the MCG but you can bet if AFL supremo Andrew Demetriou offered them the chance of a Gabba grand final, they�d be all over it like a cheap Chinese suit. Regardless of this year�s result, the brute fact of dollars and demographics means one- or two-team cities will have a mortal lock on finals berths until Melbourne pulls the plug on life support for a bunch of wheezers, try-hards and terminal cot cases such as Richmond and the Doggies. They could probably think about putting a bullet into Collingwood too while they�re at it, just because it�d be nice to give our children something to dream of in these grim post-9/11 days. Our children are the future, you know.

His tongue in cheek article actually points at a solution to the problems of propping up unprofitable Victorian teams and dealing with an intractable MCC that bedevil the AFL administration.

It's so easy. Form an AFL Super 12 Competition.

To get over the Melbourne club problem, create four new teams that feed from the existing Melbourne clubs. The old Melbourne clubs can reconstitute the VFL. No more problems with those pesky upstart interstate clubs. The traditionalists will be happy.

The new competition would consist of four clubs from Melbourne, one from Geelong, and the six existing interstate teams. Create another franchise for Tasmania, and you have it. A real AFL, one that can easily play two home and away rounds in a season, has a final six playoff series which is, of course, held at home grounds based on merit.

I'm available to kick the process off. Call me!