The Problem with AFL Football

Australian Rules Football, Australia’s indigenous game. Never before has the game been been faster, players as skilful, stadiums more comfortable, playing surfaces as pristine, sports science as relevant, had a greater number of clubs, been so comprehensively covered across all media formats and coaching departments so large.

So why is the game, at the moment so, so…well so unwatchable?

In short the answer is because never before has the game been been faster, players as skilful, stadiums more comfortable, playing surfaces as pristine, sports science as relevant, had a greater number of clubs, been so comprehensively covered across all media formats and coaching departments so large. 

To play AFL at it’s top level in the 21st century you have to be an elite athlete. During the off season teams, their coaching staff, physicians and sports scientists head to all corners of the globe to undertake altitude training, injured players sent to receive the best medical treatment for their ailments in Europe and North America and coaching staff often ensconced in universities or with EPL and NFL to learn more about the science of coaching.

We are told and have come to know AFL  as a very simple game, a physical contest by brave combatants in dire struggles that often go down to the wire, where a result can be determined by which way the odd shaped ball bounces. 

It has all the elements of what makes great sport and for over century it has entertained and enthralled millions both in Australia and around the world. So why has the game evolved into the living versions of what critics have always referred to it as “aerial ping pong”.

Tune into any given game and depending on whether you can tell who’s playing (many away strips render some teams unrecognisable) and you’ll see around thirty odd players huddled around the ball trying to gain possession and dispose of it. It makes for a poor spectacle, the once free flowing game played across vast fields of grass and sometimes mud has been coached and strategised to death.

Typically first halves are littered with seemingly endless stoppages, for large swathes of the game as a spectator you won’t have a player within 100 meters of you and the game only opens up and becomes free flowing in the second half when players start to become fatigued. 

One of the great things about the AFL is its salary cap which puts a limit on the amount clubs can spend on their player list. No such cap exists for what have become known as “football departments”. Unlike the world game, AFL has rule changes every season, sometimes during the season. There is so many moving parts in the game that almost every infringement on an interpretation of the corresponding rule. 

The solution? No rule changes for five years, a cap on the number of interchanges per every game, a spending cap on football departments, and a limit on the amount of time spent on the pre-season.

In short the game needs to be slowed down. Fans don’t want to go to the game to see elite running, we want to see physical contests, skilful ball use, high flying marks and a game that makes full use of vast grounds they are played on through positional play. 

It is a great game but it’s becoming unwatchable.

Any other suggestions?