{"id":115719,"date":"2025-09-03T13:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T13:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/115719\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T13:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T13:13:08","slug":"afl-ceo-andrew-dillon-floats-idea-of-finals-fixture-shakeup-in-near-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/115719\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL CEO Andrew Dillon floats idea of finals fixture shakeup in near future"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFL CEO Andrew Dillon has not ruled out the possibility of a wildcard round being introduced in the next few years, as the 2025 finals series gets set to kick off tomorrow night.<\/p>\n

The idea of a wildcard round has gained significant steam in recent years, as a way to keep more fans engaged for longer during the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most common form of a proposed wildcard round sees the final eight expanded to a final 10, where on the eve of a conventional finals series, seventh plays 10th and eighth plays ninth to decide the last two finals spots, similar to how the VFL currently operates.<\/p>\n

In an appearance on the\u00a0Eddie and Jimmy\u00a0podcast, Dillon conceded that the higher-ups at the AFL may consider implementing the round in the near future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Fan satisfaction drops again, AFL Fans Association survey shows<\/a><\/p>\n

“One of the things that we will look at as the competition goes from 18 to 19 teams, is ‘is a final eight the right amount of teams to be making it into the finals series?'” Dillon posed to Eddie McGuire and Jimmy Bartel<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“Would you look at opening it up to a nine or a 10? That’s certainly on our agenda at the moment.<\/p>\n

“It’s absolutely on the horizon with Tasmania coming in [to the competition] in 2028.<\/p>\n

“I think having seen how the season went this year, knowing how much the fans care about games of consequence, I think it’s something that it’s up to us to certainly have a look at. And then making sure that we can work it within the current confines of our fixture.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The VFL first introduced a wildcard round into their season in 2023, fixturing it in the week break between the home-and-away season ending and the finals starting.<\/p>\n

They have continued with the system until today, where the 10th-placed Williamstown made full use of their season staying alive, defeating seventh-placed Collingwood to book their spot in finals, and ending the Pies’ year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFL CEO Andrew Dillon has not ruled out the possibility of a wildcard round being introduced in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-115719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}