{"id":272666,"date":"2025-11-09T06:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T06:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/272666\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T06:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T06:18:09","slug":"afl-reportedly-makes-call-on-wildcard-round-for-2026-season-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/272666\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL reportedly makes call on Wildcard Round for 2026 season &#8211; AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/games-centre\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"305\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" style=\"float:right;\" class=\"play-games-banner\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ZeroHanger_GamesCentre.png.webp.webp\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFL<\/a> has reportedly decided to introduce a Wildcard Round for the 2026 finals series, meaning the top 10 placed sides at the end of the home and away season will remain in the race for the premiership.<\/p>\n<p>The VFL introduced A Wildcard Round to its fixture in 2023, seeing the clubs placed seventh through to 10th feature in the first week of the finals, and clubs first through sixth having a week off.<\/p>\n<p>Seventh hosts 10th in an elimination final, while eighth hosts ninth, with the winners of the two finals proceeding to a final eight, which would see the final four weeks of the September series play out in the current format.<\/p>\n<p>Fifth faces the lower-placed winner from the Wildcard Round, and sixth hosts the other winner.<\/p>\n<p>The concept has been considered by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFL<\/a> in recent years, with 7 News\u00a0reporter Mitch Cleary revealing that the league has informed clubs that Wildcard Round will be introduced for next year.<\/p>\n<p>The two Wildcard Round matches will be played in the week that has been a pre-finals bye since 2016.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Clubs have been informed the AFL is introducing Wildcard Weekend for 2026. <br \/>7th v 10th<br \/>8th v 9th<\/p>\n<p>To be played on the weekend of the current pre-finals bye.<\/p>\n<p>Essentially the finals is expanding to a 10-team structure <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/7NewsMelbourne?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@7NewsMelbourne<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/7AFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@7AFL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mitch Cleary (@cleary_mitch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cleary_mitch\/status\/1987396206579097740?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 9, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Had a Wildcard Round been introduced in 2025, Gold Coats would have hosted Sydney instead of travelling to play Fremantle, while Hawthorn would have taken on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\/afl\/teams\/western-bulldogs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Western Bulldogs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The introduction of Wildcard Round comes as the league looks to extend the incentives of lower-placed sides, wanting to keep their campaigns alive for longer.<\/p>\n<p>A Wildcard round would also be the latest addition to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohanger.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFL<\/a> fixture, which has added Gather Round and Opening Round over the past few seasons.<\/p>\n<p>        <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL has reportedly decided to introduce a Wildcard Round for the 2026 finals series, meaning the top&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-272666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272666","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=272666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}