{"id":273375,"date":"2025-11-09T14:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/273375\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T14:20:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:20:14","slug":"afl-to-go-ahead-with-divisive-new-finals-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/273375\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL to go ahead with divisive new finals system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The AFL will introduce a divisive wildcard round from next year, giving teams ranked ninth and 10th an opportunity to win the premiership.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/afl\/story\/_\/id\/46853304\/aflw-not-ready-marvel-stadium-grand-final-says-footy-boss-emma-moore\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/r1570999_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/afl\/story\/_\/id\/46843074\/aflw-finals-week-1-2025-expert-tips-news-team-selection-whispers-injuries-results-scores\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/r1570530_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>All clubs have been told the league will implement what is essentially an extra week of finals, starting in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The AFL will confirm the move in coming days when they will also release the fixture for next season.<\/p>\n<p>Taking the system from the NBA, the wildcard round would pit the team that finishes seventh on the ladder in the home-and-away season against 10th.<\/p>\n<p>The other wildcard game would be eighth against ninth.<\/p>\n<p>Both games will take place on the weekend that is currently set aside for the pre-finals bye.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Photo by Michael Willson\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The winners would be seeded seventh and eighth in the finals, with the rest of the four-week series remaining as it has since 2000.<\/p>\n<p>If the wildcard round was in place this year, seventh-placed Gold Coast would have hosted Sydney (10th), and Hawthorn (eighth) would have played the Western Bulldogs (ninth).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL will introduce a divisive wildcard round from next year, giving teams ranked ninth and 10th an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-273375","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\/273375","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=273375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}