\n The AFL has confirmed the introduction of a Wildcard Round\n <\/p>\n
Brisbane players line up for the national anthem ahead of the 2025 Toyota AFL Grand Final. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
The AFL has confirmed that the 2026 Toyota Premiership Season will feature an expanded Finals Series with the introduction of a Wildcard Finals Round.<\/p>\n
The introduction of a Wildcard Finals Round will now mean 10 teams will remain in contention for Premiership honours after the conclusion of the Toyota AFL Premiership Home and Away Season.<\/p>\n
Played across the traditional pre-finals bye weekend it will feature two elimination matches where seventh will play 10th and eighth will play ninth.<\/p>\n
The highest ranked winner of the two matches will then secure seventh place and the other winner will secure eighth place heading into the first full week of Finals.<\/p>\n
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said the introduction of a Wildcard Finals Round was great for fans and clubs alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to deliver fans an extra weekend of finals footy, while giving more clubs and players the opportunity to play finals footy and win a Premiership,\u201d said Mr Dillon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Wildcard Finals Round reflects our ongoing commitment to evolve our competition structure building on recent additions like Gather Round and AFL Origin, ensuring our game continues to grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis also means that all teams who finish in the top eight of ten will host a home final, giving fans a chance to see their club play at home in September.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teams that finish in the top six will have a week off after Round 24 ahead of playing in an Elimination or Qualifying Final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL has confirmed the introduction of a Wildcard Round Brisbane players line up for the national anthem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-273871","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","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273871","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=273871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}