{"id":273994,"date":"2025-11-09T21:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T21:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/273994\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T21:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T21:08:10","slug":"afl-gives-teams-finishing-10th-chance-to-win-premiership-through-wildcard-round-in-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/273994\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL gives teams finishing 10th chance to win premiership through wildcard round in finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The divisive and controversial AFL wild card round is a reality, with the league confirming it will give teams ranked ninth and 10th an opportunity to win the premiership from next season.<\/p>\n

All clubs have been told the league will implement what is essentially an extra week of finals, starting in 2026.<\/p>\n

The AFL confirmed it would implement the change in the coming days when it would also release the fixture for next season.<\/p>\n

The wildcard round, an idea taken from the NBA, will pit the team that finishes seventh on the ladder in the home-and-away season against 10th.<\/p>\n

The other wildcard game will be the eighth team against the ninth.<\/p>\n

Stream End Game with Tony Armstrong on ABC iview<\/a><\/p>\n

Tony Armstrong tackles Australia’s overdue reckoning with racism in sport with the help of some of its biggest sports stars.<\/p>\n

“We’re 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,” AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“The 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

“This also means that all teams that 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.”<\/p>\n

Both games will take place on the weekend that is currently set aside for the pre-finals bye.<\/p>\n

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

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

AAP\/ABC<\/p>\n

\"End<\/a>ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The divisive and controversial AFL wild card round is a reality, with the league confirming it will give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[638,76141,12259,64,63,85,158857],"class_list":{"0":"post-273994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-afl-finals","10":"tag-andrew-dillon","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-wildcard-round"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273994","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=273994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}