{"id":468307,"date":"2026-02-09T10:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468307\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T10:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:20:12","slug":"old-soup-afl-footy-boss-brushes-off-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468307\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Old soup’: AFL footy boss brushes off speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg Swann has derided persistent speculation about problems in the AFL football department as “reheating old soup”.<\/p>\n

The former Brisbane chief executive was head-hunted last year to join the league and is the executive general manager of football performance.<\/p>\n

The football department was restructured and Laura Kane is now the executive general manager of football operations.<\/p>\n

\"Laura<\/p>\n

Laura Kane has a new role after a restructure of the AFL’s football department. (Dylan Burns\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

There was more media talk last week about the working relationship between Swann and Kane.<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit frustrating, this time of year. We need the footy to start so people can talk about that,” Swann told SEN.<\/p>\n

“It got said early in the piece that there were problems – there was just a little bit of overlay with the roles, but that was sorted out well before Christmas.<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit (like) reheating old soup.<\/p>\n

“Everyone’s clear on their responsibilities and it’s been fine.”<\/p>\n

Swann was at the Superbowl as a guest of the NFL and said he had a look at how they run their video review of on-field incidents.<\/p>\n

He said the AFL was looking at ways to improve the AFL Review Centre (ARC).<\/p>\n

Three years ago, a disastrous umpiring decision when Ben Keays kicked a goal but it was ruled a behind, effectively cost Adelaide a finals berth.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Keays thought he’d kicked the winning goal against the Swans in 2023, but it was ruled a point. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Under Swann’s watch, that would never be allowed to happen again.<\/p>\n

“I’m certainly ‘get it right’ – we’ve had some, what would you say, bad ones,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Probably the most famous one in the last few years is the Adelaide one. We’ve actually reviewed that … the ARC knew within eight seconds that was the wrong decision.<\/p>\n

“In the rules as it was then, play had started so you couldn’t stop it. If that happened again, we would call that back and pay the goal.<\/p>\n

“People don’t like the stop-start of the review, but I think they probably get more upset if it’s wrong – as in that case.<\/p>\n

“Certainly Adelaide (argued) it cost them a spot in the (final) eight. It’s pretty high stakes.”<\/p>\n

This Saturday night’s AFL State of Origin game in Perth will be the first opportunity to see the effect of a suite of rule changes.<\/p>\n

“We’re trying to make it easier to umpire and get the ball in play more and make the game quicker,” Swann said.<\/p>\n

He also said the WA and Victorian players are determined to take the revamped State of Origin concept seriously.<\/p>\n

“Certainly from the West Australians … they’re saying ‘we can’t just wander out and do an exhibition game in front of 60,000 of our own fans. We’re going to have a crack’,” Swann said.<\/p>\n

“So the Vics are getting ready for that as well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greg Swann has derided persistent speculation about problems in the AFL football department as “reheating old soup”. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,75975,64,63,55,639,25880,6278,14173,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-468307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-afl-football","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-ben-keays","15":"tag-greg-swann","16":"tag-laura-kane","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468307","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=468307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}