{"id":62011,"date":"2025-08-12T07:44:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/62011\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:44:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:44:12","slug":"aussies-who-work-full-time-get-four-weeks-off-a-year-now-the-staggering-amount-of-holidays-afl-stars-get-has-been-revealed-and-greats-of-the-game-say-its-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/62011\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussies who work full-time get four weeks off a year. Now the STAGGERING amount of holidays AFL stars get has been revealed – and greats of the game say it’s a joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AFL<\/a> is being mocked after revelations some footy players receive at least 93 holiday days a year while the average Australian full-time worker gets just four weeks of leave.<\/p>\n

Channel Seven<\/a> commentator Kane Cornes has taken aim at the league for the astonishing amount of leave players receive every year.<\/p>\n

Swans coach Dean Cox recently revealed his team’s schedule, stating that\u00a0first-to-fourth-year players would return to training on November 10 while senior players would come back on November 24, with the team playing their last match on August 23.<\/p>\n

Cornes called the situation a ‘joke’ while footy great Nick Riewoldt quipped that ‘AFL footy will remain a part-time job in 2026’.<\/p>\n

‘Their (Sydney’s) last game is on August 23,’ Cornes said on The Agenda Setters.<\/p>\n

‘Their senior players are back on November 24.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The AFL is being ridiculed after revelations that some footy players receive a 93-day holiday break (Isaac Heeney pictured)<\/p>\n

\"Kane <\/p>\n

Kane Cornes (pictured) called the situation a ‘joke’ and believes that coaches should be spending more time with players in the preseason<\/p>\n

‘That is a 93-day break for our AFL players and you are telling me these are full-time players.<\/p>\n

‘It is a joke and no wonder the skill level (is questionable and) injuries are high. It’s for that reason.<\/p>\n

‘(AFL players) get far too much time off (and) that’s not including Christmas.’<\/p>\n

Cornes believes coaches should get more time with their players pre-season.<\/p>\n

‘It’s been one of my biggest frustrations for a long time,’ Cornes told SEN earlier in the year.<\/p>\n

‘I actually have been writing about this for seven years.<\/p>\n

‘Players get far too much time off and the lack of preparation is leading to this significant spate of injuries.’<\/p>\n

Cornes claimed the amount of downtime players get has ‘gone way too far’.<\/p>\n

\"AFL <\/p>\n

AFL great Nick Riewoldt joked that ‘AFL footy will remain a part-time job in 2026’<\/p>\n

\"Swans <\/p>\n

Swans coach Dean Cox recently revealed that his senior players would come back on November 24 – meaning some players will get a 93 day break (Swans star Heeney is pictured with partner Lauren Houghton)<\/p>\n

‘The AFL Players’ Association have far too much power in the game. Who is going to stand up to them?<\/p>\n

‘If you\u2019re wondering why everyone is getting injured and why it\u2019s never been worse, this is why.’<\/p>\n

Cornes has spoken to coaches himself and even delved into North Melbourne’s pre-season preparations as an example of how clubs only have a limited amount of time with their players.<\/p>\n

‘Clubs have had enough. You\u2019ve spoken to people, I\u2019ve spoken to coaches before, I\u2019ve spoken to high-performance managers. They say they just do not have enough time with the players to prepare them.<\/p>\n

‘We all remember this little clip from Ross Lyon which I was staggered by: “We give them a lot of time off, I think they get three and a half days a week off. 16 hours in (at the club) and game day”.<\/p>\n

’16 hours a week\u2026 I\u2019ve always thought I\u2019m going to get to the bottom of this. I have done some digging around in terms of how much leave does an AFL player get.’<\/p>\n

It comes as the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement, which was reached in 2023, has seen AFL players receive greater leave entitlements.<\/p>\n

But Cornes continued, using North Melbourne, who failed to reach finals last year, as an example of a club which had an extended off-season break, but will have only trained for eight and a half weeks prior to their first pre-season match.<\/p>\n

‘I\u2019ve used North Melbourne as the example as they didn\u2019t play finals,’ he added.<\/p>\n

‘Their last game was on August 24, they returned to pre-season training for five-plus year players on November 25 – so 12 weeks of holiday in the off-season.<\/p>\n

‘They then trained for three weeks before Christmas, they broke up on December 19 – so they’ve had three weeks training.<\/p>\n

‘They then returned post-Christmas on January 9 – so there’s another three weeks holiday and we’re up to 15 weeks already and we\u2019re in January.<\/p>\n

‘Their first pre-season game is on February 22 – so they have five and a half weeks of training from January 9 to February 22 to prepare the players after Christmas. That is eight and a half weeks for the year to get ready for the most difficult sport to play in the world, the most physically demanding.<\/p>\n

‘Eight and a half weeks is not enough, so it’s no wonder the high-performance staff you’re speaking to, the coaches that we\u2019re speaking to\u2026 speak to a coach off the record and they\u2019ll say, “We just don\u2019t have enough time with the players”.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL is being mocked after revelations some footy players receive at least 93 holiday days a year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,100,588,85,670],"class_list":{"0":"post-62011","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-dailymail","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-sydney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62011","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=62011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}