'Finals wildcards': Is the AFL blinded by an obsession with American sports?

Which was pretty much the reaction last week when a meeting of club administrators and AFL bosses discussed a range of topics related to the running and future of the national competition.

On the agenda were matters such as changes to draft rules, further equalisation of the fixture, and the possibility of more representative football.

There was some discussion of the latest controversies involving the Match Review Officer and AFL Tribunal controversies.

But many observers were convinced that another item the AFL was keen to let media know had been a talking point, the old chestnut about a pre-finals "Wildcard Round", was little more than an attempt at distraction from the constant source of public angst the league's entire judiciary system has become.

I'm as cynical, perhaps more so, than a lot of footy critics. But I'm not sure this time the mentions were entirely gratuitous and not serious.

Not that it wouldn't be preferable to the alternative possibility, that "finals wildcards" were a genuine chance in yet another superfluous and cringeworthy tipping of the hat to American professional sport.

But there's a seeming obsession about US sports in this country's biggest football code which worries me.

And in my view, any move to a finals system beyond the current version of the final eight, which has now worked very well for just on a quarter of a century, would be a totally unnecessary further adjustment to an already highly-compromised competition.

Reports last week were that AFL clubs are supposedly now more enthusiastic about the idea than they once were.

Why?

Because, as usual, they can smell an extra dollar or two.

And that would really be what it was all about.

Because the wildcard concept, where you'd have teams 7-10 playing off for finals spots, is just window dressing on exactly the sort of race to finals we already have.

The critical, and worst difference, would be this.

At the moment, in this extraordinarily close AFL season, you have close to a dozen teams fighting for a couple of spots in the eight.

It's a desperate battle, and there's going to be some pretty deserving candidates who miss out and are left with six months to stew over it.

Whereas, if we had finals wildcards this year, would we even be getting excited about these last six rounds?

Why would we, knowing that any club only had to limp into 10th spot on the ladder to still have a chance of playing finals?

It's a prime example of rewarding mediocrity.

And our competition should aspire to something more than demanding than a virtual participation ribbon for finishing in the lower half of the AFL ladder.

Here's the bottom line.

If you finish 10th on the ladder, you don't deserve to be in the reckoning for finals.

You should be putting your tail between your legs, pondering a pretty ordinary season, and hoping to do better next time.

We've already had finalists in the final eight system who've managed to be part of September despite winning fewer than half their games.

How few might you be able to win under a wildcard system and still be in it?

What is even the point of having a 24-round home and away season if you can play poorly for a large chunk of it and still be a chance?

All you're doing is devaluing further a six-month season that is supposed to actually count for something, an attempt to qualify for a finals series supposedly fought out by only the best.

Not to mention the fact that in a wildcard scenario, if a team did finish eighth or seventh, like the Western Bulldogs did in 2016 before going on win a flag, they would now have even less chance of winning a premiership because of an extra week of finals they would be forced to play.

So, in essence, we would be adding on another week of games we're not even prepared to call genuine finals, and pretend they're really meaningful even though we really know no team involved has a hope in hell of actually going on with it to win a premiership.

The idea, in an AFL context at least, is little more than a cynical money grab.

And based on a premise that followers of clubs who wouldn't otherwise still be in contention for a finals spot late in the season, won't continue to watch if there's not still some hope for their team.

I think that's naive, too.

Crowds continue to pour through the turnstiles and switch on their TV sets to watch AFL football, yes, even supporters of those clubs which are down the bottom end of the ladder.

We're not that fickle. We're more wedded to the teams we support than a lot of American fans.

And we're too smart to give much credence to the idea that every single idea adopted in the United States must also be a good thing for our sporting world.

I just wish the people running our sport understood that as well as real football fans do.