Footy Central

Your source for everything AFL

Did you know that the average attendance at an AFL game is 36,000, the second highest of any sport in the world?

The AFL evolved from the Victorian domestic competition, known at the Victorian Football League (VFL), and retains much of its history and tradition. Over the past 25 years it has grown into a national competition with teams based in five of the six Australian states, although ten of the sixteen clubs are still based in Victoria. Since the move toward a national competition, the AFL has gained considerable media and financial strength. The expansion of the AFL in the 1980s effectively ended 70-year-long battle for supremacy with its rival leagues, the SANFL, the WAFL and VFA and since this time, some of these leagues and clubs have either sought or subsequently been granted licences to compete in the AFL and formed affiliations with the AFL to field its reserves sides and developmental players.

In Feburary 2008 the AFL announced plans to increase the competition to 18 clubs by 2012.

The 16 teams play against each other in 22 rounds between late March and early September in a non-divisional format. These matches are followed by a series of finals matches which culminate in the two best teams playing off for the Premiership in the AFL Grand Final, the best attended domestic club championship event in the world.

AFL in Australia is a popular spectator and team sport which originated in Melbourne and has become an important part of Australian culture. The sport is played continuously in every state and territory of Australia for over 90 years and is particularly popular in Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania. In the states where it is not as popular as other winter sports, New South Wales and Queensland, it is rapidly growing. The only national competition is the Australian Football League, which grew out of an expanded Victorian domestic club competition from 1982 beginning with the relocation of the South Melbourne Swans in 1982 and changing its name in 1990. The AFL now governs the code nationally. Australia is currently the only nation in the world where Australian rules football is played professionally and while its participation is diverse, the sport is only played professionally by men.

AFL

All content sourced from Wikipedia.org