Richmond great Kevin Bartlett has called for the AFL to introduce a grandfather-grandson rule to ensure that iconic football families continue to be linked to the same club.
Collingwood 1958 premiership player Ron Richards’ grandson, Ed, was drafted by the Western Bulldogs in this year’s national draft, while Magpie legend Murray Weideman’s grandson, Sam, is now heading into his third season with Melbourne.
Bartlett said that he would support the introduction of a grandfather-grandson rule.
“I’ve got a couple of grandsons myself. I’d love to see them if they were able to get to that level that they had the opportunity to play with the Tigers,” he told SEN’s Hungry For Sport.
“I do like the idea of names being associated with a club. The Collier brothers, the Coventrys, the Twomeys – Collingwood has been quite famous for having the Shaw brothers and the Shaw family.
“It’s good for a football club to have that continuity with names and I think it’s good for the game.”
Bartlett also asked whether the AFL’s father-son system also needed a revamp.
Currently, a player is eligible to be selected as a father-son if his father played 100 or more senior games for the club – it was just 50 games up until 2002.
The Age football writer Michael Gleeson says that North Melbourne is a club that has felt the brunt of the rule change the most.
“They’ve been terribly unlucky, North. They’ve produced these great sons, but their dads fell short of the mark of the 100-game threshold,” he said.
“It’s nothing other than dumb-luck, but they could have Josh Kelly playing there. They could have three Brayshaws (Angus, Andrew and Hamish). Paul Spargo’s son, Charlie, was picked up by Melbourne the other day.
“Jack Buckley, the chairman’s (Ben Buckley) son, is going to be playing for another club next year. Despite his dad being the chairman, you get no leeway.”
Under previous rules, the sons of a senior administrator – such as a president, vice-president, general manager or senior coach – with a tenure of at least five years at a club, would be eligible to be drafted under the father–son rule.
Earlier this year, the AFL announced that a father-daughter rule for the AFLW competition that only required the father to play one senior match for his daughter to be eligible.
What else did KB and Michael Gleeson have to say? Listen below!