The AFL has deemed revealing player weights as inappropriate, meaning for the first time in its history, the AFL Season Guide has been printed without the information.
Kane Cornes revealed the development on Friday, slamming the call and saying a player’s body is their job and therefore the information is of public interest.
“Remember in 2021 the AFL banned perspective draftees from getting their skinfolds done at the draft combine for mental health reasons and treading carefully with the younger generation,” Cornes told SEN Afternoons.
“That was scrapped much to the disgust of many club recruiters.
“I can reveal to you this afternoon that the AFL Season Guide is out … the AFL has stopped including player weight.
“Can you believe it? I was alerted to this yesterday … if you get your book and you want to look up what Jordan De Goey weighs, you will no longer be able to find it.
“The world has gone so soft. I can’t believe it.
“You’re a professional athlete. You’re not an influencer on social media. Any other sport I can look that up. I can tell you Travis Kelce was 113kg. His quarterback Patrick Mahomes weighs 102kg.
“No longer in my role as a commentator can I say Jake Lever is playing on Charlie Curnow, Curnow has an 8kg advantage – he should take him deep to the goal square.
“I can’t do that anymore because the AFL have said that we are that soft that we can’t include player weights in the Season Guide. I don’t know where this is going to lead to.
“Are they going to ban us from knowing that Caleb Daniel is 168cm? He could easily be offended by being one of the shortest players in the game.”
Editor of the AFL Record and the AFL Season Guide Ash Browne confirmed the change was a league directive.
“Yeah it’s true. It’s a new AFL policy to not reveal player weights – I’m just a messenger here, by the way. This was an AFL decision,” Browne said.
“They’ve decided in this day and age it is inappropriate for weights to public matter, in a publication like the Season Guide.
“They would say that people support that it’s not appropriate to publish weights and that it’s private information now.”
After hearing Browne's confirmation, Cornes added: “They’re not accountants, they’re not nurses, they’re not lawyers – they’re professional athletes where your body is your job for goodness sake.”
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