Dillon: AFL clubs showed "unanimous" support for Wildcard Round

AFL CEO Andrew Dillon has explained why the league has opted to introduce a Wildcard Finals Round.

The league on Sunday night confirmed that two extra finals games will come in next season during the current pre-finals bye.

It will pit 7th v 10th and 8th v 9th against each other with the winners moving through and the losers eliminated, while the top six will enjoy the week off.

Dillon says games of consequence are what the fans want to see.

“What we feel is by expanding the finals series we’ll have more games of consequence during the home and away which we know our fans love, we know fans will go to those games and we know they’ll watch them in numbers,” Dillon said at his press conference.

“What we also know is that, particularly the finals series this year where we had pretty much every game as close enough to a sellout, that our fans love finals games.

“So we think it provides opportunities and provides hope for our fans.”

He insists that clubs were unanimous in their support for the concept.

“Yeah, absolutely. We’ve been speaking about this for a couple of years with clubs at CEO’s conferences,” Dillon added.

“I’ve got plenty of good feedback from clubs overnight.”

The league chief insists mediocrity is not being rewarded as many believe it is when handing a lifeline to two teams who finish outside the top eight.

“I don’t think it rewards mediocrity, what it does is provide opportunities and more games of consequence,” he replied.

“Our fans love finals and they love games of consequence.”

Dillon says that any teams who win a Wildcard Weekend game will have it marked as a finals win while Gary Ayres Best Finals Player voting

“The Wildcard Finals will be finals which will be part of the Gary Ayres Medal and go on the players’ records as playing in finals.

“If you win a Wildcard Final that will be a finals win.”

As for the most negative public feedback, Dillon suggests the attendance numbers of the two wildcard games at season’s end will tell a different story.

“I get plenty of feedback over every decision we make and I think what we’ll see when we get to the Wildcard Weekend next year is we’ll see crowds come to the games in record numbers, they’ll be really well attended and really well watched.”

The concept has long been considered by the AFL as a way of creating more interest in the season by having more teams in the running to play finals.

While this will be the first time that the AFL will have it in place, the wildcard system has been trialled in the VFL since 2023.