Portal:Australian Football League
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Introduction
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional competition of Australian rules football in Australia. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body, and is responsible for controlling the laws of the game. The league was founded as the Victorian Football League (VFL) as a breakaway from the previous Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season commencing in 1897. Originally comprising only teams based in the Australian state of Victoria, the competition's name was changed to the Australian Football League for the 1990 season, after expanding to other states throughout the 1980s.
The league currently consists of 18 teams spread over five of Australia's six states (Tasmania being the exception). Matches have been played in all states and mainland territories of Australia, as well as in New Zealand and China (although no professional teams or leagues exist outside Australia) to promote the sport abroad. The AFL season currently consists of a pre-season competition (currently branded as the "JLT Community Series"), followed by a 23-round regular (or "home-and-away") season, which runs during the Australian winter (March to September). The team with the best record after the home-and-away series is awarded the "minor premiership." The top eight teams then play off in a four-round finals series, culminating in the AFL Grand Final, which is held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year. The grand final winner is termed the "premiers", and is awarded the premiership cup. The current premiers are the West Coast Eagles.
Selected general articles
- The Greater Western Sydney Giants, nicknamed the GWS Giants or just Giants, is a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League (AFL). Representing the Greater Western Sydney area and Canberra, the club is based at the Tom Wills Oval in Sydney Olympic Park. The team's primary home ground is Spotless Stadium in Sydney Olympic Park. Four games a year are played at Manuka Oval in Canberra as part of a deal with the government of the Australian Capital Territory.
A reserve team, the Western Sydney University Giants (formerly UWS Giants), participates in the North East Australian Football League (NEAFL), as part of a partnership between the club and the university. The reserve team was renamed in 2016 to reflect the rebranding of the university from University of Western Sydney. A netball team, Giants Netball, operated by the club, competes in the National Netball League. Read more... - The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, are a professional Australian rules football club based in the city of Geelong, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level of Australian rules football in Australia. The Cats have been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with three in the AFL era (since 1990). The Cats have also won nine McClelland Trophies, a record shared with Essendon.
The club was formed in 1859, making it the second oldest club in the AFL after Melbourne and one of the oldest football clubs in the world. Geelong participated in the first football competition in Australia and was a foundation club of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897. Read more... - The Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed the Crows, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based in Adelaide, South Australia, playing its home matches at Adelaide Oval. The club has its training and administration base at Football Park in West Lakes, where it previously played home matches between 1991 and 2013. The club song is "The Pride of South Australia", to the tune of the Marines' Hymn.
The Crows were formed in 1990 after a supreme court injunction to halt The Port Adelaide Football Club from entering the AFL and instead the Crows were, effectively, meant to be the 'state team' that was going to represent South Australia in the AFL. They are a composite team originally owned by the SANFL (later gaining independence) and played their first season in 1991. They won both the 1997 and 1998 Grand Finals, and have appeared in 15 finals series in their 27-year history. Read more... - The West Coast Eagles, also known simply as West Coast or The Eagles, is a professional Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League (AFL). Based in Perth, Western Australia, it represents its home state and the Perth metropolitan region. It trains at Lathlain Park and plays its home games at Perth Stadium, also known as Optus Stadium, in Burswood, having previously played at Subiaco Oval and the WACA Ground. The club is one of two AFL clubs based in Western Australia, the other being its main rival, the Fremantle Football Club.
West Coast was founded in 1986 as an expansion team. It entered the AFL, then known as the Victorian Football League, in 1987 along with Queensland's Brisbane Bears. It reached the finals series for the first time in 1988, and won its first premiership in 1992, having been defeated in the grand final the previous year. It is the first non-Victorian team to play in and win a grand final. The Eagles have since won three more premierships, in 1994, 2006 and 2018. The club is currently coached by Adam Simpson and captained by Shannon Hurn. From 2013 to 2018, the East Perth Football Club, which competes in the West Australian Football League (WAFL), served as West Coast's reserves team. From 2019 the Eagles will field a reserves team in the WAFL. The Eagles have won the second most premierships (four, second to Hawthorn) in the AFL era (1990 onwards) and are one of the most supported and financially dominant clubs in the league. Read more... - The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is an Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The club plays in the Australian Football League, the sport's premier league.
The club's name originates from its original home base in the bayside Melbourne suburb of St Kilda in which the club was established in 1873. The club also has strong links to the south-eastern suburb of Moorabbin, where it was based between 1965 and 2010. Read more... - The Essendon Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Thought to have formed in 1872, the club played its first recorded game on 7 June 1873 against a Carlton Second 20, winning 1 goal to nil. The club played a senior club in the Victorian Football Association in 1878, one year after the VFA formed. It is historically associated with Essendon, a suburb in the north-west of Melbourne, Victoria. Since 2013, the club has been headquartered at The Hangar, Melbourne Airport, and plays its home games at either Docklands Stadium or the Melbourne Cricket Ground; throughout most of its history the club's home ground and headquarters was Windy Hill, Essendon, where it played from 1922 until 1991. While it stopped playing games at the ground thereafter, Windy Hill remained its training and administration base until the end of 2013. Dyson Heppell is the current team captain.
A founding member club of both the Victorian Football Association, in 1877, and the Victorian Football League (renamed the AFL in 1990), in 1896, Essendon is one of Australia's best-known football clubs. Essendon has won 16 VFL/AFL premierships, which, along with Carlton, is the most of any club in the competition. The club also won four consecutive VFA premierships between 1891 and 1894, a feat unmatched in VFA history and equalled only once in the VFL, technically giving them the most amount of premierships in AFL history: 20. Read more... - The Gold Coast Football Club, nicknamed the Suns, is an Australian rules football club based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, which began playing in the Australian Football League (AFL) competition for the first time in 2011. The club played its first game as a part of the AFL in the pre-season NAB Cup competition in February 2011 before beginning the season proper in April 2011.
The club is the product of a sole consortium, formerly known as "GC17", tendering against established criteria for a licence to be the 17th club in the AFL competition. On 31 March 2009 the club was granted a provisional licence to join the AFL competition and the AFL proposed that the new club would enter the national competition in the 2011 season. The following year, during a press conference on 22 July, the club announced its new nickname, logo, club song and three new home, away and clash guernseys. Read more... - The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club, founded in 1902, is the youngest of the Victorian-based teams in the AFL and has won thirteen VFL/AFL premierships. It is renowned as the only club having won premierships in each decade of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. The team play in brown and gold vertically striped guernseys. The club's Latin motto is spectemur agendo, the English translation being "By our deeds let us be known".
The Hawks' origins are in the inner-eastern Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn and also at Glenferrie Oval, the club's former administrative and training base and social club. Matches, however, have not been played there since 1973. In 2006, Hawthorn's training and administration facilities were relocated to Waverly park which is located 27.8 km from the CBD and in the middle of the club's major supporter base in Melbourne's outer-eastern region. The mascot of Hawthorn FC is an eagle (hawk). Since 2007 Hawthorn have played four games a year at their second ground of York Park in Launceston, Tasmania, with the remaining games played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the club's current playing home ground. Hawthorn's current Victorian Football League (VFL) affiliate team is the Box Hill Hawks Football Club. Read more... - The Fitzroy Football Club, nicknamed the Lions or the Roys, is an Australian rules football club formed in 1883 to represent the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, Victoria and was a foundation member club of the Victorian Football League (now the Australian Football League) on its inception in 1897. The club experienced some early success in the league and was the first club to win a VFL Grand Final. It also achieved a total of eight VFL premierships between 1898 and 1944, and more recently three VAFA promotions in 2009 (-D Division), 2012 (-C Division) and 2018 (-C Division).
The club ran into financial difficulties in the 1980s after decades of poor on-field performance and was forced to merge its AFL playing operations with the Brisbane Bears at the end of the 1996 season to form the Brisbane Lions. Read more... - The Brisbane Lions is a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The club was formed in late 1996 from the merger of the Fitzroy Football Club and the Brisbane Bears. The Lions are one of the most successful AFL clubs of the 21st century, having appeared in four consecutive AFL Grand Finals from 2001 to 2004 and winning three premierships (2001, 2002, 2003).
The club is based at the Gabba. The team is captained by Dayne Zorko and coached by Chris Fagan. Read more... - Port Adelaide Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club based in Alberton, Port Adelaide, South Australia. The club's senior team plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), whilst its reserves team competes in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Port Adelaide is the oldest professional sporting club in South Australia and the fifth-oldest club in the AFL. Since the club's first game on 24 May 1870, the club has won 36 South Australian league premierships, including six in a row. The club also won the Champions of Australia competition on a record four occasions. After successfully wining an AFL licence in 1994 the club began competing in the Australian Football League in 1997 as the only pre-existing non-Victorian club—and has subsequently added the 2004 AFL premiership to its achievements. Read more...
- The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers, is a professional Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Between its inception in Richmond, Melbourne in 1885 and 1907, the club competed in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), winning two premierships. Richmond joined the Victorian Football League (now known as the AFL) in 1908 and has since won eleven premierships, most recently in 2017.
Richmond's headquarters and training facilities are located at its original home ground, the Punt Road Oval, which sits adjacent to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the club's playing home since 1965. Richmond traditionally wears a black guernsey with a yellow sash. Read more... - The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the "Blues", is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Melbourne, the club competes in the Australian Football League (formerly the Victorian Football League), and was one of the competition's eight founding member clubs in 1897.
The club's headquarters and training facilities are located in Carlton at Princes Park, its traditional home ground, and it currently plays its home matches at either Docklands Stadium (currently known as Marvel Stadium) or the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Carlton has historically been one of the AFL's most successful clubs, having won sixteen senior VFL/AFL premierships, equal with Essendon as the most of any club; prior to this, it won six senior premierships, including two in the Victorian Football Association. The club has also fielded a team in the AFL Women's league since its establishment in 2017. Read more... - The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or even less formally the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League (AFL). Formed in 1892 in the then-working class Melbourne suburb of Collingwood, the club played in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) before joining seven other teams in 1896 to found the breakaway Victorian Football League (now the national AFL). Originally based at Victoria Park, Collingwood now plays its home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with its training and administrative headquarters located at Olympic Park Oval and the Holden Centre.
Collingwood has played in a record 44 VFL/AFL Grand Finals (including rematches), winning 15, drawing two and losing 27 (also a record).
Collingwood also won a record-breaking four premierships in a row between 1927 and 1930. Read more... - The Brisbane Football Club, nicknamed the Bears was an Australian rules football club and the first Queensland-based club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). The club played its first match in 1987, but struggled on and off the field until it made the finals for the first time in 1995. The Bears merged with the Fitzroy Football Club after the completion of the following season to form the Brisbane Lions. Read more...
- The Western Bulldogs (formerly the Footscray Football Club) is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 in Footscray, an inner-western suburb of Melbourne, the club won nine premierships in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) before gaining entry to the Victorian Football League (since renamed the AFL) in 1925. The club has won two VFL/AFL premierships, in 1954 and 2016, and was runner up in 1961.
The Western Bulldogs' home guernsey features two thick horizontal hoops—one red and one white—on a royal blue background. Read more... - The Sydney Swans is a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League (AFL). Established in Melbourne as the South Melbourne Football Club in 1874, the Swans relocated to Sydney in 1982, thus making it the first club in the competition to be based outside Victoria.
Initially playing in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), the Swans joined seven other clubs in founding the breakaway Victorian Football League (now known as the AFL) in 1896. It won premierships in 1909, 1918 and 1933 before experiencing a 72-year premiership drought—the longest in the competition's history. The club broke the drought in 2005 and won another premiership in 2012. The club has proven to be one of the most consistent teams in the nationalised AFL, failing to make the finals in only three seasons since 1995, playing the most number of finals matches and winning the second-most matches overall (only behind Geelong) since 2000 and boasting a finals winning record of over 50% in the same time period. Read more... - Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University, is an Australian rules football club, representing the "Blacks", "Blues" and "MUGARS". The Blacks and the Blues both compete in the Victorian Amateur Football Association in the William Buck Premier Division, and the MUGARS compete in both the Victorian Football League and Victorian Women's Football League.
The club achieved prominence by being a member of Victoria's elite competition in the early 20th century, the Victorian Football League (the forerunner of the Australian Football League) between 1908 and 1914. Read more... - The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos or less formally the Roos, the Kangas or North, is the fourth oldest Australian rules football club in the Australian Football League (AFL) and is one of the oldest sporting clubs in Australia and the world. It is based at the Arden Street Oval in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Melbourne, Victoria, but plays its home matches at the nearby Docklands Stadium.
The club's mascot is a grey kangaroo, and its use dates from the middle of the 20th century. The club is also unofficially known as "The Shinboners", a term which dates back to its 19th-century abattoir-worker origins. The club's motto is Victoria amat curam, Latin for "Victory Demands Dedication". Read more... - The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club represents and was previously based in the port city of Fremantle at the mouth of the Swan River in Western Australia and now has their training and headquarters at Cockburn ARC in Cockburn Central. In 1995 it became the second team from Western Australia after the West Coast Eagles to be admitted to the AFL, honouring the rich footballing tradition and history associated with Fremantle.
High-profile players since the club's inception include former captain and six time All-Australian Matthew Pavlich, 2015 Brownlow Medallist Nat Fyfe, the league's tallest ever player Aaron Sandilands, Peter Bell, Shaun McManus, former number one draft pick Clive Waterhouse, winners of the AFL Rising Star award Paul Hasleby and Rhys Palmer, Jeff Farmer, Luke McPharlin and Hayden Ballantyne. Read more... - The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is a professional Australian rules football club, playing in the Australian Football League (AFL). It is named after and based in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, and plays its home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
Melbourne is the world's oldest professional club of any football code. The club's origins can be traced to an 1858 letter in which Tom Wills, captain of the Victoria cricket team, calls for the formation of a "foot-ball club" with its own "code of laws". An informal Melbourne team played that winter and was officially formed in May 1859 when Wills and three other members codified "The Rules of the Melbourne Football Club"—the basis of Australian rules football. The club was a dominant force in the earliest Australian rules football competition, the Challenge Cup, and was also a foundation member of the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1896, which later became the national Australian Football League. Melbourne has won 12 VFL/AFL premierships, the latest in 1964. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that Eleni Glouftsis is the first female field umpire to be appointed to an Australian Football League sanctioned match?
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Selected images
In 1992 the West Coast Eagles won the AFL Grand Final and in doing so became the first non-Victorian team to win an AFL premiership, formerly the VFL before 1990. Pictured is the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1992 where match was held.
In 1924, Footscray, the premiers of the VFA, defeated Essendon, the VFL premiers, in the Championship of Victoria. The result played a large part in Footscray, Hawthorn and North Melbourne gaining entry into the VFL the following year.
Indigenous player Lance Franklin. Comprising 2.7% of the broader Australian population, Indigenous Australians make up 9% of AFL players.
The Anzac Day clash is one of the marquee fixtures in the AFL home and away season.
Gillon McLachlan, CEO of the AFL
Jonathan Patton, the first pick in the 2011 AFL draft.
The final standing of the 1896 VFA ladder. Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, South Melbourne, Carlton and St Kilda would form the VFL the following year.
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