Why having nine Melbourne-based AFL teams is ‘unsustainable’May 24, 2020
David Zita
FOX SPORTSDavid King suggested there are too many teams at the heart of Melbourne (excluding Geelong) for the competition to be truly ‘national’.
“We’ve got too many teams in the Melbourne CBD,” he said.
“If you want to be truly national how do you have two (teams) in Western Australia, two in South Australia, two in Queensland, two in New South Wales and then nine in the CBD of Melbourne?
“When you listen to Jeff Kennett last week with us on Fox Footy Live last Saturday, he said give them three years and if they're not sustaining their own football club, what do we do? Do we keep them on the drip feed all these clubs? I’m not naming individual clubs I’m just saying that the model is unsustainable.”
Robinson said he doesn’t believe there will be nine teams in the heart of Melbourne in fifty years time and was of the belief the AFL are aware of the supposed lack of sustainability for its current set up.
“The AFL know that, they tried to move North Melbourne and everyone said “Oh you bastards, you bastards what are you doing? You did this to Fitzroy now you’re trying to kill North Melbourne”, but they know it’s unsustainable. They’ll come out and say “Bulls**t we don’t say that, of course we can sustain them”, that’s crap.
“They tried to move North Melbourne for the good of the competition.
He went on to explain how a team’s transition out of Victoria could work by posing a hypothetical scenario including St Kilda and Tasmania.
“You don’t move St Kilda, you move the licence,” he said.
“The AFL says to St Kilda “We want you to move to Tasmania”, Tasmania says “No we want our own club”, the AFL says “Well you’re not getting your own club you’re gonna get this license and you can call it Tassie Saints or whatever”, that’s what’s got to be worked out.
“Do you want to keep part of the club or lose it... we moved South Melbourne to Sydney, how difficult a decision that was... now they’re one of the most successful sporting organisations in Australia.
“The AFL had the balls to put GWS in one of the biggest growth areas in Western Sydney and within eight years they’re playing off in a Grand Final... it is a smart decision what the AFL did, but they’re adding teams, they’re not taking away from Melbourne and at one stage in my opinion they’re gonna have to do it.”
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-afl-teams-afl-victorian-bias-fox-footy-live-mark-robinson-david-king/news-story/0c0fdc61f2908117fde632db9e5666f1
