AFL season to begin on Thursday nightJake Niall, Michael Gleeson, Sam McClure
The Age
18 March 2020 8pmThe AFL has decided that the season will go ahead, as it had proposed last week, with Richmond and Carlton to begin the season in an empty MCG.
The AFL made the momentous decision - one of the biggest in the game's history - to continue their reduced 17-game season on Wednesday after much deliberation and consultation with clubs and the federal government, which had earlier announced a ban on gatherings of more than 100 people indoors, but still allowed gatherings of less than 500 outside.
Round one will go ahead as scheduled this weekend.
“The first four [rounds] will stay the same," AFL boss Gillon McLachlan said.
“It’s going to be day by day. If we can accelerate we will."
"It's going to be a long year. It's going to be a long journey in what is an unprecedented time.
"We can't lock ourselves in our house."
He said he was comfortable Marvel Stadium would fit the protocols for indoor gatherings because of having people in different rooms.
McLachlan acknowledged that the entire AFL season could be played behind closed doors. "It feels like a possibility," he said.
He said the league knows it will need to stop at some point during the season and the year ahead will be a long journey.
After a day of anticipation, the AFL finally announced it will play the whole of round one as planned - the Bulldogs hosting Collingwood on Friday night at Marvel Stadium in the second game - without crowds in any match, but the league has said it will shut down the competition if a player tests positive to the coronavirus and there is an expectation that the games will be called off at some stage.
The AFL fixture though is set to be revised with games compressed and shorter breaks between matches. Games will have quarters that are only 16 minutes plus time-on, but with the same number of interchange rotations and players on the bench.
The AFL's call makes it one of the few sporting bodies to continue playing games, with major international and local sports largely shutting down, though their major rival, the NRL, is also set to play. Local football leagues have almost uniformly ceased playing. The AFL is sure to receive a backlash from some quarters for playing on, but the clubs and players were strongly of the view that they should play this weekend.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/afl-season-to-begin-on-thursday-night-20200318-p54b7l.html
