News Port Adelaide have applied to join the VFL by 2025

[boncer34]

It is a question. We're consistently told the SANFL is a better comp than the VFL. Yet Port want to switch (not that anybody has properly outlined their reasons as to why).

State leagues are an important part of the ecosystem but if they're not serving their purpose then the AFL needs to investigate why and fix it. This is what happened in Victoria in the 90s with the FORT taskforce. It came up with the structure than we still have today, giving both state league (VFA) clubs and AFL clubs different options to enter their own team or align.

Yet now people want to blow up this structure - that works well for more than half the league and has done for decades - for unspecified reasons.

I think we can have a proper review as to why and try to fix the issues before we dive in and do that.

By who?

 

[Orange crush]

Personally I think you should wear the Prison bar stripes twice a year against the Crows as they should wear the SA state jumper against Port

Nonsense …. Twice a year against the pies

 

[yodellinhank]

It is a question. We're consistently told the SANFL is a better comp than the VFL. Yet Port want to switch (not that anybody has properly outlined their reasons as to why).

State leagues are an important part of the ecosystem but if they're not serving their purpose then the AFL needs to investigate why and fix it. This is what happened in Victoria in the 90s with the FORT taskforce. It came up with the structure than we still have today, giving both state league (VFA) clubs and AFL clubs different options to enter their own team or align.

Yet now people want to blow up this structure - that works well for more than half the league and has done for decades - for unspecified reasons.

I think we can have a proper review as to why and try to fix the issues before we dive in and do that.

The restructure that blew up the VFA and killed off multiple clubs? Yeah, that worked well.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

VFL will split into divisions as a test for the AFL, just as they've introduced the terrible wildcard weekend which will be in the afl in a few years after "undoubtedly a great success in the VFL"

 

[manureid]

Cannot come a moment too soon.

 

[El Doederino]

Anything to take the heat off Hinkley and Koch I guess

 

[Schulzenfest]

It is a question. We're consistently told the SANFL is a better comp than the VFL. Yet Port want to switch (not that anybody has properly outlined their reasons as to why).

Port have been 'properly outlining' their reasons as to why regularly for the past decade. Don't equate you not listening with Port not talking.

 

[Millsie69]

I assume that Port will pay back the millions of dollars that the SANFL pumped into them to keep them afloat before they depart?

 

[boncer34]

I assume that Port will pay back the millions of dollars that the SANFL pumped into them to keep them afloat before they depart?

Is that more than the millions in license fees the Power paid to the SANFL?

 

[Soggy2112]

Wow for a club that respect tradition and their so called many flags and prison bar stuff.

They sure do make odd moves. They turn the back on the league that made them famous. Ditching their fellow adelaide supporters and Alberton.

Might as well tear down Alberton oval since power turned their back on there for the Victoria league.

Port pick and choose when their history is important to them based on when it’s convenient. They always have.

 

[Millsie69]

Is that more than the millions in license fees the Power paid to the SANFL?

Bloody oath it is

 

[Bunk Moreland]

By who?

The SANFL. They claim to have the best league in the country outside the AFL. Their CEO said it again just a couple of weeks ago.

Is it simply bullshit? Is it actually of such a poor standard that Port need to leave to play a better standard?

 

[Tandy]

Classic Port really. A very muddy history.

 

[boncer34]

The SANFL. They claim to have the best league in the country outside the AFL. Their CEO said it again just a couple of weeks ago.

Is it simply bullshit? Is it actually of such a poor standard that Port need to leave to play a better standard?

 

[boncer34]

Bloody oath it is

How much?

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Port have been 'properly outlining' their reasons as to why regularly for the past decade. Don't equate you not listening with Port not talking.

I'm not listening? Bullshit. They've made one statement on the issue recently, from the CEO. He didn't outline one actual reason why their reserves need to change leagues.

The media discussions over recent days are not new news.

Our discussion with the AFL is if they are serious about equalization across the 18 AFL Clubs, a second-tier competition has to be a component. All AFL players should have the same platform to play and develop when they are not in the AFL team which is consistentacross the competition.

Currently, we have 14 AFL clubs operating within one model, and four outside of that in the SANFL and WAFL. This creates further inequities for clubs and also compromises the state leagues impacted.

For a professional sports league with the scale of the AFL now, we must find a better way.

The tiers of the game below the AFL have not changed significantly as the AFL competition itself has continued to expand and grow, plus with Tasmania’s impending introduction to the AFL, now is the right time to re-set this model for the future.

The Port Adelaide Football Club is an AFL club.

We have a rich history in the SANFL. This success and the passion of our people saw Port Adelaide earn the opportunity to elevate into the AFL as the only genuine community football club from outside of Victoria which wasn’t either a composite team or relocated Victorian team.

We are the same Port Adelaide Football Club established in 1870, the fifth oldest club in the AFL behind only Melbourne (1858), Geelong (1859), Carlton (1864) and North Melbourne (1869). We are and always will be incredibly proud of that.

The Port Adelaide Football Club is now in the AFL and our responsibility is to ensure our players have the best opportunity to perform and develop to ultimately help us achieve our ambitions in the AFL competition.

Port Adelaide has always been bold and forward thinking. We continually evolve to ensure we live to the ambition of our people to be the best.

A national reserves competition we believe is the next evolution for Port Adelaide on that journey.

If it turns out that a national reserves competition is best for Port Adelaide, I’d expect that we still play home games at Alberton Oval, and in our traditional prison bars guernsey when we choose. All of that is detail that can be worked out once the big changes like competition structures are addressed.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

The restructure that blew up the VFA and killed off multiple clubs? Yeah, that worked well.

It didn't kill any. All the clubs that competed in 1999 competed in the merged league. Plenty of issues before and after of course, as a result of VFA club not being sustainable entities.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

VFL will split into divisions as a test for the AFL, just as they've introduced the terrible wildcard weekend which will be in the afl in a few years after "undoubtedly a great success in the VFL"

I can see a wildcard weekend being useful in future though. Once Tasmania comes in, we'll need a 20th team, and only the top 8 teams out of 20 making the finals doesn't give half the comp a lot to play for. This way teams 7-10 can play wildcard weekend, top 6 get a bye, then the next week we still get our 8 team finals.

 

[El Doederino]

Is that more than the millions in license fees the Power paid to the SANFL?

What license fee?

 

[boncer34]

What license fee?

The one they paid to buy the license off the SANFL? Did that not happen?

 

[Wargreymon90]

I don’t see how anyone sees this as a bad thing. Adelaide, Fremantle, west coast won’t be far behind.

This doesn’t diminish Port Adelaide’s history in any way.

 

[El Doederino]

The one they paid to buy the license off the SANFL? Did that not happen?

That's not a license fee. SANFL had an asset. Port bought it. For half what Adelaide had to pay.

Adelaide also pays a license fee to the SANFL to play in the comp. Port don't because they no longer get a distribution from the SANFL.

 

[boncer34]

That's not a license fee. SANFL had an asset. Port bought it. For half what Adelaide had to pay.

Adelaide also pays a license fee to the SANFL to play in the comp. Port don't because they no longer get a distribution from the SANFL.

Oh ok they didn't pay a license fee they bought a license. Happy?

And you're right, PA don't get the distribution they're entitled too because the league waives their license fee.

 

[Schulzenfest]

Is that more than the millions in license fees the Power paid to the SANFL?

And the millions and millions of dollars they make in siphoned off revenue every year from we (and the Crows) putting on football games that bring in more fans in one afternoon than their tinpot league could hope to draw in a month?

Any football fan with limited enough brainpower to believe that any AFL club would ever be somehow financially reliant on a state league can have their opinions written off immediately. The reality is that the SANFL are parasites on both the AFC and PAFC, who for a brief period about a decade ago sucked one of their hosts so dry that they almost died and then had an almighty whinge when the host asked for some of their own blood back.

 

[Schulzenfest]

I'm not listening? Bullshit. They've made one statement on the issue recently, from the CEO. He didn't outline one actual reason why their reserves need to change leagues.

The media discussions over recent days are not new news.

Our discussion with the AFL is if they are serious about equalization across the 18 AFL Clubs, a second-tier competition has to be a component. All AFL players should have the same platform to play and develop when they are not in the AFL team which is consistentacross the competition.

Currently, we have 14 AFL clubs operating within one model, and four outside of that in the SANFL and WAFL. This creates further inequities for clubs and also compromises the state leagues impacted.

For a professional sports league with the scale of the AFL now, we must find a better way.

The tiers of the game below the AFL have not changed significantly as the AFL competition itself has continued to expand and grow, plus with Tasmania’s impending introduction to the AFL, now is the right time to re-set this model for the future.

The Port Adelaide Football Club is an AFL club.

We have a rich history in the SANFL. This success and the passion of our people saw Port Adelaide earn the opportunity to elevate into the AFL as the only genuine community football club from outside of Victoria which wasn’t either a composite team or relocated Victorian team.

We are the same Port Adelaide Football Club established in 1870, the fifth oldest club in the AFL behind only Melbourne (1858), Geelong (1859), Carlton (1864) and North Melbourne (1869). We are and always will be incredibly proud of that.

The Port Adelaide Football Club is now in the AFL and our responsibility is to ensure our players have the best opportunity to perform and develop to ultimately help us achieve our ambitions in the AFL competition.

Port Adelaide has always been bold and forward thinking. We continually evolve to ensure we live to the ambition of our people to be the best.

A national reserves competition we believe is the next evolution for Port Adelaide on that journey.

If it turns out that a national reserves competition is best for Port Adelaide, I’d expect that we still play home games at Alberton Oval, and in our traditional prison bars guernsey when we choose. All of that is detail that can be worked out once the big changes like competition structures are addressed.

So over the last ten years of Port's legitimate public gripes against the SANFL, you read one statement and you think that makes you informed?

The first paragraph of the very statement you quoted states 'this is not new news'.