SA Footy

Father-son statement
12:11:23 PM Thu 20 April, 2006
afc.com.au
Adelaide chief executive officer Steven Trigg has made a statement about the father-son rule.


The assertion that the father-son rule changes of 2001 were based on a submission by this Club is incorrect.

The Adelaide Football Club and the clubs from WA made a submission in 2001 that the rule - which was clearly lopsided in favour of the Victorian-based clubs, plus Sydney and Brisbane - was needing amendment so as to include our clubs.

A committee/working party was then formed to investigate the father-son rule and the draft system.

The changes to the father-son rule at the time were based on figures obtained by the AFL from the SANFL and WAFL.

The 200 SANFL game benchmark for the two SA-based AFL clubs was based on the number of players presumed to be eligible. The club had no problem with the 200-game threshold – and the WA teams with 150-games – as this was simply a number which provided parity between states in respect to the number of eligible fathers.

Subsequently, however, these figures supplied by the SANFL were shown to include games that shouldn’t be counted and there were consequently far less 200-game players eligible for the father-son rule than initially presumed.

This is why the Adelaide Football Club made a more detailed submission to the AFL late last year seeking further changes to the eligibility rules.

We are bitterly disappointed by the latest changes to the father-son rule. In another 15-20 years the new rule will be fair for all clubs. But the fact remains that for a long period of time, Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Fremantle and West Coast have been, and will be, clearly disadvantaged by the 100-AFL game rule.

Adelaide now has 27 players who have played 100 AFL games for the club but we are unlikely to have any sons of these eligible footballers available for at least another decade. Combined with the restrictions of the 200 SANFL games ‘pool’, it means this club is unlikely to have a father-son selection in its first 25 years of existence.

The inference in recent days that this Club itself changed the father-son rule – and provided the figures – back in 2001 is simply not correct.

The Adelaide Football Club engineered the review but the figures were provided by the AFL and the resolution (s) by the committee.

Steven Trigg
Chief executive officer

Great reading - Bring out the gloves guys

Maybe Adrian Anderson should have read that before talking on Double AYE last night...

Well,its time to GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON!

Geees I was only commenting!

Not having a go at you Diss.I just find it pointless complaining about something you cant change.

Its like complaining to your mother-in-law about your wife!

Booney wrote:Not having a go at you Diss.I just find it pointless complaining about something you cant change.

Its like complaining to your mother-in-law about your wife!

Haha true.

I guess when I read the AFC statement there - it's not so much saying it's unfair as much as dispelling the thoughts that people have put out there about it being the fault of the AFC that it's happened. I don't find that unwarrented!

I'm engaged, not married - so I'll be complaining in the future

by the way ...

Booney wrote:I just find it pointless complaining about something you cant change.

It's easier saying that when you don't care about it. When you do care - what's pointless is irrelivent! Complaining about something you can't change is human nature.

What Im saying Diss is this.The Adelaide FC,the Port Adelaide FC cripes,even Eddie Mc FC just dont have the power to make Adrian and co. change the way they think or the way they run the competition.The playing field will never be even and we have to accept that.Now I know,as people,as football lovers we should try and make all things fair and equitable,truth and reality is,this wont happen.What we must do is go about beating them at what they think is thier game.Im wrapped (bar Adelaides 2 flags) that the last 10 years have been dominated by non-victorian teams.

Try as they might,(or as we think and perceive they try) to make the comp lop sided,they cant!

West Coast none too happy at the minute as they claimed highly rated Mitch Morton under father/son in the 2004 draft (similar situation to Gibbs in that Morton's father played his last games past the qualifying point but no one at the AFL picked it up, like Russell/Brett Ebert, and that Morton would have gone top 5 otherwise) but now can't claim Morton's other two sons.

Booney wrote:What Im saying Diss is this.The Adelaide FC,the Port Adelaide FC cripes,even Eddie Mc FC just dont have the power to make Adrian and co. change the way they think or the way they run the competition.

Hopefully this will be proven correct in regards to the Collingwood jumper saga.

Why is this such a big deal? Out of a total playing list of more than 600 players only a handful have been picked up under the father son rule.