AFL scraps priority draft picks

The AFL will scrap its priority draft pick system and replace it with a newer version which makes it much harder for clubs to gain extra selections.

The overhaul is partly aimed at removing suspicions that clubs tank for extra picks.

Under the outgoing system, a club which earned 16 premiership points (four wins) or fewer in a season was given an extra pick before the second round of the national draft.

If a club earned 16 points or fewer in consecutive years they were awarded an extra selection before the draft’s first round.

Under the new system, which will come into effect this year, a more complicated formula will be used, which takes into account premiership points, percentage, finals appearances and injury rates for a club over several seasons.

The new formula will make it more unlikely a club will be granted a priority pick after just one poor season, or that a pick will be given before the first round of a draft.

AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson said the rule changes were partly aimed at eradicating any suspicion that clubs sometimes tanked late in seasons for extra draft picks.

Anderson said while the league did not believe tanking had occurred, they wanted to remove any doubt among fans.

“There’s no doubt there is an unhealthy obsession in some quarters with the whole idea that there could be tanking,” Anderson said.

“Part of the rationale is to deal with that, but only part of the rationale.”

Anderson said the league also wanted to move closer to having an uncompromised national draft.

He said the AFL had already taken steps in that direction in recent years, such as by changing the father-son system, so that clubs which wanted to draft the sons of former players now had to be part of a draft bidding system.