AFL bye scheduling wrong: Demetriou
Andrew Demetriou says the AFL made a mistake with its scheduling of byes this season and that changes could be made.
“There’s no doubt there are some issues around that, we’ve lost some momentum,” the outgoing AFL CEO told radio station 3AW on Monday.
“Whether we do that again in the future, we’ll have to wait and see.”
Each club has two byes this year, with the byes spread over six weekends.
Demetriou said it was unlikely there would be two byes next year because games have to fit around the Cricket World Cup, which is being held across Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
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Demetriou, who steps down as CEO on Thursday, also called on ASADA to wrap up its investigation into Essendon.
“It’s very frustrating and I’ve got enormous sympathy for the club and the players,” he said.
“We do need to have some finality to this issue and it has to be stressful on the players, in particular.
“It doesn’t matter which way you cook it: the uncertainty cannot be a good thing.”
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Meanwhile, the AFL’s Laws of the Game committee is set to look at the prospect of introducing zones to help ease congestion.
The committee is currently working on the best way to halt the unsightly “rolling mauls” and huge numbers of players that are following the ball from one end of the ground to the other in so many matches.
West Coast premiership coach John Worsfold, who joined the committee in March this year, confirmed netball-style zones were one possible answer.
“There’s suggestions around players holding their position more,” Worsfold told the Seven Network’s Talking Footy.
“So maybe two or three players from each side always have to be in their half of the ground.
“They can’t all crossover and get into one half.”
Worsfold stressed he didn’t want to discuss what the committee “might be able to do”, and that the first step in any mooted rule change would be to “get a lot of input” from all committee members.
