AFL CEO Andrew Dillon has spoken for the first time since the introduction of a Wildcard Finals Round was confirmed for the 2026 season.
The wildcard round will see the top six teams take the first week off, while two games take place: 7 vs 10 and 8 vs 9, with the winner advancing to the finals and the loser missing out. Similar to the NBA playoff system, but only one game instead of the NBA's three.
CEO Andrew Dillon said clubs well supported the introduction of the extra finals games, which have been talked about for a couple of years.
“What we feel is by expanding the finals series we’ll have more games of consequence during the home and away, which we know our fans love, we know fans will go to those games and we know they’ll watch them in numbers,” Dillon said at his press conference today.
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“What we also know is that, particularly the finals series this year, where we had pretty much every game as close enough to a sellout, that our fans love finals games.
“So we think it provides opportunities and provides hope for our fans.”
“Yeah, absolutely. We’ve been speaking about this for a couple of years with clubs at CEO’s conferences,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of good feedback from clubs overnight.”
Dillon argued that it didn't reward mediocrity but actually allowed there to be more games that had a consequence on the season, and crowd numbers would show that it is a positive introduction.
“I don’t think it rewards mediocrity; what it does is provide opportunities and more games of consequence,” he replied. "Our fans love finals and they love games of consequence.”
“I get plenty of feedback over every decision we make, and I think what we’ll see when we get to the Wildcard Weekend next year is we’ll see crowds come to the games in record numbers, they’ll be really well attended and really well watched.”
The wildcard games will go down as a finals win for players and teams and will be a part of the Gary Ayres Medal, which is awarded to the best player of the finals.