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Harvey calls for travel revamp

By Mr Dandalooa

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou today said creating a format for an 18-team AFL competition remains a major challenge for officials.

The comment from the head honcho comes as Fremantle Football Club coach Mark Harvey slammed fixtures ahead of a horrid 3-match stretch for the club.

The Dockers, which suffered a bout of injuries after thrashing the Eagles in the derby last week, take on a solid Brisbane outfit at the Gabba on Saturday before returning to Perth for a Friday night match against Collingwood.

Both games will be played off six-day breaks.

This issue could be compounded next year when the league will have a 17-team competition for one with the inclusion of the Gold Coast.

In 2012 however, there will be an 18-team format, which will include Greater Western Sydney.

The AFL is grappling with the idea to have a final eight or nine, whether to have 22, 23 or 24 rounds, whether to expand the finals series, and whether to introduce a conference system.

Demetriou told AAP he was experiencing a “brain meltdown” looking at options for a 17-team competition.

“This is a very critical question because the 16-team competition with 22 rounds has been an amazing success,” the AFL head honcho said on Wednesday.

“We want to make sure we get the 18-team bit right because if the season’s too long it’s going to disenfranchise a lot of people.

“You’d hate to be a supporter of a club - Richmond - and you’ve lost the first 12 games and you’ve still got another 12 to go.

“Getting that part right is going to be a real challenge.”

This week, Harvey called on the AFL to introduce mandatory 7-day breaks for travelling sides, saying the club’s draw for the next 2 games was unfair.

A long critic of the six-day break for travelling sides, Harvey said he it should be mandatory in the draw that if you’re the travelling team, you get at least a seven-day break going into the game.

“I mean the most uneven part of the game is perhaps the draw, that’s how I see it,” he was reported as saying.

“Look, we’d love to play 12 games at Subiaco and four games at the WACA, a lot of Victorian teams do (the equivalent of) that.”

FootyGoss understands the Dockers have invited Demetriou to Perth to see how hard the travel schedule was.

But previous invitations have landed on deaf ears.

“We’re locking down and we’re making sure we can do everything we can over the three weeks so we can sustain what we’re doing and that’s our only answer at this stage,” he was reported as saying.

The Dockers are fourth on the ladder at after winning five and losing just one match.