The 2025 off-season began at half-time of the 2024 grand final. At the AFL’s official function, many of the most powerful people in the country yawned into their lobster rolls. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, nearly every state premier, and the heads of News Corp, Tabcorp and Seven West Media mingled and nattered and lamented Sydney’s limp midfield. Few worked the room harder than the Carlton president at the time, Luke Sayers, one of the best-connected men in Australia. Sayers knew all too well what Brisbane’s midfield was capable of. A more carefree summer beckoned – maybe try and land Jagga Smith in the draft, and perhaps a spot of skiing in Italy.
It was the off-season when long-serving Sydney coach John Longmire handed the reins to Dean Cox. After round 14, the Swans were three games and a healthy percentage clear of the second-placed team. But they were a shell of that side on grand final day. Longmire’s side lost by 10 goals or more only six times in his 14-year tenure and three of those were in grand finals. As the Lions partied, Longmire dusted his players’ names off the whiteboard, sat down and wept.
It was the off-season when an AFL hall of famer, a member of Geelong’s team of the century, and a man Eddie McGuire once described as “one of the world’s great entertainers”, Sam Newman, scrunched up the latest version of his face and was met with widespread public rebuke for platforming two white nationalist neo-Nazis on his podcast. Even by his standards, it was a shameful performance.
It was the off-season when Sayers stepped down from the Carlton presidency after a lewd image was briefly posted on his X account. He was PwC’s youngest ever chief executive and a master networker. He was an important figure at Carlton, securing the most highly regarded CEO in football and sticking firm with coach Michael Voss. Sayers denied posting the image and investigations by Carlton and the AFL cleared him of wrongdoing, accepting his account had been compromised.
It says a lot about the sport and indeed the country that he copped considerably more scrutiny and criticism for these allegations than when he was drawn into the scandal at PwC. He survived a Senate committee inquiry. The Bigfooty scandals page and SEN text line are crueller beasts.
It was the off-season when three former players and coaches died within 48 hours. Troy Selwood’s youngest brother almost had the perfect career. Joel’s final season, and especially his final game, was a coronation. Troy’s career was the opposite. He was a tagger, a scrapper. His career ended in hospital. He was involved in one of the more sickening collisions you’d see on a footy field. Along with Dale Tapping, he was one of those men whose career crossed over with so many facets of the game – at academies, at schools, at amateur teams. Selwood, Tapping and Adam Hunter were 40, 59 and 43, and they were mourned by thousands.
And it was the off-season when an inordinate number of players suffered serious injuries. In a way, the AFL and the players association asked for this. They want the season to start earlier. They want a leg-up in the northern states. They want a festival of football in South Australia. They want more games, more bums on seats, and more money. Just invent a round. Build it, and they will come. Playing football for points less than a week out from summer – what could go wrong?
Not only does the early start hopelessly compromise the fixture, the league is losing its best players at a rate we’ve never seen. And we’re not just losing them for a fortnight. We’re losing them for months. Here’s just a few – Marcus Bontempelli, Zak Butters, Tom Green, Errol Gulden, Jordan De Goey, Charlie Curnow, Sam Walsh, Cody Weightman, Ed Richards. That’s a crying shame. In the Western Bulldogs’ case, it’s a cluster.
In 2018, the season started in the third week of March. Only a decade ago, the season began in April. Yet the AFLPA has negotiated terms which mandate significantly more time off over summer. Conditioning staff hold their breath and try and cram as much work in as they can in January and February. In many ways, the players are being set up to hurt themselves.
And now, 24 hours out from when the season was supposed to start, players and locals are sandbagging their houses as a tropical cyclone zeroes in on Queensland and the northern New South Wales coast – suboptimal conditions for unfurling a premiership flag and playing football. Tragedy, high farce, handovers, white nationalists, dick pics and cyclones – all in all, a standard off-season in the AFL.
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