The AFL insists the National Draft is the great equaliser.

It’s sold as the mechanism that protects competitive balance. The structural backbone of the league’s parity model. The reason small-market clubs can rebuild and dynasties don’t last forever.

But there’s a quieter question hovering around it. Is the system actually fair?

Or is it skewed in ways we’ve just grown used to?

The Victorian Question No One Wants to Ask

Every year, the Under-18 National Championships roll around and the pathway structure looks roughly the same:

Victoria fields two teams — Metro and Country. The rest of the nation fields one each.

Only, Victoria accounts for roughly a quarter of Australia’s population. Less than New South Wales and slightly more than Queensland.

Yet in the draft’s primary talent showcase, it receives double the representation of any other state. The justification is usually framed around talent density. Victoria produces more elite-ready prospects, therefore it requires two squads.

But that argument is self-fulfilling.

More squads mean:

• More exposure
• More draftable game tape
• More media focus
• More representative experience

Which means more draftees. Which then reinforces the idea that Victoria “naturally” produces more talent.

The draft isn’t just a selection mechanism. It’s a visibility mechanism. And visibility shapes outcomes.

If the AFL is serious about national equity, the question can’t be who produces more talent, the question has to be whether the pathway architecture structurally amplifies one state over others.

If you actually want growth in other states, you don’t seek to keep the competition rooted in one state.

The Academy Backlash — And the Selective Memory

The loudest draft debate in recent years hasn’t been about Victorian representation. It’s been about northern academies.

Clubs from Queensland and New South Wales have been accused of receiving unfair advantages via academy access to local juniors. Critics argue that priority access distorts draft fairness and gives expansion clubs a leg up.

It’s a critique that the AFL allows and even welcomes. Because it ignores the truth in the details.

For decades, the AFL’s stated mission has been to “grow the game” in Queensland and New South Wales. Expansion into Brisbane and Sydney was framed not just as commercial strategy, but as cultural investment.

If that commitment were genuine, you would expect:

• Deep grassroots funding
• Strong junior pathways
• Broad representative exposure
• Increasing national team selection

If the northern states require academies to remain competitive in talent production, perhaps that says less about academy unfairness and more about systemic imbalance in the national pathway.

You can’t spend decades centralising development infrastructure and then complain when emerging regions need corrective mechanisms.

Before the AFL Centralised the Game

It’s worth remembering that before the AFL became the dominant national authority, Australian football wasn’t administered from a single commercial centre.

For much of the 20th century, the game’s national direction was influenced by interstate bodies and coordinated through the Australian National Football Council (ANFC). Interstate carnivals weren’t novelty events — they were central to the sport’s identity.

States like Queensland and New South Wales weren’t treated as “growth markets.” They were constituent members of a national code.

Their representation waxed and waned competitively, but structurally they had voice.

When the VFL expanded and ultimately rebranded as the AFL, that governance model shifted. What had been a federated national structure gradually became a centrally administered commercial league headquartered in Victoria. That changed the balance of influence.

Decisions about development, funding and pathway design were no longer negotiated among equals. They were directed from a central authority whose historical infrastructure, media relationships and talent base were overwhelmingly Victorian.

And this was achieved through a decades-long campaign by the VFL to compete with and undermine the ANFC.

So when critics argue that northern academies distort the draft, it’s worth asking a broader question: Are academies distortion — or are they an attempt to correct thirty years of structural centralisation?

One thing is true, the current debate is convenient for the AFL. It keeps the spotlight off the truth of their complete failure to measurably ‘grow the game’ in NSW and QLD.

If the AFL is serious about being a national competition, its development model must reflect national equity — not just national branding.

Growth vs Control

The AFL talks frequently about national expansion. About “growing the game.” About participation rates.

But growth rhetoric and structural equity aren’t the same thing.

A truly national draft model would interrogate:

• How representative pathways are allocated
• Where elite coaching resources are concentrated
• Which states receive disproportionate exposure
• How historical power centres continue to influence outcomes

Instead, most draft debates remain framed around individual picks, academy bids and compensation formulas.

The bigger architecture is rarely questioned. Because for it to be, an independent body would need to be involved. The AFL have proven incapable of asking questions of themselves with any integrity.

A Draft Designed for Stability — Not Equality?

The National Draft works brilliantly for one purpose: preserve the status quo.

It protects the competition’s Victorian-centric commercial product.
It prevents long-term collapse.
It creates hope cycles.

But stability and neutrality are not identical.

If one state receives structural visibility advantages and emerging states require academy concessions to remain competitive, that suggests a system still orbiting its manufactured centre.

That doesn’t mean the draft is corrupt. It means it may not be as nationally balanced as advertised.

The Real Question

This isn’t an argument for abolishing academies.
Or for punishing Victorian talent.
Or for radical overhaul.

It’s a call for honesty.

If the AFL wants to present itself as a fully national competition, then its primary talent mechanism should withstand national scrutiny. Why two Victorian under-18 teams in a country where Victoria represents roughly a quarter of the population?

Why is academy assistance framed as distortion rather than compensation?

And why does “growing the game” so often translate into marketing expansion rather than structural redistribution?

The draft may not be broken, but it’s certainly not fair.

And in a league built on the promise of competitive balance, that distinction matters.