Michael McGuire: The AFL is an arrogant, grandiose, out-of-touch organisation shot through with instinctive amateurism

The AFL is an arrogant, grandiose, out-of-touch organisation shot through with instinctive amateurism, Michael McGuire writes — how are GWS expected to win a Grand Final when the odds are so unfairly tilted in Richmond’s favour?

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Now and again, you have to admit you’re wrong.

For years, I’ve been one of those who believed the AFL Grand Final should always be played at the MCG. I’ve been lucky enough to be there on the big day a couple of times. I’ve seen my team, the Swans, win and lose grand finals.

And I’ve loved the occasion.

Being there with almost 100,000 footy fans, the noise when that ball is bounced to start the game pierces your eardrums and rattles your brain. The drama, the nerves, the tension, the colour, the stakes. It’s exhilarating.

But there comes a point when you have to disregard that in favour of a higher ideal. Sporting integrity.

It’s come to the point that playing the game at the MCG is distorting the maxim of “let the best team win’’. That maxim can only apply when both teams are given a 50-50 chance of winning.

That’s not happening now. It can’t when the playing field is so heavily tilted in the favour of one team.

The MCG is Richmond’s home ground.

So far this year, it has played at the MCG 14 times. In those 14 games, it has a 12 win and two loss record. An 86 per cent win percentage. In the 10 games it has played at other venues, Richmond won six and lost four for a win rate of 60 per cent.

Grand final opponents the GWS Giants played only four times at the MCG this year and only three times in 2018. Its record at the MCG this year reads two wins and two losses.

Home-ground advantage is not just some theoretical possibility. There have been numerous scientific studies over the years showing that teams playing at home tend to win more than they lose. An American social psychologist called Jeremy Jamieson studied all those studies in 2010 and found the home team would win a little more than 60 per cent of the time.

"The home-field advantage is definitely real," Jamieson said at the time.

There can be a variety of reasons for this. The challenges of travel, the familiarity with the arena, the loudness of the home crowd.

On Saturday, at the MCG there will certainly be more Tigers supporters than Giants. Which may cause another problem for the Giants. A Harvard study in 2007, based on more than 5000 premier league games in England, found home-ground advantage influences decisions made by referees.

But what can be done? The AFL has signed a deal that is supposed to keep the grand final at the MCG until 2057. It’s a ridiculous contract signed last year that exemplifies just how the AFL has retreated again to a Melbourne-centric view of the competition, with the rest of the country only tolerated as some kind of necessary evil.

That the AFL is an arrogant, grandiose, out-of-touch organisation shot through with instinctive amateurism is such an obvious statement it’s probably barely worth repeating.

Who else would make such a song and dance about introducing a new “Review Centre’’, to provide “the most clear and precise means of correcting or confirming contentious on-field decisions throughout the finals period’’, and then immediately make an enormous clanger?

Which makes it all the more laughable that the AFL signed a deal to keep the grand final at the MCG until 2057.

They can’t do the small things well, so why should we have any confidence they will do any better with the big ones?

That contract will make it difficult to inject more fairness into the system. It rules out the opportunity to rotate the grand final or to have it played at a neutral venue.

So, the minimum requirement for the AFL is to level the playing field.

The Giants and other interstate teams must be given more opportunities to play at the MCG. Conversely, teams such as Richmond must play fewer games there.

Such a move may cost the AFL revenue but it needs to decide whether money or sporting fairness is its primary motivation.