AFL Daily: Live rolling footy news from around Australia, April 19, 2018

THE AFL will consider boosting the prizemoney for the minor premiers in a bid to elevate the prestige of the McClelland Trophy as it’s revealed the finals purse has fallen since 2007.

THE AFL will consider prizemoney for the minor premiers as part of a bid to elevate the prestige of the McClelland Trophy.

AFL commission boss Richard Goyder put the issue on the agenda as he presented the trophy to Adelaide chairman Rob Chapman last September. Chapman told the Herald Sun a sum of around $200,000 would be an appropriate figure to celebrate the home-and-away season’s best team. MARKSMEN: HOW ACCURATE IS YOUR CLUB’S GOALKICKING SUPERCOACH: CHAMPION DATA’S ROUND 5 FORMGUIDE AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has agreed to consider the issue for next season, aware football rarely celebrates its minor premier. As Chapman said, the Crows made the Grand Final and after a poor performance “got carved up” by critics all summer despite their season of excellence. The AFL has already agreed to meet the costs of travelling teams in the Grand Final, with Chapman estimating it cost the Crows up to $250,000. The AFL premier receives $1.2 million in prizemoney, the runner-up $660,000 and losing preliminary finalists $330,000. Teams playing in the semi-final get $110,000 and the seventh and eighth placed teams are handed $71,000, with the minor premier capable of falling all the way to fifth. Remarkably, total prizemoney has fallen for AFL finals since 2007. The premier in 2007 received $1.1m and runner-up $550,000, but the seventh and eighth-placed teams received $137,500. In total the AFL hands out $2,893,000 in finals prizemoney, $2000 less than 11 years ago. Chapman says he raised the issue with the AFL as a competition-wide concern rather than to reward Adelaide. “When Richard Goyder presented it to me at the preliminary final last year, he got up and made a big deal about it and said, ‘I think we have lost the significance of the McLelland Trophy’,” he said. “I threw it into the debate over the last few weeks over the state government funding and it got some air play from Gill who suggested the same. “It is about saying, ‘Guys, you have had a great home and away season’. If you win the Grand Final you get the accolades but if you finish on top of the ladder and if you lives in our shoes after the Grand Final we got carved up as if we finished 17th. It just happened to be us last year, it could be any team.” LIVE stream the 2018 Toyota AFL Premiership on FOX SPORTS. Every match of every round LIVE in HD, with no ad-breaks siren-to-siren! Get your 2-week free trial now >

Originally published as AFL Daily: Live rolling footy news from around Australia, April 19, 2018

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