AFL chairman Richard Goyder continues to back a twilight Grand Final

The majority of footy fans favour an afternoon Grand Final but AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder hasn’t given up on having a twilight decider while he’s at the helm.

AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder has doubled down on his push for a twilight Grand Final.

Despite an overwhelming 76 per cent of fans insisting on a traditional 2.30pm bounce, Goyder on Tuesday declared he wanted to see the shift made during his time in charge.

“Every time I talk about this I get into strife,” Goyder said.

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“To be clear I’d love a twilight Grand Final, I think it would be sensational to attend and, importantly, the television coverage I think would be incredible.

“And I think our media partners are pretty strongly supportive as well. When is a good question.

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“We’d have to have the best entertainment lined up and we’d also need the support of the clubs because halftime would probably be a bit longer, so there’d be a few adjustments that would need to be made.

“We certainly weren’t ready this year but before my time is up hopefully we’ll give it a go — so there you go.”

Footy fans want to keep the traditional afternoon Grand Final. Picture: Jason Edwards

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Almost 80 per cent of the game’s current players said they wanted a day Grand Final in a recent Herald Sun AFL Players’ Association survey.

But Goyder claimed a majority of the 18 club captains supported a twilight premiership decider.

“If we’re going to do it, we’d want to do it with a big bang,” Goyder told TAB radio in Perth.

“And the captains thing was pretty interesting because I think 15 of the 18 club captains we asked last year said they’d play a Grand Final at any time, some of them said, you know, ‘I’d play at midnight just to play in a Grand Final’.

“Two said ‘prefer the afternoon’ and I think Jarryd Roughead was pretty strongly (sic) because he figured you could start partying after that, but, you know, he’s won four premierships, so he has a different view on it.”

AFL chairman Richard Goyder wants the AFL Grand Final to be a twilight event before his time is up. Picture: Picture: Daniel Wilkins

Just 18.83 per cent of AFL supporters said they supported a twilight Grand Final in this year’s Herald Sun Footy Fans Survey. It was just 19 per cent in the players’ survey.

Every Grand Final in VFL/AFL history has started between 2:15pm and 3pm.

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AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has described the move to a twilight decider as “inevitable”, but Hawthorn president and Seven West Media board member Jeff Kennett has said he fears a Grand Final played under lights will come at the expense of the game’s most precious commodity — kids.

“I still want to make sure we think of younger, future generations,” the Hawks boss said last year.

“And I ask myself: ‘What is in their interests to continue to stimulate interest in the game?’ And I think that is probably as it is now.”

Originally published as AFL chairman Richard Goyder continues to back a twilight Grand Final