Queensland to offer cash incentive to host AFL grand final

The league will decide next week where the 2020 grand final will be played

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at a press conference at Parliament House. Pics Tara Croser.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is offering a $5m-10m cash incentive to ­secure the AFL grand final for the Gabba in front of at least 30,000 fans in mid to late October.

The Queensland government is confident of getting the final transferred from the traditional MCG in COVID-stricken Victoria when the AFL makes a decision on the season-decider next week.

The league sees taking the code’s biggest event of the year to Brisbane as an opportunity to boost its standing in the rugby league-mad state where television ratings for the AFL have jumped more than 20 per cent this season.

AFL chief executive Gillon ­McLachlan confirmed on Friday that the league’s commission would decide on the grand final hosting venue next week, as well as the prestigious Brownlow Medal function.

Queensland is firming as favourite for both ahead of Perth, ­Adelaide and Sydney in a tender process that will take place when the Victorian government finally concedes the match cannot take place at the MCG.

“I am not trying to sound naive. We have a contract. We are having very fair discussions with the Victoria government but I think it is increasingly looking challenging in Victoria … and we are having conversations with others,” Mr McLachlan said on Friday.

“I think all of that will come ­together and we will have a decision by the end of next week.”

The Brownlow Medal night is traditionally held the Monday ­before the decider, though there has been a push to move it to the start of the finals series in mid-September to allow players from every club to attend, given quarantine rules.

“It is probably likely they will go hand in glove, but it is not certain. It is possible you could have all the teams in Queensland and have the grand final elsewhere, I guess,” Mr McLachlan said.

A senior AFL figure in Queensland said that if the league’s decision was “purely financial in terms of what size the cheque is, Queensland is not in front”, conceding that Perth’s Optus Stadium would be a far more lucrative venue, given its vast corporate ­facilities and greater capacity.

But the league, which already has dozens of its officials based in Queensland and is sending most of the remainder of its head office to the state on September 1, is well aware of the welcome it has ­received in the north.

Ms Palaszczuk has also assembled a team of powerful officials, including Gold Coast Suns president Tony Cochrane and his Brisbane Lions counterpart, Andrew Wellington, to pursue the grand final, and the government is also set to roll out spending promises for elite and grassroots facilities for the code before the October 31 state election.

The AFL is spending $5m a week on its “hub” in Queensland now housing most of the competition’s teams, and many players and their families are likely to provide a boost to the state’s tourism sector by holidaying there after the season is completed.  The Queensland government has been mindful not to make a public case for the match until the Victorian government rules Melbourne out completely.

Well-placed state government sources told The Weekend Australian that the AFL would “love” to host the final in Queensland and that public remarks that rival “footy states” such as Western Australia being more deserving had not helped their cause.