Queensland the AFL’s saviour as teams flee Victoria

Queensland has emerged as the saviour of the AFL season, with six Melbourne teams to relocate to the Sunshine State.

Gillon McLachlan has organised an exodus of AFL clubs from Victoria.

There will be no Victorian teams left in the AFL heartland of Melbourne by Monday as the league forges ahead with a troubled 2020 season despite the remarkable cost.

The deepening coronavirus crisis in Victoria forced the AFL into the most radical move yet in an abridged season that is not yet one-third of the way through.

For the next five weeks, the indigenous code will predominantly be played in rugby league territory in Queensland and New South Wales in order to enable the season to continue.

The entirety of Round 6 will be played in Sydney, Brisbane and on the Gold Coast before a Western Australian hub opens in Perth the following week.

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Matches will still be played in South Australia, though no team will be allowed to hub in Adelaide after the state decided to place the health of its citizens first.

In what has proven a particularly complex logistical challenge for the AFL, Brisbane and the Gold Coast will spend the next fortnight in Sydney as their state hosts six Victorian clubs.

But AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan is confident the league will manage to pull through the latest of a series of crises to hit the coronavirus-plagued season.

“As you can imagine, it has been a major logistical exercise to organise the fixture, source training grounds and secure accommodation in such a short period of time,” he said.

“All clubs know that they have to share the load at some point through this season, and all are united in their support of the concept.

“The sheer daily drama we are experiencing is like no other, and for me and our fans it is as exciting as it gets.”

As McLachlan said, the COVID-19 crisis has forced the league into rapid changes.

In early June, there was hope a crowd of 25,000 would be able to attend the clash between Collingwood and Essendon played at the MCG on Friday night.

Instead, those clubs and their Victorian counterparts will have left the state by Monday night for a road trip lasting beyond a month before returning home.

GRAPHIC: Anywhere but Melbourne

The desperate times have prompted the AFL to consider even more desperate measures on a weekly basis but the league is adamant it will complete the 17 rounds and finals in 2020.

After initially saying no footballer would spend more than 32 days away from home as the league seeks to play 45 games during that period, McLachlan conceded there is a caveat.

“That will depend entirely on what is going on in Victoria at the time. (In) five weeks from now we’ll know a lot more,” he said.

The exercise will be costly and could run to $10m by the time accommodation costs for 10 Victorian clubs and flights across the country for matches are tallied.

The flip side is that fans will be allowed to attend matches in Queensland, NSW, SA and WA in ever increasing numbers in coming weeks.

McLachlan said he expects 30,000 fans to attend a clash between Geelong and Collingwood in Perth on Thursday, July 16.

The derby between Fremantle and West Coast three nights later is predicted to draw a capacity of 60,000 to Optus Stadium.

If the AFL were to choose the ideal moment to inform Victorian clubs they would be relocated, there could have been no better timing than 2pm on Friday.

As McLachlan announced the move, the temperature sat at 8C in Melbourne and it was teeming with rain. Never has a winter spell in Noosa, which will host St Kilda, or on the Gold Coast, which will be the base for five other Victoria clubs, sounded so good.

It certainly had North Melbourne chief executive Ben Amarfio, who described the AFL as “the best reality TV going around at the moment”, reaching for his boardies and beach towel.

“If you’re not pumped and excited about this, you never will be,” he said.

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge is among club officials to state they would not be surprised if some footballers opt out of travelling away from home for an extended period.

“There might be one or two that might not be able to go and that’s fine, so we’ll work through that,” he said.

“But everyone is probably looking forward to it more than anything.

“I think there is a mixture of envy from many that we’ve actually got the opportunity to go and travel for a period of time and get outside of the state. The likelihood is we’ll go to a place that is a bit warmer, which is good considering its smack bang in the middle of winter.”