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Malinauskas wants AFL’s ‘magic round’ in Adelaide

Premier Peter Malinauskas is pushing hard for Adelaide to host an entire round of AFL matches next season.

 

Sep 20, 2022, updated Sep 21, 2022
Photo: James Ross / AAP

Photo: James Ross / AAP

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has revealed “multiple states” are vying to host an entire round of nine games over one weekend in 2023.

The idea is based on the NRL’s Magic Round and could be held in one city next April.

If the proposal is ticked off then the season would increase from 23 rounds to 24, with one bye for each team.

The concept stands to be a tourism bonanza for the winning state.

“Whether or not the magic round goes ahead at all I don’t know but if it does, I’m fighting pretty hard that it happens in Adelaide,” the Premier told ABC radio this morning.

“Money will be involved, I mean, unfortunately, these days, nothing comes for free and the AFL are pretty commercial in their operations.

“I think that it’s clear to us that other states around the country are putting their hand up as well so it’s going to be competitive – we’re not going to pay more than it’s worth but we are going to make a serious bid.”

Malinauskas said it would be unlikely all games would be played at Adelaide Oval if South Australia were to host the matches.

“There are options to use locations around the CBD as well, or even in the close proximity of our regions, so they’re all live options.

“South Australian taxpayers have invested a bit of money to footy in our state, not least of which, from the almost $600 million investment in Adelaide Oval.

“The AFL has thrown a truckload of money into NSW and Queensland and I get it, I’m all for expanding our code, it’s my code, but they can’t forget places like South Australia which have been home and a bastion for footy for a long period of time.”

Every club would still host 11 home matches.

South Australia, Queensland, NSW and Western Australia would all loom as viable options for the super round of matches.

AFL CEO Gill McLachlan said clubs are open to scrapping official pre-season matches in favour of an extra round.

“This year they had one proper hit-out in venues and they just played it like a home-and-away game, belted into each other,” he told SEN.

“People got suspended, people got injured, so we had CEOs and presidents on the back of that saying, ‘If you’re going to do it like that, why don’t you play it as a home-and-away game?’.

“The (AFL executive) team have gone off and explored all of that and now we’ve got multiple states interested in doing it.

“We’ve got to the point where we’ve got three states saying, ‘We’ll do it, we’d love to have all nine games in this market’.

“We’ve briefed the clubs where we’re at and what it would mean from a marketing, financial and logistical sense.”

The NRL has staged its Magic Round at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium since 2019, although the event did not go ahead in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

McLachlan believes it would make sense to run the AFL’s own version of Magic Round in the school holidays, after the first few rounds of the season.

“Maybe round five-ish, the second half of April when it’s school holidays nationally,” he said.

-with AAP

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