AFL Premiership

The Australian Football League (AFL) Premiership is the premier men’s professional Australian rules football league in the world. It is one of the most popular and commercially-lucrative sports leagues in Australia, and it often ranks as the country’s best attended league of any sport or code.

📜 AFL History

The history of the AFL can be traced back to the earliest days of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), which was founded in 1877 in order to provide the growing number of Australian football teams in the state of Victoria with the means to organise, formalise the rules of their game, and administrate club affairs.

In 1896, 6 VFA clubs formed the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL), establishing a league comprised of 8 teams – including later entrants Carlton and St. Kilda – which would run alongside the VFA. The 2 premierships coexisted for much of the 20th century, before the VFL began overshadowing the VFA in the 1980’s. The VFL soon became the de facto national premiership, and in 1990 it changed its name to the Australian Football League.

Today, the AFL premiership is comprised of 18 teams from 5 different states. AFL games have been played in all Australian states and 2 territories, as well as overseas.

💯 AFL Format & Scoring

AFL fixtures are 80 minutes long, with that time divided into 4 quarters of 20 minutes each. Teams score points by propelling the ball through sets of 4 parallel posts; scoring in between the 2 middle posts gains a team 6 points – a “goal” – whilst scoring in between the outer posts – a “behind” – is worth 1 point.

If a team wins an AFL fixture – which is achieved by scoring more points in total than the opposition after 80 minutes – it gains 4 premiership points. If teams draw, they each receive 2 premiership points.