AFL reserves competition or expanded national VFL options flagged by West Coast’s Trevor Nisbett

A national AFL reserve competition, or expanded VFL, could be considered in coming years as the West Coast reported concerns over the club’s options in the west.

Code Sports reports that Eagles CEO Trevor Nisbett faced WAFL club presidents on Tuesday after his struggling club was granted roster concessions following a winless season and a third consecutive wooden spoon.

He told the presidents the West Coast had the option to follow Adelaide and Port Adelaide in abandoning their state leagues and joining either an expanded VFL or a full AFL reserves competition to develop their young players.

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The move would cost the WAFL $600,000 a year in licensing fees and $1 million if Fremantle did the same and dropped its partnership with Peel Thunder.

Nisbett’s other options, aligning with a WAFL club (most likely the Perth Demons, but that would be very difficult to get through) or spreading their players across the league (which would be difficult to manage and offline) . along with all other AFL clubs), were seen as much more unrealistic by the presidents, which is why they took the threat of competition from the AFL reserves so seriously.

Clubs from Western and South Australia are the only ones not involved in the wider VFL, which bears the historic name despite the presence of clubs from New South Wales and Queensland, including 2023 premiers Gold Coast.

Adelaide and Port Adelaide could be involved in an expanded VFL as early as next season, the report says, and a full build-up of the AFL reserves is seen as a possibility for 2027 – provided agreements with the airline’s airline partner AFL, Virgin, be modified so that all team flights can be chartered.

The VFL currently has 21 clubs – 11 reserve teams for Gold Coast, Brisbane, the Western Bulldogs (Footscray), Collingwood, Richmond, North Melbourne, Carlton, GWS, Geelong, Essendon and Sydney, as well as aligned teams Casey (Melbourne) , Box Hill (Hawthorn) and Sandringham (St Kilda).

There are also seven standalone teams: Werribee, Williamstown and Port Melbourne who benefit financially from slots, as well as Southport, Frankston, Northern Bullants and Coburg.

The lack of competitiveness from the bottom three became a major concern last season, with Coburg going winless while the Northern Bullants finished with a winning percentage of 40.4.