Australian Football League

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Lore & Background

The Australian Football League (AFL) is the premier professional competition for Australian rules football. The league’s appearance is defined by its oval-shaped playing field, with matches contested between two teams of 18 players each. The game is characterized by high-speed, continuous play, with players using their hands or feet to move the ball; scoring is achieved by kicking the ball through the goalposts (six points) or between the goal and behind posts (one point). The AFL’s range has expanded significantly from its origins. Originally founded in 1896 as the Victorian Football League (VFL), it operated solely within Victoria for nearly a century. Following expansion to other Australian states in the 1980s, it was renamed the AFL in 1990. The competition now includes 18 teams spread across Australia’s five mainland states, with a 19th team set to join in 2028. Premiership season matches have been played in all states and mainland territories, as well as in New Zealand and China. The league’s defining characteristics include a 24-match regular season from March to September, followed by a five-round finals series for the top ten teams, culminating in the AFL Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The team with the best regular-season record wins the minor premiership, while the grand final victors are crowned premiers and awarded the premiership cup and flag. The AFL also publishes the official Laws of Australian football, which govern the sport.

Reader's Guide

The AFL originated as the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1896, formed by six clubs that seceded from the Victorian Football Association due to disputes over gate revenue sharing. The league’s inaugural season in 1897 introduced an annual finals tournament and the modern scoring system of six points for a goal and one for a behind. Professional player payments were permitted from 1911. The VFL expanded to ten teams in 1908, adding Richmond and University, though University withdrew in 1914 after a 51-match losing streak partly due to its amateur status. Three VFA clubs—Footscray, Hawthorn, and North Melbourne—joined in 1925. The league renamed itself the Australian Football League in 1990 following interstate expansion during the 1980s. The competition now features 18 teams across five mainland states, with a 19th team set to join in 2028. The AFL publishes the Laws of Australian football, which other Australian rules organisations adopt with variations. The premiership season runs from March to September, with 24 home-and-away matches, followed by a five-round finals series for the top ten teams. The grand final is held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and the premiers receive the premiership cup and flag. The league has staged matches in New Zealand and China to broaden its audience. As of 2024, it is the richest Australian football and overall sports league in Australia by revenue, ranking 16th globally. The most successful clubs have each won 16 premierships, with the reigning premiers being the 2025 grand final winners.

Did You Know?

• The AFL Grand Final is held annually at the 100,000-capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground, the highest-attended club championship event of any football code.
• The first laws of Australian football were published by the Melbourne Football Club in May 1859.
• The earliest recorded match was on 15 June 1858 between Melbourne Grammar and St Kilda Grammar.
• Tom Wills, who called for a football club with a code of laws in 1858, was born in Australia and played rugby at Rugby School in England.
• The running bounce, a distinctive feature of the game, was formalised in 1866 at a meeting chaired by H. C. A. Harrison.

The Football Family and Code Classification

Football encompasses a broad family of team sports united by a shared objective: moving a ball past a goal line, into a goal, or between goalposts using only the body. Within this family, Australian rules football occupies a distinct place among the carrying codes, sports where the ball is advanced by hand through carrying or passing. This contrasts sharply with the kicking codes such as association football and Gaelic football, where footwork dominates and handling is tightly restricted. The various codes share common origins and are collectively termed football codes. While the unqualified word football typically refers to whichever form is most popular in a given region, the family spans association football, Australian rules, Gaelic football, gridiron variants including American, arena, and Canadian football, international rules football, rugby league, and rugby union. Each code represents a unique cultural expression of the same fundamental athletic impulse, yet all remain linked by their shared ancestry and structural DNA.

Ancient Roots and Global Ball Games

The lineage of football stretches far beyond the modern era, with ball games documented across civilizations and continents. In ancient China, cuju emerged as a competitive foot-based game, possibly dating to the Han or early Qin dynasty, referenced in a military manual from the second to third centuries BC. Players passed the ball without letting it touch the ground, and in its competitive form, teams kicked through a circular hole in the pitch without interacting with opponents. The Japanese adaptation, kemari, appeared during the Asuka period and was played in the imperial court in Kyoto from around 600 AD, with participants standing in a circle keeping the ball aloft. In the ancient Mediterranean, the Greeks played episkyros and the Romans adapted it into harpastum, both resembling rugby. Indigenous peoples across the Americas also played documented ball games, including Pahsaheman in Virginia and Pasuckuakohowog, while Inuit communities in Greenland engaged in ice-based kicking games recorded by European explorers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Shared Architecture of the Game

Despite their cultural and regional diversity, the football codes share a remarkably consistent structural framework. Teams typically field between eleven and eighteen players, though smaller-sided variations with five or more per side also enjoy popularity. Every code demands a clearly defined playing area and a scoring mechanism that requires advancing the ball to the opposition's end of the field, either into a goal area or over a designated line. Goalposts frame the target, and the defending team protects that zone. Crucially, all codes restrict players to using only their bodies, with no bats, sticks, or other implements permitted, and they rely on an inflatable ball. The skill set is broadly universal: passing, tackling, evading tackles, catching, and kicking appear across every code. Offside rules constrain player positioning in most variants, and scoring generally requires placing the ball under or over a crossbar between the posts. These shared elements reveal a common architectural logic beneath the surface differences that distinguish Australian rules from association football or rugby union.

From Medieval Pitches to Modern Codes

The contemporary football codes trace their formal rules back to the codification of ball games at English public schools during the nineteenth century, a process that grew out of medieval football traditions. By the close of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already crystallizing. Gaelic football, for instance, deliberately wove in the rules of local traditional games to preserve cultural heritage. In 1888, England founded the Football League, the first of numerous professional football associations that would follow. Throughout the twentieth century, several of these football variants grew into some of the most widely followed team sports on the planet. The trajectory from informal medieval play to codified school rules, imperial diffusion, and eventual professionalization illustrates how a single athletic tradition can fracture into a rich family of globally significant sports, each carrying the imprint of its local culture.