For a long time, the most predictable discussion of any AFL season has been the possibility of a night Grand Final. These days, though, it has a rival in the “that old chestnut” stakes, the proposal for wildcard finals.

If I sound slightly cynical about that, it’s because I am. Why? Because, as usual with these things, there’s been no clamour from football fans to mess with the existing final eight in favour of what is effectively a top 10. In fact, quite the reverse.

So why are we talking about it again? I’ll give you one guess, accompanied by the sound of a cash register. What other answer could there possibly be?

Actually, I did just think of one. The tedious obsession with U.S. sports that seems to drive some of our supposed movers and shakers (in media particularly) to fit square pegs in round holes because they do it. Let’s leave that aside for a moment, though.

It’s not about fairness, because if anything, the current version of the final eight which has operated since 2000 has been the fairest and best finals system and reflection of the season as a whole we’ve had.

Is it about more teams needing an opportunity to climb the premiership mountain in September? No. We’ve already done that by default in instituting the pre-finals bye in 2016.

That diminished the advantage of finishing in the top four, with qualifying final winners now in danger of not playing enough football, and those finishing fifth to eighth able to rest for a week before their finals campaigns, helping Western Bulldogs win a flag from seventh and Greater Western Sydney (sixth) and Bulldogs again (fifth) reach Grand Finals.

An extra week of finals actually just makes it even more difficult to go all the way, as under the latest proposal teams seven and eight would be required to beat 10 and nine first before another four weeks of cut-throat games.

So those using the evenness of the current AFL ladder to back up the “yes” argument aren’t thinking it through. A so-called wildcard weekend diminishes the flag chances of even the two teams which would qualify in the current system.

What’s the point of having a greater chance of playing finals if you’re actually less likely to be able to complete the journey a finals series is supposedly all about?

As if it isn’t hard enough already to come from eighth. As ESPN’s Matt Walsh has pointed out, between 2010 and 2022, just four of 13 eighth-placed teams won their elimination finals, the average losing margin of the vanquished 47.5 points.

But the competition will expand to 20 teams soon enough, I hear. So what? Why should finals have to incorporate half the competition? Aren’t they about excellence?

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For more than 70 years, when the final four was part of the old 12-team VFL, just one-third of teams were considered good enough to duke it out for a flag. For another 15 years, under the final five, it was only 40%, then for a few more after West Coast and Brisbane joined the competition, back to 35%.

Only between 1994 and 2010 has AFL finals qualification taken in half the competition. That’s not a large slice of the league’s 128-season history.

Not that history means much to the sorts of vested interests who continually try to cram this Americanised garbage (designed for competitions with conferences, not one ladder) down our throats.

For them, it’s all about maximising revenue, though even the extent to which it would be more profitable is clearly contentious, predicated on the belief that fans will lose interest en masse if their teams are not still in finals contention.

As well as betraying a disdain for footy fans’ loyalty to their clubs, there’s a naivety in the view that if finals aren’t possible, there’s no more reason to watch. And real fans know that view is pure bunkum.

How about watching the youngsters on your club’s list being given some late-season opportunity and getting a glimpse into your team’s future? How about assessing where some of the older heads are at and what their futures might be? And how about just spending an enjoyable few hours watching a good game with your friends and family?

As much as would-be media moguls like to paint sports like Australian football purely as an alternative form of entertainment, it continues to instill a passion in most followers which, believe it or not, doesn’t need to be propped up by shiny new toys every five minutes.

As comedy writer Declan Fay posted on X: “I have been to hundreds of matches. I worked at the MCG for years. I’ve never once heard someone say: ‘If only there was a wildcard round’.”

I actually have heard it said, to be fair. But significantly, only ever from the commentary or corporate boxes, and never from the outer to which I’m tipping those foisting this stuff upon us rarely if ever have ventured.

Yeah, they want it. So might some of their employees. Probably also that voiceover guy who sounds like Leonard Teale narrating “The Man From Snowy River” they drag out for so-called big occasions, even when it’s just the Giants playing Gold Coast.

It’s not really a large band. So here’s an idea, guys. How about, just for once, you actually listen to what most of us want? Or in this case, don’t want. Thanks.

You can read more of Rohan Connolly’s work at FOOTYOLOGY.