We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when — the beautiful sounds of the late Vera Lynn have been a constant in my mind these past few days.
When I first started listening to football on the radio, there were six games in Melbourne on a Saturday afternoon.
From this weekend there’ll be none at all. The AFL has resorted to desperate measures to continue this unprecedented season with the relocation of all 10 Victorian clubs the latest requirement to keep things going.
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In fairness, these are desperate times for all major sporting codes, codes dependent on lucrative television deals to sustain them.
The AFL should be commended for its ability to navigate an almost impossible fixturing scenario but it’s running out of options.
AFL fixture boss Travis Auld told ABC Grandstand the league has guaranteed Victorian clubs they’ll return home after round nine regardless of whether border restrictions have eased.
“I think you’d look at a bye or a split round of some sort to find your way through that,” he said.
“We’ll start looking at round eight and nine now and hopefully in the next week or so we’ll release those… but we’re certainly open-minded to what it might look like after this little batch of five games.
“If it means we need to give the competition a week off or those teams in Victoria a week off then that’s what we’ll do in order to meet our commitment.”