Elliot notes that while WA was quite positive, the South Australians were more guarded- wanting to be involved, but not wanting to be leaders of the developing competition.Įlliot then approached Richmond president Ian Willson who was also keen on the idea. Standish drew up a proper constitution.Ĭollins was sent to South Australia and Western Australia to gauge interest. These three and Collins and Standish formed a committee. Michael Standish, Elders corporate lawyer was consulted and advised that he felt quite positively that the competition could break away from the VFL.Įlliot then approached Ranald Mcdonald, then president of Collingwood and Greg Sewell, then Essendon president, and both were very warm to the idea. Current VFL clubs could join but had to meet certain financial criteria, which more than half a dozen of the clubs would not have been able to meet. The first thing was to ensure the competition would have somewhere to play – In 1984 the VFL had no contracts over the MCG, Princes Park or Kardinia Park, and could only prevent the competition from using Waverly Park, owned then by the VFL.Įlliot and Collins hatched a plan – the new league had to have an independent board of management, and would go nationwide by adding two clubs from each of WA and SA along with the Swans. The league itself was spending more than it earned by 2 million a year.Įlliot concluded that something had to be done, and after discussing the matter with Ian Collins decided that the only way around the Leagues incompetence was to break away. Eight clubs were believed to be treading a very fine line indeed on their solvency, a fact which prompted a warning from the Corporate Affairs Commission. Elliot found himself wondering why the leagues better drawing clubs werent recieving more of the income, Nothing of value was done during the delegate meetings, deals were done outside them, and Elliot felt that the bigger clubs – Carlton, Essendon, Collingwood and Richmond were left out in the cold on far too many matters, where the VFL executive could get by with the other 8 clubs.Īt the end of each season, the leagues income would be divided equally amongst all the VFL clubs. He was dismayed at the overall lack of direction for the VFL itself. As the Carlton delegate to the VFL all he could see was delegates interested in how things affected their individual clubs.

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