THE FOUR AFL clubs to be based in New South Wales and Queensland will have zoned access to elite young players from those states under a new academy system from 2011.
The Sydney Swans, Brisbane Lions, Gold Coast and Team GWS will each set up their own high performance academies to provide a pathway for young local athletes to an AFL career.
Each club will have exclusive access to athletes aged as young as 12 from its own zones within NSW, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland.
When academy players reach draft age, their club will have first call on their services.
If another club expresses interest in drafting that player, a bidding system similar to that used for father-son players will be used to determine their future destination.
Former Swans captain Mark Browning, who has managed the AFL's talent programs in Queensland for a decade, will oversee the four academies.
The academies will replace the current NSW scholarship system, which will cease at the end of 2010.
NSW, Queensland and the ACT account for 54 per cent of Australia's population but they provide just 11 per cent of the AFL players.
Swans chief executive Andrew Ireland said the academy system would address that anomaly and provide a greater pool of players for all 18 AFL clubs to draw from.
"For the size of the population, we don't deliver enough youngsters through to play in the AFL," he said.
"The only way we're going to do that is to provide them with a better learning environment … if we can do that, we're hoping we can get the best athletes in greater Sydney and NSW to play AFL and get through to the AFL."
Sydney Swans coach Paul Roos said the academies would alleviate the frustration faced by clubs in the northern states in trying to keep prospective draftees committed to Australian football.
"We get an enormous amount of talented young kids but there are an enormous amount of challenges as they get through to the draft age," he said.
"It is important to be able to go to the kids and say there is a Sydney Swans academy, you are able to come in and we are able to take them ... right through to draft age … and be able to promise them a position on the Swans' list."
Team GWS high performance manager Alan McConnell said the academies would allow the four clubs to target talented youngsters from other sports such as rugby league and rugby union.
"We're duty bound to produce the best possible list and the second we put boundaries on where young boys might come from, we're restricting our ability to deliver on our core business," he said.
"There are no rules for us in terms of where we'll go looking. In the end, the quality of the opportunity that we're able to provide will determine how successful that is."
