The AFL today announced it would establish a Competition Committee which would guide discussion around decision-making for the AFL Commission and AFL Executive on key aspects of the future direction of the AFL Competition.

AFL General Manager Football Operations Steve Hocking said the 18 Club Presidents, CEOs, Coaches and captains had been briefed at last week's meetings in Melbourne around the season launch with the AFL Commission and the establishment of this new committee would be concluded within the next month, with its agenda to be immediately set with regular meetings through each year, commencing from April.

He said the Committee’s primary purpose would be to ensure that the many different streams of work across the entire AFL business were working in concert to ensure the overall progress of the game, both on-field and commercially, covering areas such as Laws of the Game / Player Movement / Competition Structure / Feeder and Second Tier Leagues / Innovation.

Senior members of the AFL industry would become part of the new body, which would become the core influential group responsible for presenting recommendations for key decisions to the AFL Commission. While project groups that look at game analysis, player movement and fixturing will still provide advice to the Competition Committee, groups such as the current Laws of the Game Committee, Player Movement Advisory Group and other AFL advisory boards / committees would cease to continue, Mr Hocking said.

'The model for the new committee would be to provide a consistent body for feedback that would examine any proposed innovation / development / change for the game as part of the broad industry agenda, alongside the health of the game,” Mr Hocking said.

'It would be intended the committee would involve an AFL Commissioner alongside myself as Chair, and then be comprised of members including current club Presidents, current club CEOs, current club coaches, current club General Managers of Football, current players and a representative of the AFLPA. It would also have the capacity to add anyone who we feel can make a strong contribution," he said.

As the AFL industry continued to grow, it was imperative that key work was not done in silos and decision-making involved strong collaboration with external stakeholders, Mr Hocking said.

Under the new structure, the working model would be that key projects would be presented to the Competition Committee, who would then provide their endorsement to the AFL Commission. The AFL Commission will retain final decision-making authority.