FOR AS long as I can remember, there has been discussion and debate regarding the unevenness of the AFL fixture.

The number of clubs in the league makes a full home-and-away fixture- where each team plays every other team at home and on the road- untenable.

In 2012, this would take 34 rounds - but this number of teams also means a singular round-robin format would only last 17 weeks, and this would be considered by most to be too short, for many reasons.

The compromise: 22 rounds (or this year 24, and possibly 23 next year, as the AFL Commission works out the best way to accommodate 18 teams next year).

Each team plays each other once, and then plays a small number again. Who each team plays twice is influenced by a number of factors, and, dare I say it, money is a big one.

Matchups such as Collingwood and Essendon, which regularly draw massive crowds, are invariably scheduled twice a season.

It is also invariable that every year teams are put at advantage or disadvantage by who they play twice, and who they play once.

The poor 15th-ranked club from last year, who this year plays four of last year's top five twice, looks at its draw and winces, privately already arranging for the mounting of this season's wooden spoon in the clubrooms.

Conversely, the team who just missed out on the Grand Final last year looks at their fixture and thanks the football gods that they have the wooden-spooners from last year, the league new boys and a couple of middle-of-the-road teams as their double-up teams.

And for those middle-of-the-road teams, have the teams they've been given to play twice put them a step closer or a step further away from being somewhere in the bottom half of the finals draw?

Optimally, if we are going to continue playing a one-and-a-half round-robin format (in itself not optimal, I know), there should be a system in place which rotates who plays whom twice a year over a set amount of time. It could run something like this:

Firstly, each team still plays each other team once (17 matches). Who you play at home and away should switch regularly, e.g. over four years, twice at home and twice away for each team.

Then, for non-Victorian teams (from next year, 10 of them), play your cross-town rival again (Showdown, Western Derby, QClash, and whatever the Sydney Swans-GWS Giants clash ends up being called). Sub total: 18 matches.

To round out the 22 matches, play two other non-Victorian and two other Victorian teams again (one of each home, one of each away).
For the Victorian teams, having played each team once, play three Victorian teams again, and two non-Victorian teams also.

For both sets of teams (Victorian and non-Victorian), a rotation system occurs so that over four or five years, a team would play every other team twice in a single season.

Yes, I realise that this system would remove some blockbuster matches some years; there would be years when West Coast and Sydney only play once, or even Collingwood and Essendon, or Hawthorn and Geelong.

But surely there are more important things in producing the fixture for an elite national competition than a few dollars, or a few bums on seats.

Surely of the utmost importance should be as much equality in the fixture as possible, especially within an arrangement that is, by its nature, not fair.

Crowds, TV ratings, and money will flow from giving the competition itself the best chance of success.