THE AFL has rejected a determined push from Greater Western Sydney to add its players' names to the back of jumpers, after the Giants submitted a formal proposal in recent weeks for the club to adopt the initiative on a permanent basis.
AFL.com.au understands the Giants recently pitched to the League for the surnames of players to be donned on the back of their jumpers, in the hope of setting an industry standard in the coming years.
It's understood the Giants had made the proposal independently and had told the League that they would like to forge ahead with the plan, regardless of whether it was introduced across the entire competition or not.
But the AFL has blocked the proposal, rejecting the idea on the basis of wanting uniformity between all soon-to-be 19 clubs and with only a handful of teams sharing any appetite for the plan.
The Giants had wished to display their players' names across the top part on the backs of their jumpers, directly above the players' numbers, in keeping with a host of international sports.
The AFL's most recent expansion club had told League headquarters in its proposal that the key reason for the suggested change was to increase awareness and connection, particularly in non-traditional footy states.
The Giants also believed that displaying their players' names on their jumpers would keep pace with overseas trends and create new commercial opportunities for the club, while also flagging AFLW benefits due to increased player recognition.
The overwhelming majority of clubs have significant partnership agreements in that position on the guernsey, though it's understood the Giants did not wish to remove that spot as a commercial opportunity.
Instead, the club told the AFL it believed it could add names right underneath the sponsor – in their case, the ACT government – and still comply with the League's current commercial guidelines.
The AFL trialled the initiative for one single weekend a decade ago in 2014, with all clubs making the change for their round five matches, though the League was quick to reiterate it would not be adopted permanently beyond that.
The AFL's general manager of commercial operations at the time, Darren Birch, said: "The trial demonstrated that while the concept of player names might be a good one in theory, in practice it does not work as well as we would like.
"The unique cut of AFL guernseys restricts the size of lettering that can be used and this, in turn, limits the legibility of the player names for fans at the ground and to a lesser extent for those watching on television or via other media channels."
The change would have been unlikely to be rushed through before 2025 regardless, due to the imminent deadlines for the club's apparel suppliers to submit next year's guernsey designs.
Displaying player names on backs of guernseys is commonplace in the majority of elite sporting competitions across the world including in the NBA, the NFL and across European football leagues.
However, Australian Rules football is played on a larger ground – and with significantly more players on the field at any given time – than those aforementioned sporting leagues, reducing the ability to recognise player names on guernseys.
The Giants were among the leading clubs in initially attempting to persuade the AFL to introduce the design back in 2013, even presenting then-chief executive Andrew Demetriou with a mock jumper before a game.
