AFL CLUBS are forever telling us they are operating to world’s best practice.

Or at the very least, striving for world’s best practice.

Essendon chooses to leave its traditional home and sets up not just one, but two, ovals on which to train. As well as a very expensive fitness substance program.

Collingwood, which has a president who also sits on the board of Athletics Australia, manages to boot athletics competitions off the famous Olympic Park track so that it can properly set up shop on lucrative real estate.

Geelong’s already great CEO has just returned from a high-end professional advancement program in the US.

Clubs send players overseas for radical blood treatments when it suits them.

And if you’re not heading to a high altitude region in the off-season, you’re in the minority and apparently not taking seriously the pursuit of winning.

Yep, AFL clubs are convinced they are tuned into world’s best practice. Say it often, and say it loud, and hopefully everyone will either be convinced, or they’ll feel better about themselves anyway.

But there is one area where world’s best practice, by pure practice, is certainly not at play.

The manner in which clubs fill their positions of president/chairman is as amateur as the 1896 Athens Olympics.

This is not to say clubs fail to get the right people to fill this position. Sometimes, they do find the absolute best person.

But, on world’s best practice standards, restricting an organisation to choose its No.1 person, the head of its board, from a group of people who must a) exclusively "barrack" for that organisation and b) be a paid-up member of that organisation before they even run for the position would be lucky to get 10/100 on the official report card.

Jeff Kennett’s noises during the week about becoming Melbourne Football Club’s next president enraged a lot of people.

How could a man who had held the same post at a rival AFL club dare even think he could fill the position somewhere else, they asked?

By traditional standards, it is a valid question. But by world’s best practice standards, it would be ridiculous to even ask such a question, let alone ponder it.

World’s best practice would decree that the best person gets the job. Not the best person who happens to barrack for and financially support the organisation.

The Kennett-Melbourne link is real. The AFL was aware of it before he made it public, and, despite many and considerable reservations, it knows deep down that there would be few people better equipped to lift the Demons out of their embarrassing state of rabble than the man who formerly served for considerable length of time the roles of Victorian premier and Hawthorn Football Club president.

Kennett probably won’t fully pursue the Melbourne role. And there is another plan in place to install recently-added Demons director Geoff Freeman as that person.

But the whole Kennett-to-Melbourne debate has opened up the entire competition’s eyes to thinking outside of accepted practice when it comes to considering candidates for the No.1 role in their operations.

Accepted AFL practice in this area is a long, long way from where the game likes to think it is on a world scale. 

Expect change, over time, on this front.