THE AFL has executed the first trade of the season, long before the official exchange period begins.

It has traded out common sense in increasing the duration of the trade period to three weeks.

History tells us the more time AFL clubs are given to deliberate on trades, the longer they procrastinate, second-guess, waste time.

The AFL trade period could become the most interesting and intriguing patch on the footy calendar. It should be one of the AFL’s most valuable properties, a high-end media asset, not the annual anti-climax it always seems to be.

Increasing its duration from a week-and-a-half to three weeks, as the AFL has done this year, is a ridiculous decision. Interest and intrigue are rarely sustainable over such a prolonged period.

The extra days of trade have been added to accommodate the introduction of free agency. The extra days are not necessary.

Sure, clubs will have extra decisions to make, particularly those faced with offers from rivals for their free agents.

Do they choose to match an offer made for their player? What impact does matching that offer have on total player payments? What is the net loss, or net gain, of letting that player go?

In 2012, final decisions on free agents must be made within the first two weeks of the three-week exchange period. Here’s a prediction made with confidence, based on many, many years of watching clubs waste so much time at this time of year: not much, maybe nothing, will happen in the first week, and then there will be a real mad, manic dash in the hours before deadline.

Clubs have known for a year already which players are free agents. They have been making unofficial, and official, enquiries about those players for a long time.

The good clubs will know right now what they will be doing in the trade period. The less-organised clubs are procrastinating right now and will be procrastinating, and holding everyone else up, right through to trade deadline.

Why accommodate their flaws?

Last year 17 players were traded, the same figure as 2010. In 2009, 23 players transferred clubs; 2008 (six); 2007 (20); 2006 (nine).

The AFL, in fairness, wants to stimulate the possibilities around player trades. But in attempting to reach that aim, instead of increasing the trade time, it should have dramatically reduced it, even with the introduction of free agency.

It doesn’t wash that clubs need three weeks to make trade decisions, even with the machinations of free agency.

Three days would be enough. And imagine the excitement and hype if trades had to be completed inside three days. Such a concept would become a massive AFL asset, and be able to be sold at a very big price to a TV station.

Get every single person of authority at club level into the same massive conference room for three days straight.

Order all players - from Chris Judd down to the lowest-rated rookie on the 18th-placed club - to be contactable at any given moment of those three days. Failure to be contacted when needed would result in a massive fine, say $20,000. No more of the days where deals are thwarted with clubs unable to track down players on benders in Bali.

Yes, such a concept is based on what would appeal to the big media companies. But remember, the entire fixture is based on what on appeals to the big media companies.

No one can predict with any confidence the impact of free agency on player trades this year.

Speak to one player manager, and it will be a frenzy. Speak to another, it will be a fizzer.

But don’t for a minute think that increasing the time in which clubs can trade will actually result in anything that wouldn’t have happened if the exchange period was a whole lot shorter.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs