THE AFL has moved to dispel fears that the 16 clubs will be forced to give up players to the two new franchises.

Reports in Thursday’s The Australian and The Age newspapers reveal the league has devised a plan that would avoid compulsory acquisition of players by the new franchises on the Gold Coast in 2011 and western Sydney in 2012.

The AFL is considering a limited form of free agency for listed AFL players. Under the initiative, the Gold Coast team could take one uncontracted player per club at the end of 2010.

The Age reported that the AFL has told clubs it would establish a sub-committee to form rules for the new club.

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou told The Australian the league had learnt from past efforts to expand the competition.

“We are lucky that we have some precedents. What we want to avoid is clubs having to give up a number of players of a certain age and who have played a certain number of games. It wasn’t successful initially with the [Brisbane] Bears,” Demetriou said.

Brisbane Lions chief executive Michael Bowers told The Age his club would nominate football and recruiting manager Graeme Allan to join the committee.

“We are particularly keen to get our football and recruiting manager Gubby Allan on board,” Bowers said.

“He will be our lead nomination. We’re very keen to get involved as heavily as possible and we obviously want to be represented.”

The Age also revealed that the AFL met the Gold Coast bid committee in Queensland on Tuesday night and that clubs have an April 11 deadline to nominate representatives for the sub-committee.

The Australian reported that the Gold Coast team would be operating in some form next year with a budget of between $3-4 million.

Demetriou said the team would not necessarily play in the QAFL, with the VFL a possibility.

“It is important to build the culture of a club and you do that by having footballers playing together,” he said.