NORTH Melbourne chairman James Brayshaw has returned fire at Jeff Kennett and Eddie McGuire after the "fat cat" presidents criticised the AFL's plan for a new strategy to aid struggling clubs.

Collingwood president McGuire and Hawthorn president Kennett both criticised the five-year strategy which aims to audit clubs in a bid to improve their football departments and administrations.

The AFL announced the distribution strategy at the start of the week and the two outspoken presidents were quick to pour cold water on the concept.

McGuire compared the idea to Australia's history of Aboriginal welfare, while Kennett said clubs would become dependent on the assistance.

Brayshaw said McGuire and Kennett were being short-sighted with their comments.

"My initial response was it's nice for a couple of the competition fat cats to view their brethren so generously," Brayshaw said on Tuesday.

"I'm not really sure what Ed and Jeff want. Do they want to end up with a competition where they just play themselves every week? I think it's a ridiculous premise to be honest."

Brayshaw said all clubs benefited from having a strong 18-team competition which was part of the reason the recent media rights deal netted the AFL $1.25 billion.

"We've just expanded to an 18-team competition. That is a guarantee of nine games and the media rights deal wouldn't have happened unless you had nine games. The competition is the size that it is and that's not going to change," he said.

"The major issue of money in this competition comes from the media deal and that's predicated on it being nine games. So why all this rubbish about not helping the teams that need it within that 18-team competition."

Brayshaw said it was a myth that smaller clubs like North Melbourne relied on handouts and that the AFL was simply spending its money on growing its competition.

The North Melbourne chairman pointed to the NFL as a similar model to the AFL that thrived on its ability to promote equality among all its clubs.

"We already borrow pretty heavily from the NFL model which is the draft and salary cap. But if we want to go all the way with the NFL model we can equalise the gate, we can take Friday nights in turns, we can make the big nights available to all the club one after another," he said.

"But I reckon if we did head down that path you would hear those two (McGuire and Kennett) start squealing very loudly," he said.

"We've got a competition where everyone's the size they are, there's wonderful history attached to clubs here in Melbourne and there's great opportunity for the new clubs to get bigger and better and stronger and faster but a lot of the time you need the centralised funding to help them get to that point.

"I would have thought 18 strong teams would be better for Jeff and Ed's clubs to be honest. So I don't really understand where they're coming from."