Historic McClelland Trophy enters new era across AFL and AFLW

THE AFL'S long-standing McClelland Trophy will be awarded to the best-performed club across the men's and women's competitions, beginning a new era for the historic award as a 'Champion Club' honour.

Starting from this year, the club with the most combined points across the AFL and AFLW competitions will receive $1 million (shared between the club and its players) and the McClelland Trophy.

The trophy was struck in 1951 in the VFL to recognise the contributions of William McClelland, who was a former Melbourne captain, president of the Melbourne Cricket Club and VFL president from 1926-55.

Since 1991, the trophy has been awarded to the club that finished first on the ladder, but it has a rich history of being awarded to the club with the best overall performance across multiple teams (seniors, reserves and under-19s).

Minor premier Geelong holds the trophy after finishing on top of the ladder in 2022. If the new formula was applied to 2022's results, Melbourne would have been awarded the trophy, narrowly ahead of Brisbane.

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AFL Commission chairman Richard Goyder said the McClelland Trophy would continue to recognise clubs that were successful across all AFL competitions.

"We want to encourage and incentivise our clubs to support the AFL and AFLW programs and recognise the achievement and challenges in driving high performance across both elite competitions," he said.

"The McClelland Trophy has a long history of being associated with the best-performed club and it is appropriate that it now recognises achievement and success across the year in our AFL and AFLW elite competitions.”

McClelland Trophy if points were allocated in 2022