Did Goodes really retire because of the "racism"? He was heading into his late 30's anyway, and most AFL players are gone by then.

It's pretty funny watching the AFL administration try and take over the world and fight a one sided war against the evil sokkah wog poofters. The more energy they give it, the more they neglect their main product and are turning people off it hahaha

“According to the Herald Sun's Jon Ralph, clubs would prefer to see AFLX in a post-season format that would see teams play overseas.”
https://www.sportingnews.com/au/afl/news/aflx-afl-aflw-scrapped-2020-preseason/qd5cgh456avk1411xi3ip7i8e

This has Bali written all over it 

More like junkets to LA and London - the Player's Union isn't stupid, if they can milk a $50k bonus and an all expenses paid trip overseas for their members for 2 days of kick and giggle, they'll do it.

So many afl players have mental health issues and go on leave so it’s not something I want to make fun of. Either the afl is ahead of all other sport organisations at addressing mental health or the players really are taking the piss a bit 

Later is probably more likely.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I know a reasonably high profile AFL player through friends, and he has confided in me that the level of recreational drug abuse within AFL circles is rampant. These 'mental health' breaks, whilst some may be genuine, are usually an elaborate cover for drug rehab. It's what happens when young bogans are given lots of cash with lots of free time - they tend to make poor decisions. It's no different to the NRL, except that the AFL PR machine seems much more efficient at covering up the scandals than the NRL.

Ive had a few friends and friends family members that have made afl lists and this seems to be trend. On the other hand i don't know any professional football players, but surely it would be similar,  just doesn't make any sense not to. Though most don't get anywhere near the amount of cash.

Could you imagine if pogba said he needs a few weeks off to go on mental health leave? Everyone would laugh at him 

.... and now it's gone.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-08-06/x-off-the-map-afl-to-remove-aflx-from-preseason-fixture

Drug use? In Australia? Among those with money? Get outta here. 

“It was a flawed concept from the start, the biggest problem being that the AFL thought they could sell the crowd any product. It smacked of a massive amount of arrogance that they could sell something as mickey mouse to a crowd as well-educated as AFL football fans.

Here are three potential plans for the pre-season fixture in 2020:

The FFA Cup The first idea is a bit crazy - let’s follow the FFA and have a cup competition that involves lower-league clubs. Norwood, Claremont… can they get a crack at playing a team like the Western Bulldogs or the Crows? I know this idea won’t get past the AFL - they wouldn’t risk their elite stuff in a preseason competition. But even if you can’t get the top tier, why not focus on the state league sides or the higher levels of amateur footy? Australians love an underdog, imagine the support for the upsets!”

https://m.afc.com.au/news/2019-08-13/whats-next-for-preseason

now their pinching ideas from the sokkah

If they keep calling it the ffa cup they will do more advertising for the ffa cup then the ffa 

TBH their State Leagues would be better off introducing pro/rel before entertaining any thoughts of a Cup comp. In any case they tried a Champions League-format a few years back(the Foxtel Cup) and even the most hardcore Aussie Rules fan wouldn't have known it was on...

Cup comp in Aussie rules would not work, because as much as they hate to admit it, AFL is not a game anymore based on skill. It’s athleticism. Nobody could go close to competing against full time professionals. 

One just has to look at the skills of current players to see how poor marking and kicking for goal is. 

Correct.
Soccer (Football) has an in-built advantage in it's low scoring nature in that it tends to throw up more upsets than other sports.
In the 5 & 1/2 FFA cups that have been run, we've seen A-League sides get knocked out by state league teams 8 times (in 54 matches between an A-League side and a state league side).
I dare say you could run 100 matches of Aussie Rules between an AFL side and a state league side and never have an upset.

Related article (although it's comparing English football to US sports, not AFL): 
https://www.nature.com/news/2006/060102/full/060102-1.html

If you pit a team made up of blokes like this

against one consisting of blokes like this


...well there's only one way that can end(both on the scoreboard and on the field)💀

just learned this game is on tonight at AAMI

Checking out this AFLX for the first team, what were the AFL thinking it absolutely rubbish. Did they think some 2 kick shootout would take off?

Watched 3 mins of it. Wtf . Aami park shouldn't  be used for this shit but since the afl run everything .They can

Not just no upsets between an AFL side and a state league team, but you would get 100 point blow outs every game. Nobody would watch it.

The afl did a state based knockout competition a few years ago called the foxtel cup. I think it was invitation only though,  ran for a few years and i was quite intrigued,  i used to like the game years ago but hate it for many reasons now.

Give me a domestic International Rules league

Feels like for this to work AFL clubs would have to be handicapped- like 15 v 18 or even 18 v 21. 

I'm not sure that'd be necessary. The best of the AFL were beaten regularly by Irish amateurs in the "International Rules" series.
Last I remember the AFL professionals had to resort to thuggery to win and which resulted in the Irish calling off the series due to player welfare concerns.

That's because the AFL players had no soccer skills. It was embarrassing to watch them. A bit of soccer skills is needed for international rules, and the Irish were ok.

That and the Irish players played with the round ball in Gaelic football  for months on end. Whilst the afl boys used the series as a massive pissup

Yeah I remember watching one of these " international rules " things. I saw the Irish blokes dribbling and passing along the ground. They always shot into the net & worked the keeper.
The AFL blokes just about always kicked it over and rarely at the keeper, moving him around. They always passed handball style and only got the ball off the Irish by using body charges, wrestling, etc.
The Irish beat them, but if the entire Irish team were professional they would have thrashed them