The issue, Melbournehammer, is that the clubs all agreed to set up the academies under one set of rules, and now that there is a chance the Swans might get a bit of luck, they want to change those rules. Worse still, we are being accused of cheating, and by Eddie McGuire of all people.
You can argue the rights and wrongs of the academy rules, but you don't change them just because a top side has a year or two where it gains an advantage from them. If, say, Hawthorn or (dare I say it) Collingwood had a year or two in which they got a couple of potential top-10 father-son picks, would that be reason enough to change those rules? Of course not.
The academies exist to increase the AFL talent pool. The clubs decided in their wisdom to tie them to the 4 northern clubs, to ask those clubs to contribute to their financing, and in return to offer them first dibs on one player a year. That was the deal. You don't change it as soon as it yields a result.
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