They don't like any club benefiting from decent players out of their academy - that's the bottom line. The Riverina thing is basically a smokescreen - just the latest excuse for lobbying for more restrictions.

If we get top talents from Grafton and Ballina in successive drafts they'll complain about them living so far from Sydney and they would have been just as good without an academy etc etc etc.

The AFL are absolutely spineless and couldn't provide leadership if they were tortured into doing so - they either believe in the system they have implemented, or they think it is flawed and should be changed. Choose a position and stick to it. Instead they passively say they support academies, yet allow all the chatter and once it has sufficient momentum, they submit to the noise as if they're democratically upholding the just thing to do.

The only aspect I think has merit is placing some restriction on how long a player has to be in your academy, before you can select them and benefit from the 20% discount. Maybe they have to be in your academy for 2+ years - otherwise you can still nominate players from your zone, but don't get the points discount.

That seems to be one of the criticisms of GWS and some of their Riverina kids - that they hadn't heard of some of them until they blossomed late and basically fell into their lap.