While McGuire sees the program as giving an unfair advantage to clubs such as the Brisbane Lions, new AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has assured that the Academies are an essential part of the AFL’s plans to grow the code.
“We need more talented athletes coming out of NSW and Queensland and the academies are starting to be successful,” Mr McLachlan said during a media conference in Sydney on Thursday.
“We also have to make sure that's not at the expense of on-field equity. The appropriate way to look at that is through the review of the way the bidding system works.”
The Hyundai Lions Academy has already produced four listed Lions players – Jordon Bourke, Archie Smith, Jonathan Freeman, and Isaac Conway – while a handful of others are a chance to be drafted in 2014.
Over the past few years, the Club has invested countless hours, money and resources into the program in the hope that more Queenslanders form part of the Lions’ list in the future.
As it currently stands, only six of the Lions’ 40 senior listed players in 2014 hail from Queensland.
Such is the importance of the Academy programs, that the four clubs from northern states – the Lions, Gold Coast, Sydney and Greater Western Sydney – have banded together to fight for their right to develop home-grown talent.
“There are four expansion clubs and we share similar challenges, the view was we should get together on a regular basis to share information and to form a voice for issues we face,” Lions Chairman Bob Sharpless told The Courier Mail.
“There was some commentary that was made by the president of Collingwood that lit a match under the issue. We have been in discussions on what is the appropriate response and how we should act on the issue because it is a critical one.”
