Part of the fun of following the AFL is the constant stream of bad ideas and their unintended consequences.

Yes, the AFL and its clubs are a terrific case study in the Dunning-Kruger effect

Most fans think they could run their club or the competition better than those who currently do and looking at this list, they’re probably right.

Extending Damien Hardwick’s contract

Much has been written about this already. It made no sense at the time, let alone with hindsight.

The Board said they had to do it when they did, to lock Hardwick in. You only need to lock something in that people would try to steal.

Of course, it was also a bad idea because it led to…

Focus on Football Ticket

The rival ticket’s push for the Richmond Board was so shambolic and inept; it made me believe they were qualified to be the Richmond Board.

They certainly seemed to have everything required, a vague platform, poor media skills and a general sense that this was all being made up as they went along.

Focus on Football even had the same policies as the current board.

So bad was this campaign that it made the current board look competent.

Truly, that takes some doing. I mean, this was a board that appointed an accounting firm to review their football department.

That’s like getting Brendon Fevola to review your finance department.

Ten teams in finals

Football operations boss Mark Evans revealed that the AFL had looked at a new structure that involved ten teams in the finals.

Operation: Get More Money would have seen the top six and a further four teams battling for wildcard positions. It’s such a bad idea that I almost don’t know where to start.

It would mean more teams would make the finals than miss out. No wonder society has a problem with entitlement.

Everyone gets a gold medal kids! No need to rush.

No wonder all our national sides are a joke and our Olympians let us all down.

Even eight teams is too many. Did anyone see North in the finals? Case closed.

17-5 Fixture

The fear of boring games leads to some bad ideas. We’ve seen zones floated before and now we have the 17-5 fixture, which apparently has some currency at AFL House.

Under the 17-5 proposal, all clubs play each other once in their first 17 games before the competition is split into three groups of six, per ladder positions.

The remaining five games then determine their starting positions in a finals series.

Does that make sense? Not really. It’s like this scene from BASEketball:

Overly complicated solutions like this are kind of the AFL’s speciality but this one is top shelf.

Dividing things up won’t change the fact that a bad team is a bad team.

Pointless games are inevitable. We still watch them. Trying to pretend they mean something insults the intelligence of fans.

It’s not like Brisbane’s games would have been any more exciting in the second half of the season because of this model.

Even playing for draft picks isn’t exciting because fans know the incompetent teams just waste them.

Hiring Gubby Allan

Now Eddie McGuire says the Pies are certainly not in crisis.

The Malthouse-Buckley transition is also going spectacularly well too. Got that everyone in the media who are making stuff up?

In fact, Eddie would like you to report on how the Pies have won the last three Grand Finals.

Hiring Allan was an odd move to begin with, but the more we hear about it, the worse it seems. The Pies knew this was a risk and still chanced it.

It’s fine to take risks, but you usually want a reward attached to it. The best outcome of this is you have Gubby Allan as your football manager.

Now they’re on the lookout for another football manager, a position at Collingwood that has the longevity of a Spinal Tap drummer.

Delisting four players right before the finals

It turns out delisting four veterans, including a club legend, on the eve of finals does not boost morale.

Now, almost everyone on the planet could have told you this, but a small bubble of ignorance existed at the North Melbourne Football Club.

That bubble has now been popped so let’s chalk this up to a learning experience then.

Yes, delisting Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Nick Dal Santo and Michael Firrito might have been the right decision, but the timing was terrible.

The reaction of North’s hierarchy to the outcry was, even more, telling, with Brad Scott saying it was ‘horrific’ and the hardest thing he has done in his job.

Poor Brad. It never feels good throwing other people under the bus to save yourself, but I suppose it’s necessary.

Trading Sam Mitchell for pick 88

Sam Mitchell hasn’t even played a practice match for the Eagles, and he’s already won a Brownlow medal.

All the nice talk at Hawthorn about this paving the way for his coaching career doesn’t change the fact they traded their best and fairest for no return of note.

Still, I look forward to the Hawks saying on draft day that they can’t believe the player they drafted at 88 ‘was still available’.

Ticketek

The idea that Ticketek is a company capable of selling tickets is one of the worst I’ve heard.

They’ve got all the trappings of a ticket company; a website, ads for concerts and sporting events, hyper-inflated fees but the selling tickets bit is lacking.

I’m a bit old-fashioned in thinking the enabling people to purchase tickets is a core function of a ticket company.

Several times this season Ticketek struggled with this concept. The sale of the early rounds at the MCG was a disaster, as was the semi-final between Sydney and Adelaide.

Ticketek to their credit did manage to fix some of the technology later in the year; they managed to charge people who didn’t succeed in procuring a ticket.

Funny that they fixed the charging bit first.

They then made a big deal that they would refund those people like it was some huge gesture rather than something they were legally obligated to do.

Otherwise, it would have just been you know, stealing, like those ‘handling fees,’ they charge you for when you printing off the tickets on your own printer.

Calling for Tom Boyd to take a pay cut

Awks.

AFL X

You should never give the AFL too much time to think about things or they come up with things like ‘AFL X’.

AFL X is a new format of the game played on a rectangle field and with seven players on each side.

A trial was run during the year at Etihad Stadium using players from the Northern Blues and the Coburg Lions.

The AFL’s general manager of game development Simon Lethlean said the project was just a test and in its early stages.

He said it was an idea that came from an “internal think-tank” project.

The idea that there’s an active think tank in AFL House is the scariest thing I’ve ever heard.

The AFL and ‘thinking’ are always a dangerous combination, and nothing good has ever come out of any think tank in the entire history of the world.

This is surely an attempt to design a game Collingwood can compete in, given you only need seven players.

Shot Clock

The shot clock. Surely a favourite for the dumbest idea of the year, in that it got implemented.

It was a half-baked idea that no one wanted and it served no purpose.

Then, surprise, surprise, it creates a bad look when Mason Wood does the smart thing and lets the shot clock run down until the siren goes to secure a win.

So, something that should never have existed creates a problem and what do the AFL do? Get rid of it?

No. That would be too logical.

Instead, they announce two even more idiotic additions to the already ridiculously pointless gimmick.

Operations manager Mark Evans announced that ‘the shot clock would not be displayed in the final two minutes of each quarter’, and ‘umpires would also be instructed to stop players from deliberately running down the clock.’

Huh? How does that work? Let’s hear Mark explain that second part.

“If the umpire thinks the player is just deliberately delaying starting a proper goal-kicking routine, then the player can be moved on and hopefully that cleans up most things,” Evans said.

Hang on. Is there a time limit or not? Surely ‘acting like you’re going to kick it’ isn’t suddenly required?

Was that Mason’s big sin, that he didn’t pretend he wasn’t running down the clock?

I’m genuinely staggered by this whole thing. Are the players meant to commit to the role of goal kicker like some method actor, just to make the AFL’s silly idea look slightly less silly?

Are the umpires now like movie critics? “I didn’t honestly believe you were committed to the role of goal kicker?”

Image over substance, the AFL summed up in one case study.

Mid-Season trade period

Yes, the AFL’s desire to become another sport continues with AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan saying the mid-season trade period could be a reality as early as next season.

My biggest concern is this provides the numerous terrible ‘list managers’ to stuff up their club faster than ever before.

Having only one period at the end of the year was a check on their stupidity.

Apparently, this idea gained momentum after ‘key officials and club list managers’ had a ‘brainstorming session’ on the way club lists are shaped in the future.

Now, that group seems to me to be lacking a crucial bit of gear to conduct a ‘brainstorm’, and this result hasn’t exactly changed my view of this.

Playing in China

In an attempt to goad China into war with Australia, the AFL will send Port Adelaide and the Gold Coast to Shanghai in round eight.

If there’s one thing these clubs both need, it’s more travel and a round eight trip to China is just perfect.

Adding to the fun of international travel is playing a game in the less than clear air of Shanghai.

During the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government shut down industry to ensure athletes didn’t have to breathe dangerous levels of pollution.

Something tells me they won’t be doing the same in Shanghai for this.

Koch has said Port Adelaide need to have new revenue streams to survive and he’s probably right, given South Australia doesn’t have an economy anymore, now that the quince paste boom is over.

I’m sure Power fans would prefer a bit more of this energy be put into winning football games, an old-fashioned idea I know.

Appealing to the Swiss Federal Tribunal

The lawyers surrounding the Essendon saga have shown themselves to be good at one thing, making money from the Essendon saga.

Either they were giving good advice like ‘there’s no way you’ll win this, just stop’ and being ignored or they are the Focus on Football of the legal world.

This was a ridiculous challenge, and even they pretty much confirmed it at the time.

Now, people will say they have the right to exhaust every legal avenue, and that’s true, but I have the right to bang my head against a brick wall, but I don’t.

Banning T-Shirt Cannons

If there’s any doubt we should just pack it up and call time on this little thing called life, it probably now.

Victoria Police this year banned AFL clubs from firing T-shirts into the crowd at matches.

In case you weren’t aware, it’s become popular to use ‘T-Shirt cannons’ both overseas and here in Australia at sporting events.

North Melbourne bought one that shoots a dozen all at once. It’s the best signing they’ve had in years.

But the police told the AFL that a T-shirt cannon is classified as a firearm and requires a category E firearm license under the Firearms Act 1996.

That’s the same license that covers tear gas guns and mortars. Yes, mortars.

They said if the clubs applied for the licence they would be refused and then said not only could they not use them but that possession of a T-Shirt cannon would result in large fines, even jail.

Nice to see Victoria Police focusing on the important stuff.