When the AFL draft was introduced, the underlying objectives were to make the competition fairer and more equal.

Today, as the AFL begins the task of repairing the draft, this mechanism for distributing players is failing to fulfil its basic mission. It is neither fair nor a system that genuinely equalises as it once did.

It is also unnecessarily complicated. The points system – which was supposed to be fairer and to give a market value for bids on father-son picks and academy players – has been ruthlessly exploited and is a kind of legitimised rort. It is also incomprehensible to the majority of fans and makes for the dullest “sports” broadcast since the Sydney to Hobart.

Some of the first-round draftees from 2023. Credit: Getty Images

Nick Daicos is the game’s best young player and has been instrumental in delivering Collingwood a premiership. Daicos, as a result of this arcane points/bidding system, was acquired for a raft of picks (38, 40, 42, 44) that wouldn’t fetch you a second-string key defender in a genuine auction.

The same applied to Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, bid on at pick one in 2020 as the AFL’s best kid, but picked up by the Bulldogs as a Next Generation Academy (NGA) recruit at the kind of price that would barely land a B-grade midfielder at the trade table; ditto for Sam Darcy (Bulldogs) and the Brisbane Lions’ Will Ashcroft (both father-sons).

The points system is broken and seems likely to be revamped, in what is an overdue change. Teams should pay a price that is closer to the reality of what a player is actually worth; gun players shouldn’t be acquired with crappy later choices.

The price that West Coast put on the rights to this year’s No.1 pick Harley Reid demonstrates the Grand Canyon between what these young academy/father-son stars are worth and what their clubs are paying in these heavily compromised drafts, under the current mess.

The Eagles were offered three first-rounders – including at least one early first-rounder from North, Hawthorn and Melbourne – for the rights to Reid, but didn’t bite.

The AFL has to continue with the northern academies, which are essential to the expansion teams – Gold Coast especially – and to Sydney and the Lions. The question is how the bids for the best of those local players should work, and how this can be done in a way that a) doesn’t weaken those clubs and b) is as fair to the other 14 clubs as possible.