Expansion 20th team - Irish AFLW team

[MelbourneGWS]

Eddie’s proposing that after Tasmania, a 20th AFLW team be composed of Irish players here and based in Melbourne (or Sydney).

Once Tasmania enters the competition in 2028 as the 19th team, McGuire believes a Melbourne-based Irish team could quickly follow.

"As a result of the idea that an Irish team can play Australian football, last week I met with the new consul general of Ireland in Victoria for the first time, Marie-Claire Hughes, and the Irish ambassador in Canberra, Fiona Flood, and we were discussing this and it is now being discussed at AFL level and there is a genuine desire to put a 20th team into the AFLW competition when Tasmania comes in of an Irish team," McGuire told Nine's Footy Classified.

"We would have an Irish team. We're not playing in Ireland. It won't be a long away trip. They'll be based probably in Melbourne or maybe in Sydney.

"We the collective football world are looking at integrating an Irish team into the AFLW.

AFL News 2026: AFLW considering Irish expansion team following Tasmania says Eddie McGuire

 

[Coolangatta]

Shouldn’t the women’s 20th AFL team be in the same location as the men’s?

 

[Walshawk]

Yes we need to dilute the playing standard further. Has Eddie ever had a good idea? Surely no one at the AFL would be taking this seriously.

 

[MelbourneGWS]

Yes we need to dilute the playing standard further. Has Eddie ever had a good idea? Surely no one at the AFL would be taking this seriously.

According to Eddie he has discussed it with the Irish ambassador, and it is also now “being discussed at AFL level and there is a genuine desire to put a 20th team into the AFLW competition when Tasmania comes in of an Irish team”.

Melbourne Celtics - Dillon may think it’s a good idea?

 

[Cleavy]

"Eddie is proposing <random football thought>..." well, that's enough of that...

 

[Underarm]

Its a good idea if you don't ever watch AFLW.

So pretty standard for Eddie.

 

[Canberra Pear]

The only way this would be a good idea is if they called them the Canberra Celtics and play all their games at Manuka.

Footy isn't just on the field. Who's going to support them? Melbourne already has 10 fanbases (12 with Fitzroy and South Melbourne).

 

[jwikked]

This is bizarre. At what point do they give up on being purely Irish and start accepting anyone with a surname Mac or Mc??

The AFLW is a big enough money sink as it is, why rush to 20 teams?

 

[Cmarsh]

The only way this would be a good idea is if they called them the Canberra Celtics and play all their games at Manuka.

Footy isn't just on the field. Who's going to support them? Melbourne already has 10 fanbases (12 with Fitzroy and South Melbourne).

The Irish are pretty good a getting behind Irish centered teams. Pretty big Irish diaspora in Aus so they may have a local weight of numbers to form a respectable fanbase.

 

[Teen Wolf]

The chance of any standalone women's team existing is zero point zero.

Eddie also talked up his "International Rules in New York" idea as if the AFL was interested. They weren't.

 

[Gough]

Qualification, once drank a Guinness and knows the chorus to Fairytale of New York.

 

[Knees of Ben Allan]

Of course they are, Eddie . Just another chapter in his Citizen Kane aping slide into isolation and irrelevance.

He reminds me of that functioning alcoholic you know, who shouts you much grog, just so that they can talk at you all night.

Here he is, burdened by memories that were and weren’t, like an astronaut returning to earth; no longer excited by the inanity that was his life before and after.

So he buys the means of production, so that he can pay intelligent enough people (the likes of Bartel, Hird & Twoomey) to listen to his unqualified spitballing, with the coherency of a latrine conversation at closing time

Can’t he go and learn golf or something?

 

[Rob]