TASMANIA won't be granted a licence to field its own AFL team within the next decade, incoming CEO Gillon McLachlan says.
Asked on Wednesday night whether he foresaw a 19th side being introduced into the competition within the next decade, McLachlan couldn't have been clearer.
"No, no I don’t," he told Fox Footy's AFL 360.
Earlier in April, McLachlan said the ideal football model on the Apple Isle would involve one club playing games in both Launceston and Hobart.
The Hawks remain contracted to play four games a year in Launceston until the end of 2016, while North Melbourne is in its final season of a three-year deal to play two games a year in Hobart.
But the League boss-in-waiting said there wasn't enough playing talent across Australia to warrant another team being brought into the competition.
"I think it's 18 teams … we now have a national footprint broadly where we want," McLachlan said.
"There's a question of Tasmania [having a side] - I'm aware of that (but) I think we are at the limits of what the talent can sustain.
"I think we're at the limits, in most markets, of what's required – it feels right to me."
McLachlan said that although he didn't want a third Western Australian team or a new side based in Tasmania at this stage, he hoped that under his reign the AFL would be recognised as a "truly national" competition.
"It sounds simplistic but it means a national footprint, it means there's a new stadium in Western Australia, a new stadium in Tasmania, it means that every game in the ACT is full [and] Western Sydney," he said.
"It's getting back to a simplistic vision of consolidating an extraordinary period of investment and success under Andrew's tenure."
