AFL BOSS Andrew Dillon led a meeting of many of the competition's senior Indigenous players this week, as the League detailed to clubs two options for its plans to have a dedicated list spot for Indigenous players.

Dillon was joined on a call this earlier this week with Indigenous players and staff members from around the competition as part of the AFL CEO's regular meetings with the group.

Past and present players were strongly represented, with Kysaiah Pickett, Karl Amon, Toby Bedford, Charlie Cameron, Jy Farrar, Arthur Jones, Jarman Impey, Maurice Rioli, Zac Williams, Jack Martin and Lawson Humphries among the players to represent their clubs at the online meeting. 

Former players Chance Bateman (working with West Coast), Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide), Anthony Corrie (Brisbane), Jarrod Harbrow (Gold Coast), Shane Edwards (Adelaide) and Brett Goodes (Geelong) were also involved in the meeting in their roles at their current clubs, while Indigenous player development managers from nearly all clubs were also present as the League spoke to the group about a range of topics, including its work on developing an additional list spot for Indigenous players. 

AFL executives chief operating officer Tom Harley and general manager of First Nations engagement and inclusion Taryn Lee were also in the meeting, which followed the end of Sir Doug Nicholls Rounds over the past fortnight.  

Following that catch-up, the working group of club figures – including list bosses, football bosses and chief executives – were on Friday told of two options the AFL is considering as part of the additional list spots. 

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One proposal is to introduce the additional category B rookie spot for the 2027 or 2028 season, which will come with strict eligibility, with the other consideration to bring in a trial program where clubs have the ability to invite one Indigenous player to the pre-season over the 2026-2027 summer and then retain pre-listing rights to the player for the 2028 season. 

That second scenario would only be an option if the AFL decides to wait until 2028 to introduce the additional list spot. 

Either way the extra list spot would not be mandatory. 

The concept to add in an extra category B rookie list spot for both the AFL and AFLW competitions comes as the AFL sets new targets to increase the number of Indigenous AFL and AFLW players by 2030.