Australian Football League reserves affiliations

The Australian Football League stages the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in the country. However, since the late 1980s, when the former Victorian Football League expanded interstate to become the modern Australian Football League, there has not been a league-wide reserves competition; and, since 2000, there has been no dedicated reserves competition of any kind. As a result, AFL-listed players who are not selected in their senior teams are made eligible to play in one of the second-tier state leagues: the Victorian Football League, South Australian National Football League, West Australian Football League, or North East Australian Football League. The system used to accommodate AFL-listed players within these leagues varies considerably from state to state.

In the 2016 season, the eighteen Australian Football League clubs have the following reserves arrangements.

During the 20th century, up to the 1980s, the Victorian Football League was based solely in the state of Victoria, and operated three grades of competition: seniors, reserves (established in 1919), and under-19s (established in 1946). Local players were primarily recruited via the league's metropolitan and country zoning rules, and the clubs had full ability to develop its players through its junior and reserves teams. This same basic structure was used consistently across all of Australia's major state leagues (VFL, SANFL, WAFL and TANFL).

Two factors in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to the end of this traditional arrangement in Victoria. Firstly, the Victorian Football League expanded interstate to become the Australian Football League, and some of the clubs from interstate were unwilling to participate in the minor grades. Secondly, the AFL Draft (first held in 1986) was gradually replacing zoning as the primary means of recruitment to the national league, so the developmental continuity between the under-19, reserves and senior grades had lost its purpose. As a result, the AFL relinquished direct control of the Victorian reserves and junior grades at the end of 1991. The change for the under-19s grade was significant: it was replaced by the TAC Cup, and the AFL clubs' under-19s teams were discarded entirely in favour of new, independent, zone-based under-18s clubs. The change to the reserves league was mostly administrative: it became known as and was governed by the Victorian State Football League, but it was otherwise identical to the former VFL/AFL reserves and is considered a direct continuation.

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