Current season, competition or edition: 2016 SANFL season |
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Formerly | South Australian Football Association (1877–1906) South Australian Football League (1907–1927) |
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Sport | Australian rules football |
Founded | 30 April 1877 |
Inaugural season | 1877 |
CEO | Jake Parkinson |
No. of teams | 10 |
Country | Australia |
Most recent champion(s) |
Sturt Football Club (14th premiership) |
Most titles |
Port Adelaide (36 premierships) |
TV partner(s) | Seven Network |
Sponsor(s) | McDonalds |
Official website | www.sanfl.com.au |
The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL, is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the governing body for the sport of Australian rules football in South Australia.
Originally formed as the South Australian Football Association on 30 April 1877, the SANFL is the oldest surviving football league of any code in Australia and one of the oldest football competitions in the world, forming just a few years after the United Hospitals Challenge Cup (1874), the oldest rugby football competition, and over a decade before The Football League (soccer).
Consisting of a single division competition, the season is an 18-round "home-and-away" (regular) season from April to September. The top five teams play-off in a final series culminating in the grand final for the Thomas Seymour Hill Premiership Trophy. The grand final had traditionally been held at Football Park in October, generally the week after the AFL Grand Final, though this was altered ahead of the 2014 season resulting in Adelaide Oval hosting the grand final in the penultimate weekend of September.
The league owned the sub-licences for South Australia's two AFL clubs – Adelaide Football Club and Port Adelaide Football Club until March 2014, when South Australian Football Commission reached an agreement with the Adelaide and Port Adelaide football clubs – endorsed by the AFL – which will see the two AFL licences transferred to the clubs in return for payments totalling more than $18 million.