[1] Zoning has been historically an important part of most major Australian football leagues, being usually justified as necessary to ensure a reasonably equitable competition.
Problems later arose as a small number of clubs (i.e. Carlton, Geelong, South Melbourne and later Essendon in the VFA, Norwood, Port Adelaide and South Adelaide in the SAFA, and Fremantle in the WAFA) perennially dominated the competition, leaving considerable pressure on the leagues to eliminate this inequality to retain interest.
In the early years of Australian Rules football, metropolitan clubs were unable to buy players from rural leagues.
[7] From the mid-1960s, Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Richmond (and to a lesser extent Geelong) perennially dominated the competition because their greater wealth allowed them to monopolise top country players and build up greater playing strength than was previously possible, while Footscray, North Melbourne and Fitzroy were left in grave danger of folding.
[8] The VFL's response was to zone rural Victoria and the Riverina of New South Wales in a similar manner to metropolitan Melbourne.
Because of the sparseness of Australia's rural population, the country zones related not to the player’s address, but rather to the league in which he played.
Most significantly, St Kilda's return to being perennially close to or on the bottom of the ladder in the mid-1970s after a period of success from 1961 to 1973 has been related to its loss of many players to Hawthorn from the Frankston area, which was already becoming part of metropolitan Melbourne when country zoning began.
[11] St Kilda temporarily lost eight points for two wins against Footscray and Melbourne, later reinstated on appeal,[12] and was fined $5,000 for playing Cox in the first eight rounds.
The academies were designed to aid the development of junior footballers from the states traditionally dominated by rugby league.
This was designed to give all clubs an incentive to invest directly in junior development, particularly focussing on diverse and indigenous backgrounds.