Australian National Football Council
the national organizational body for Australian rules football in Australia until 1995, which was known as the National Football League from 1975 until 1989
The Australian National Football Council (ANFC) was the national governing body for Australian rules football in Australia from 1906 until 1995. The council was a body of delegates representing each of the principal leagues which controlled the sport in their respective regions. The council was the owner of the laws of the game and managed interstate administrative and football matters. Its function was superseded by the Australian Football League Limited (AFL).
The council underwent several name changes during its existence, and at different times it was also known as: the Australasian Football Council (1906–1919), the Australian Football Council (1920–1927 and 1973–1975), the National Football League (NFL) (1975–1989) and the National Australian Football Council (NAFC) (1989–1995).
Structure and purpose
Throughout its history, the ANFC was the top level administrative body for the sport of Australian rules football. In this capacity, it served four main functions:
It was the owner of the official laws of Australian rules football, with the intention that the sport be played under uniform rules across Australia. Any rule changes were discussed and approved within the council, and any changes were binding on all affiliated bodies nationally (although exceptions, known as "domestic rules" could be made with the permission of the council – amateur football, for example, was given special permission to use an order-off rule to control rough play).
It established and supervised the processes of interstate player clearances and transfers. This included maintaining rules relating to residential qualifications for interstate clearances, intervening in disputes between the states, and ensuring that the clearance systems were enforced.
The public source identifies “Australian National Football Council” as the national organizational body for Australian rules football in Australia until 1995, which was known as the National Football League from 1975 until 1989. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Australian, National and Football.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23091324. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1995, 1919 and 1920.
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This entry incorporates text from “Australian National Football Council” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.