THE AFL has today brought Port Adelaide back into Australia’s football development pathway by allocating it a comprehensive development zone for player development.
These zones see the Eyre Peninsula and Port Adelaide’s metropolitan heartland returned to the club.
The AFL released its Next Generation AFL Club Academy zoning for the Power, Crows, Dockers and Eagles on Tuesday.
The zones are designed to attract and engage male and female players not currently participating in the game, as well as those in remote communities who have limited access to existing football pathways.
Port Adelaide will gain seed funding from the AFL to establish academies in 2016, with a particular focus on developing Aboriginal, multicultural and female pathways.
Academy development will continue again in 2017.
Automatic talent concessions will be provided to Port Adelaide and other clubs to select players of Asian and African heritage or indigenous players from its APY Lands regions in the draft.
Concessions to recruit other culturally and linguistically diverse players will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the AFL.
Port's heartland back
After surrendering its traditional Eyre Peninsula and metropolitan zones as part of its football program restructure in 2014, Port Adelaide has reacquired its 'heartland' via the Next Generation Academy allocations.
The areas distributed to the two South Australian elite clubs correlate to those provided by the SANFL to its eight non-AFL teams.
Port Adelaide has been allocated the zones of Woodville-West Torrens, Norwood, South Adelaide and West Adelaide in the AFL's distribution.
Those regions include the Eyre, Fleurieu and Yorke Peninsulas, Kangaroo Island, parts of the mid-north and Riverland, as well as Adelaide’s north-eastern suburbs, north-western and outer southern suburbs.
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The Eyre Peninsula has been allocated to Port Adelaide as a development zone for next generation AFL academies
The APY lands - which are part of Woodville-West Torrens' regional zone - have been divided between Port Adelaide and the Crows.
Port has been allocated the communities of Ernabella, Amata, Murputja and Pipalyatjara (APY Lands - West), with the Crows gaining Kenmore, Fregon, Mimili and Indulkana (East).
Adelaide's zones have been allocated in line with those of Central Distirct, Glenelg, North Adelaide and Sturt.
