Watch the club's response on PTV by clicking on the video player above this story.
The AFL admits an 'unhealthy obsession' with tanking talk is one of the reasons priority draft picks have been scrapped in their current form.
The League has scrapped the special assistance rule, under which poor-performing clubs were automatically granted priority picks in the NAB AFL Draft.
Stricter criteria for any assistance has been developed to replace the old rule, which was consistently linked to tanking.
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AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson said: "Everything we're aware of, and the studies that have been done, say there's no evidence of actual tanking occurring.
"There's no doubt that there is an unhealthy obsession if you like, in some quarters, with the whole idea that there could be tanking."
The AFL commission will now use discretion to hand out priority picks. And while there will be a formula to help guide that, club's won't be told what it is.
Anderson also ruled out the idea of an NBA-style lottery for draft positions.
Under the old rule, any team that accumulated 16 match points or fewer in a year was entitled to a selection prior to the second round of the draft, while any club with two consecutive seasons of 16 points or less, was entitled to a selection prior to the first round of the draft.
Clubs getting a priority pick after just one bad season had become particularly controversial.
The most recent example of that was when the West Coast Eagles received a priority pick (it was No. 26, which they used to select highly touted key forward Jack Darling) in the 2010 draft.
Although the Eagles had won the wooden spoon that year, the situation was seen as unfair because the club had won a premiership in 2006.
The new system, which is yet to be finalised, will take into account a number of factors.
They are: a club's premiership points over a period of years; its percentage over a period of years; any finals appearances in recent seasons; any premierships in recent seasons; and club injury rates in each relevant season.
"The commission accepted a recommendation that stricter conditions for any special assistance should be developed," AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson said.
"The old rule had become a permanent feature of the draft that skewed the draft in favour of the bottom clubs of that particular year, relative to other clubs near them on the ladder.
"The draft, along with the salary cap rules, are designed to ensure an even spread of talent between the clubs and clubs should not be over-compensated for a short period of poor performance.
"As clubs have become more sophisticated with talent identification and development of young players, the success around early picks in the draft has become much greater."
Port Adelaide, the Brisbane Lions and Gold Coast would all have qualified for picks at the start of the first round if they'd had poor seasons this year.
