page_title: Australian National Football Council
section_title: Post-war
hierarchical_section_title: Australian National Football Council / History / Post-war
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Australian rules footballer and administrator Chas Brownlow.
context_page_description: The Australian National Football Council 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 sport's individual state leagues which controlled football in their states. The council was the owner of the laws of the game and managed interstate administrative and football matters. Its function was superseded by the AFL Commission.
  The council underwent several name changes during its existence, and at different times it was also known as: the Australasian Football Council, the Australian Football Council, the National Football League and the National Australian Football Council.
context_section_description: In 1919, the council met for the first time in five years. At that meeting, the council voted to reduce representation for each state from two delegates to one, deciding that it would be preferable for each state to have only one controlling body. This meant that the Goldfields Football League lost its representation on the Council, and in the bitter aftermath it temporarily broke off its relationship with the WAFL, choosing to affiliate with the VFA rather than the WAFL and resulting in the annual Western Australian State Premiership not being contested for the next two years. With the reduction in delegates and the withdrawal of New Zealand, the council was reduced to six delegates and its name was amended to the Australian Football Council.
  In 1927, Canberra was granted a non-voting position on the council. The city of Canberra was only about fifteen years old, Australian rules football had only been played in Canberra for a few years, and the council had originally intended to let Canberra fall under the New South Wales league's control; but after discussion, the council decided that the game had a chance to prosper in the new city, and that it could be better developed there if it had its own controlling body, rather than a New South Wales body preoccupied with competing with rugby league in Sydney – thus a non-voting delegate was granted. In a rebranding exercise, the council was renamed the Australian National Football Council, and (with the exception of the VFL) the controlling bodies took names ending with 'Australian National Football League' – resulting in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), Western Australian National Football League (WANFL), Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL), etc.
  Through the 1920s and into the 1930s, the council's ability to manage the game was hindered by conservative procedural provisions, so some changes were made to streamline its operation:
  In 1929, in response to the cost and time required to assemble quorate meetings of interstate delegates in a time before commercial air travel, the council determined that motions could be passed in a vote by rotary letter instead of a meeting.
  In 1933, voting rules were amended such that a motion could be carried on a 4–2 majority provided at least two of the three major states (Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia) voted in favour. This had two benefits of giving the major states – who were the main financial contributors to the council – more voting power than the minor states, and in removing the need for a three quarters majority (which required at least 5–1 in favour) to pass motions.
caption: Victoria's Chas Brownlow presided over the council from 1919 until his death in 1924
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