AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou has dismissed any suggestion that clubs are 'tanking' matches in order to secure higher draft picks at the end of the season.
"If anybody thinks that the panacea for success is getting the first draft pick they're kidding themselves - they are just absolutely kidding themselves," Demetriou said on the final day of the annual meeting between the AFL executive and the club CEOs.
Demetriou explained that there are clubs in the AFL who have had high draft picks over a number of years who are still languishing in the bottom reaches of the ladder and, conversely, there are currently teams who are on the cusp of a finals berth without the aid of recent top draft picks.
"There's so much more to go into being a successful football club than to getting the first draft pick. It's about your coaching panel, it's about your medical science, it's about your rehab, it's about your physical conditioning," Demetriou said.
"It's about having a good board, it's about good governance, it's about how your club's run and managed by the CEO."
Demetriou insisted that football clubs have little to gain out of purposely losing matches.
"If people are thinking out there that it's good for clubs to lose games, people's livelihoods rest on this, coaches lose their jobs - they lose their jobs," said Demetriou.
"It just doesn't make any sense, it's a nonsensical argument that gets a run and the sooner we stop talking about it and adding this farcical situation to the competition the better."