{"id":294363,"date":"2025-10-01T15:58:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T05:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=294363"},"modified":"2025-10-01T15:58:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T05:58:39","slug":"afl-commission-approves-elimination-of-centre-bounce-and-substitute-rule-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=294363","title":{"rendered":"AFL Commission Approves Elimination of Centre Bounce and Substitute Rule for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Australian Football League Commission has ratified major rule changes for the 2026 men&#8217;s season, replacing the centre bounce with umpire throw-ups for restarts and removing the substitute rule to allow teams 21 players with five on the interchange bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These adjustments, following consultations with clubs, umpires, players, and the AFL Players&#8217; Association, aim to enhance umpire safety, ensure consistent decision-making, and minimise game disruptions as seen in the 2025 Grand Final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AFLW data indicates potential rises in midfield scoring and contested possessions under the new system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFLW data indicates potential rises in midfield scoring and contested possessions under the new system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":269123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10578,273,35],"tags":[18325],"class_list":["post-294363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afl","category-australia","category-breaking-news","tag-afl-rule-changes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294364,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294363\/revisions\/294364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/269123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}