AFL needs to follow US draft blueprint

Betstar's Alan Eskander believes the AFL should not reward teams who finish down the ladder with priority draft picks.

A LEADING bookmaker has called on the AFL to adopt a draft lottery system to stamp out tanking.

Betstar's Alan Eskander says the league must follow the lead of basketball and ice hockey in the United States and abandon rules which give last placed clubs the prized first draft choice.

Melbourne officials Cameron Schwab and Chris Connolly and former coach Dean Bailey are facing life bans from the game over allegations the Demons set out to lose games in 2009.

But Eskander said the league is partly responsible for the Dees' crisis, given the massive carrot it dangled in front of clubs to finish last and qualify for an extra priority draft pick.

Eskander said it was time to integrate a draft system whereby clubs which miss finals enter a lottery to determine the draft order.

"The AFL put a lot of weight on what goes on in US sport, they do a lot of scouting missions and they follow a really strong precedent," Eskander said.

"If they came out next week and said we were going to adopt a model of US sport and go down a lottery path, I would embrace that.

"It has been fair and equitable and over a long period of time and testing in the US has shown there isn't any issues in relation to tanking.

"It is shown that it is motivating teams appropriately, rather than motivating them to lose in order to get picks."

The NBA draft lottery is a huge television event, drawing almost three million viewers last year to watch the allocation of draft picks.

The lottery is weighted so the team with the worst record has the best chance of obtaining higher draft picks.

The NBA process involves drawing ping pong balls and factors in thousands of possible combinations.

Eskander said the AFL was right to abolish the priority draft pick last year but said the system still needed improvement.

"The AFL has basically said the worse you are the more benefits you are going to get," Eskander said.

"At some stage they need to put their hand up as well and say 'we've contributed to this debacle, because the system we had in place was flawed'.

"It was fundamentally flawed in its motivations and how it motivated teams to perform.

"I have some sympathy for Melbourne because the AFL has played its part in this whole debacle."

Melbourne must respond to the AFL's 1000-page tanking investigation by January 29.

Eskander was pleased the AFL was investigating the matter seriously after playing down tanking allegations in the past.

"I was very alarmed and quite flabbergasted with the AFL's approach up until now, where they've just buried their head in the stand and said 'I don't know what you are talking about, tanking doesn't go on'," he said.

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