We wrote on this website a few days ago that it would be business as usual for the AFL during the World Cup and neither it, nor the other football codes would retreat to the flanks in order to let the world game dominate the sporting landscape.

On Friday the AFL lived up to its word, sanctioning Hall of Famer and Auskick ambassador Robert Dipierdomenico for racist remarks at a function in Adelaide last week, but more fundamentally, announcing an initiative that will fundamentally change the way the sport is to be played.

The league has put on the table various proposals it is considering as to how to stage the pre-season, the home and away competition and the finals, once it moves to an 18-team competition in 2012.

Strategically, it is a smart move because it keeps the AFL in the headlines in the 24 hours leading up to the most important game of soccer played by an Australian team in five years.

Conferences? Twelve teams in the finals? It is pretty meaty stuff and it will keep the talkback callers busy right through an entire weekend when they might otherwise be discussing whether Pim Verbeek should be playing both Josh Kennedy and Harry Kewell up front against Ghana.

And the AFL is at least giving credence to the idea that it wants the public's input into the way forward, with fans able to have their say and even have their view published through the league website, afl.com.au.

Judging by the large number of responses in just a few hours, the fans haven't wasted their time.

It is not the first time the AFL has turned to the public through its website to canvas opinion and the league would seem to have embraced social media better than most other sporting codes in Australia and as well as any overseas. Its online operations seem to be growing by the month and once the new TV deal is bedded down, it remains to be seen whether it partners again with Telstra for its online presence or decides to go it alone.

As for the way to structure its season, how about this:

* Two nine-team conferences, playing a 24-game season. You play each team in your conference twice, and the other conference once.

* Scrap the NAB Cup and replace with two NAB Challenge matches, with each team being required to play at least once in a regional/rural development in a bid to promote the game.

* Bite the bullet and ensure that the two Queensland, New South Wales, South Australian and Western Australian teams are in separate conferences. It might mean only one Derby/Showdown etc each year, but imagine the anticipation and excitement. Also faierer because each team only has to travel to each state once in a season.

* The ninth game each week should be played either Thursday nights, such as before Easter or during school holidays, or as Saturday twilight fixtures.

* Forget a final 10 or 12. Keep the final eight, with the top four teams in each conference progressing through to the finals. Eight finalists out of 18 teams seems about right because to offer any more finals berths would be to reward mediocrity. Essendon in 2009, anybody?

Not sure whether the two conferences should play their own finals series, with the two conference winners meeting in the grand final, or whether the finals series is mixes up the eight best teams. The AFL is in a position to learn from American sports, where the two best teams are in the same conference and therefore don't meet in, say the SuperBowl or the World Series. If the league can create a finals series structure that allows the two best teams every chance to meet in the grand final, that's your outcome.

With every expansion to the league since 1987, the draw has become less of a fixture and more of a schedule.

It might have taken the taken further expansion of the competition to 18 teams to bring real change, but the AFL has created a genuine opportunity to rid the draw of its anomalies and to create a fixture that is entirely fair. We look forward to seeing how this play itself out.