The AFL season gets underway on Thursday night. Finally.

The off-season has been long and full of off-field controversy, so this week on BPL, we rank from one to 10 the big stories of the AFL summer.

01 Fev

He'd earn the number one ranking based on his antics on Brownlow night alone. Or his role in the Lara Bingle fiasco. The fact that he is front and centre for both mean this has been an off-season he (and we) will remember for many, many years.

02 Andrew Lovett

A grubby, sordid affair. Whether it was a distraction for St Kilda will only be known once the season gets underway.

03 Mathew Stokes

The Cats have been so good for so long on and off the field that the revelation that one of their players had been charged with possessing and trafficking cocaine was a shock. The swift and firm penalty imposed by the club was notable as well but like the Saints, we're yet to know how much of a distraction this has been.

04 World Cup bid

We've enjoyed the posturing from both the AFL and the FFA over what may happen in either 2018 and 2022. Just when we thought it had died down for a while, Andrew Demetriou beat his chest loudly at the AFL season launch the other night. Ths one will run its course right through until the FIFA vote in December.

05 Kevin Sheedy named head coach of GWS

Just when he thought he was set for life as an AFL Ambassador, Sheedy bobs up to be the inaugural head coach of GWS. As a marketing ploy it was stroke of genius and hasn't he already stuck in the craw of Swans coach Paul Roos? Although as some have predicted, it remains to be seen whether Sheedy will actually coach GWS in round one, 2012. Roos, of course, will be 12 months removed from the Swans by then. Imagine if...

06 Blues booze cruise

The footy club that shares its name with a brewery showed its love for the amber fluid on a boat cruise that went awry. Rookies being handcuffed to a senior players to ensure they they keep drinking? Sounds like a John Belushi movie.

07 Gary Ablett's next destination

We're tired of this one and sadly, the games that are about to start won't be a distraction. The Geelong champ's not-so-clandestine meeting with Gold Coast officials late last year opened, as the Coodabeen Champions would say, "a Pandora's Box of worms". The longer he keeps shtum, the more likely it is his bags are packed.

08 The bump

Happened in a practice match, so technically the off-season. So how is it that Lance Franklin gets weeks for bumping the player with the ball, while Josh Kennedy gets off for bumping (and breaking the jaw) of a player who doesn't? The law is farcical.

09 Barry Hall

The saviour of the Bulldogs, or so we are led to believe. His off-season recruitment by the Western Bulldogs was huge and the swathe he cut through the NAB Cup even more huge. he'll be bigger than Ted Whitten and Charlie Sutton out west if he helps steer the Dogs to the flag.

10 Luke Ball

Didn't get to the Magpies during trade week but eventually did at the draft, with the Saints letting him go for nothing. Slow and can't kick over a jam tin, yet apparently intrinsic to Collingwood's hopes of winning the flag.