Proposed VFL/AFL clubs

North was denied entry due to Essendon believing that it would take its recruiting areas.[1]

Port Melbourne was denied entry in favour of South due to its reputation of having unruly fans.[2] North Melbourne eventually gained admission in 1925, and Port Melbourne continued to play in the VFA.

After the split between the VFL and VFA, North Melbourne became one of the stronger clubs in the VFA. In 1908, after University was admitted to the league, North Melbourne merged with West Melbourne and applied to become the tenth team in the league, under the name City Football Club; but, proposal was rejected and Richmond was admitted instead. North Melbourne and West Melbourne were kicked out of the VFA for attempting to defect, but North Melbourne returned to the VFA the same year under a new committee.

In another attempt to gain admission, North Melbourne proposed a merger with Essendon in 1921, when Essendon attempted to move to the Arden Street Oval after its home ground at East Melbourne was closed. The proposal was rejected and both clubs continued in their previous states. North Melbourne finally gained admission to the VFL in 1925.[1]

In the decade following World War I, Footscray became a powerhouse of the VFA. It was a rich club in a strong industrial area, and was able to recruit players aggressively from the VFL. It first applied for membership of the VFL in 1919, and then again in 1922 and 1923. It was admitted in 1925.[6]

In 1954 there was discussion within the VFL to expand the competition to include both Ballarat and Bendigo sides.[7] In 1955 the Ballarat Football Club officially applied to join the VFL. Although the application was referred to a special sub-committee that was to meet and make a recommendation, there is no evidence that the application was ever acted on by the VFL.[8]

In 1980 East Perth of the West Australian Football League applied to join the VFL as the League's first non-Victorian club. Nothing came of this application.[9]

In 1980's Los Angeles Crocodiles applied to join the VFL as the League's first non-Australian club. Nothing came of this application.[10][11][12]

The Norwood Football Club had sought to join the AFL on numerous occasions.

In 1982 the Norwood Football Club had sought discussions with the VFL about admissions but these met with cold responses. When Port Adelaide were privately seeking admission into the AFL during 1990, the AFL approached the club but Norwood decided to follow the SANFL's decision with its intentions undecided at the time.[13]

In 1987, the first year after the admission of the West Coast Eagles to the VFL, traditional rival WAFL clubs East Fremantle and South Fremantle had discussions on the possibility of merging and joining the VFL as a second Perth-based team. The merged club was to have been known as the Fremantle Sharks, and to have played at South Fremantle Oval.[14]

Seven years before its debut season in the AFL, the then SANFL club Port Adelaide applied to become the AFL's first South Australian club. During the 1990 preseason Port Adelaide played a practice match against the Geelong Cats at Football Park in front of 35,000.[15] However the bid met with legal issues within South Australia resulting in the SANFL creating the Adelaide Crows.[16]

The Australian Capital Territory Australian Football League expressed an interest in fielding a team in the VFL/AFL through the late 1980s, in large part to try to improve the profile of the sport in the ACT, since Australian rules football had lost ground to rugby league and basketball since the Canberra Raiders and Canberra Cannons had begun competing at the top level of those two sports. In 1990, the ACTAFL began to arrange a deal with the AFL to field a Canberra-based team in the AFL Reserves competition from 1991, which the ACTAFL hoped would later lead to senior representation.[17] The ACTAFL had received assurances from the AFL throughout 1990 that the bid was progressing well; but progress abruptly stalled and the bid failed in August 1990 when Port Adelaide made its bid to join the AFL, drawing almost all of the AFL's strategic focus to the South Australian situation.[18]

A rival bid proposed by Norwood and financially struggling Sturt to combat Port Adelaide's second bid was seriously considered during the early 1990s. When Port Adelaide won the second licence the Norwood-Sturt merger was still discussed but relations between the clubs quickly soured.[19]

During 1995 the Norwood Football Club, with the assistance of Wolf Blass, attempted to buy the Adelaide Crows and have them relocated to the Parade.[20]

By 1995 the Southport Sharks had reached 20,000 members began to lead the charge for a second Queensland team entering the Australian Football League. In 1996, the Sharks made their first bid to the AFL for inclusion in the national league, which was rejected by the AFL in favour of the Port Adelaide Football Club's elevation from the SANFL. After which, the club continued to lobby for a licence.

Further attempts were made by the club to enter the AFL including purposed mergers with North Melbourne.[21]

The Melbourne Hawks would have consisted of the merger between the Melbourne and Hawthorn Football Clubs at the end of the 1996 season. Out of all the proposed merger combinations in the 1990s, it was seemed as ideal as it was known that Hawthorn had a football team which ranked as one of the best of all time but were in a dire financial situation, as opposed to Melbourne which had a sound financial base but were a club which had mostly struggled on-field since their last premiership in 1964.

Despite the controversial approval of the Melbourne Football Club board and members, the merger was voted out by Hawthorn members after a passionate campaign led by Don Scott.

Tasmania is traditionally a strong Australian Football state, and as such has been touted as being a location for an AFL club. The first serious proposal was made in the mid-1990s, as the League expanded further.[22] The licences were eventually granted to Fremantle and Port Adelaide.

The second Tasmania bid occurred in 2008 as the League announced that it wanted to expand further into Queensland and New South Wales. These licenses were granted to the Gold Coast and GWS.

In October 2018, the Government of the Northern Territory announced that it would allocate $100,000 towards a "scoping study" to investigating whether the Territory should bid for an AFL licence when it becomes available. Chief Minister Michael Gunner and AFL Northern Territory CEO Stuart Totham met with AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan in Melbourne to discuss the potential bid. It was reported that an AFL licence would not become available until 2028 at the earliest.

If successful, the team would play its home games at TIO Stadium in Darwin and at Traeger Park in Alice Springs.[23][24]