This feud has become a ‘festering sore’ for the game’s 19th club. Why won’t the AFL act?

March 21, 2026 — 4:30am

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Now that the gloves are off between Hawthorn and the Devils in the battle for the hearts and minds of Tasmania’s north, it is worth noting the strange and ongoing silence from the AFL on what has become a festering sore for the game’s 19th club.

Just months after the Devils resolved one polarising and damaging controversy over their new Hobart home ground at Macquarie Point, the new club faces another dispute. Tasmania CEO Brendon Gale on Tuesday doubled down on his assertion to this masthead 12 months ago that Hawthorn should leave the state at the end of next season.

For Gale to provoke the debate this week was untimely, but it’s a debate the game’s bosses should have resolved for his club well before now. The AFL’s inaction now sees Gale’s Devils in danger of looking like the bad guys when they have worked so hard to unify the state.

Quite simply the Tasmanian team that makes its VFL debut in Hobart on Saturday wants Hawthorn out of the state after 2027 in line with the business case approved by the 18 clubs in 2024. Hawthorn, who win 80 per cent of their Launceston games and will reap more than $9 million from the state government in their current two-year deal, want to stay and share UTAS Stadium to the tune of two to four games a year.

That head office has failed to take a position in a debate that has confused Tasmanian football supporters and divided the very market it vowed to unite underlines the lack of decisive leadership which has too often punctuated Dillon’s time in the job. Unless it points to something – from the Devils’ position – far more........

© Brisbane Times