The 2002 Australian Football League season was the 106th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
See List of Australian Football League premiers for a complete list.
See 2002 AFL Draft for more information.
Port Adelaide defeated Richmond 10.11 (71) to 9.8 (62) in the Final.
All teams played 22 games during the home and away season, for a total of 176. An additional 9 games were played during the finals series.
Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the team finished the round inside the top 8.
Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished first on the ladder in that round.
Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place on the ladder in that round.
Note: Adelaide played its "home" final at the MCG despite being ranked above Melbourne due to the agreement then in place with the Melbourne Cricket Club that at least one game each week of the finals be played at the MCG.
Grand Final
This was the second consecutive Grand Final won by the Brisbane Lions during a three-year streak.
Total match attendance for all games was 5,643,908 people. Attendance at the Grand Final was 91,817 people. The largest non-finals attendance was 84,894 people for the Collingwood v Essendon game of Round 5.
The Brownlow Medal was awarded to Simon Black of the Brisbane Lions.
The Leigh Matthews Trophy was awarded to Luke Darcy of the Western Bulldogs and Michael Voss of the Brisbane Lions.
This was the first year for this award under this name. Previously, it was the AFL Players Association MVP Award.
The Coleman Medal was awarded to David Neitz of Melbourne.
The Norm Smith Medal was awarded to Nathan Buckley of Collingwood.
The AFL Rising Star award was awarded to Nick Riewoldt of St Kilda.
For the first time since 1965, no player kicked ten goals or more in a match.
Carlton won the wooden spoon for the first time since 1894. Carlton was the last of the twelve traditional Victorian clubs to win the wooden spoon in the VFL/AFL.
Carlton played only four home games at Optus Oval, after arranging a deal to play four home games at Colonial Stadium. In order for the AFL to meet its contractual obligation to stage nine games per year at Optus Oval, five neutral games between a low-drawing Victorian team and an interstate team were staged at the venue. The unpopular venture was not repeated, as all of the home teams in these neutral games lost money due to poor crowds and, in many cases, conflicting sponsorship deals.
Even though Adelaide was entitled to a home Semi-Final after losing its Qualifying Final to Brisbane, the game was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground due to a license agreement which required at least one game to be played at the ground during each week of the finals.
At the end of the season, the Carlton Football Club was found to have systematically breached the salary cap in 2000 and 2001. The club was fined and stripped of draft picks in the following two drafts, hampering their on-field results and long-term playing list rebuild in subsequent seasons.
Sydney coach Rodney Eade resigned following Round 12, after the Swans slumped to 14th on the ladder. He was eventually replaced by Paul Roos on a full-time basis, despite the board pushing for Terry Wallace, who resigned as coach of the Western Bulldogs with one round to play in the regular season, to be appointed. Roos would later coach the side to the premiership in 2005 before stepping down at the end of the 2010 season.
