2011 AFL season

Draft

The 2010 National Draft was held on 18 November 2010 at the Gold Coast Convention Centre. 107 players were drafted, including 28 promoted rookies. Gold Coast were awarded the first three selections as part of its draft concessions, and selected David Swallow with the number one draft pick.

The 2011 Pre-season and Rookie Drafts were held on 7 December 2010, with another 80 players being selected. Greater Western Sydney had the first eight selections in the Rookie Draft as part of its draft concessions.

NAB Cup

The 2011 NAB Cup featured the addition of two new teams, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney. The first round of matches featured 6 pools of 3 teams, with each game being shortened to two twenty-minute halves. Collingwood defeated Essendon in the Grand Final at Etihad Stadium on Friday, 11 March.

Premiership season

The fixture was officially announced on 29 October. Some of the highlights included:

Round 6

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Win/Loss table

Bold – Home game
X – Bye
Opponent for round listed above margin

Ladder progression

Awards

Betting scandals

The issue of betting became prominent during the 2011 season. The previous few years had seen other sports compromised by major spot-fixing scandals – most notably the Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy – so the issue was already well publicised at the time. The AFL had in place a strict policy prohibiting anyone involved in the AFL from placing any bet on any AFL outcome.

Early in the season, it emerged that there were several suspicious plunges on players who were usually defenders to kick the first goal of a match; in each case, the player unexpectedly started in the forward-line, indicating that the plunges may have been caused by team information somehow leaking to punters. Five suspicious plunges on defenders for the first goal were identified during the season:

Nathan Bock was the only of the five players to kick the first goal of his respective match. The cases all raised concerns about "exotic bets" and the risk of spot-fixing, although in no case was a deliberate attempt at spot-fixing ever implicated.

The controversy deepened prior to Round 17, when the investigation into the Maxwell plunge revealed that Heath Shaw was implicated in bets placed on Maxwell's first goal. Shaw and a friend from outside the Collingwood Football Club were found to have placed a shared $20 bet on Maxwell for first goal at a TAB venue, using Shaw's knowledge from team meetings that Maxwell would be starting forward; that friend had later placed two more bets on Maxwell worth $15, shared with another friend. Shaw was penalised by the league under the anti-gambling code, receiving a suspension of eight matches, with a further suspended sentence of six matches, and was fined $20,000.

In their respective investigations, it was found that both Nick Maxwell and Nathan Bock had informed family members and friends that they would be starting in the forward-line before their respective plunges, and, unbeknownst to the players, those family members and friends then placed bets. Maxwell was fined $5,000, with a further suspended fine of $5,000, and Bock was fined $10,000 and suspended for two matches.

Following Round 24, Essendon assistant coach Dean Wallis was found to have placed three separate FootyQuad bets worth a total of $400 during the latter half of the season, one of which included a leg which involved an Essendon match. Wallis was fined $7,500, and suspended for fourteen matches (the suspension prevents him from participating on match-day, and from interacting directly with his players during training, until the suspension is complete).

Umpiring and rule changes