The Australian Football League stages the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in the country. However, there has not been a league-wide Reserves competition since 1987, when the then-Victorian Football League expanded interstate to become the modern Australian Football League, with the AFL Reserves competition being shut down at the end of the 1999 season. Since that time, AFL-listed players who have not been selected in their senior teams are made eligible to play in one of three state leagues: the Victorian Football League, the South Australian National Football League and the West Australian Football League. The system used to accommodate AFL-listed players within these leagues varies considerably from state to state. Current affiliations For the 2023 season, the eighteen Australian Football League clubs will have the following Reserves arrangements. Victorian clubs Dedicated reserves competition (1919–1999) From 1919 to 1981, the Victorian Football League was based solely in the state of Victoria. From 1919 to 1945, it operated two grades of competition (the seniors and Reserves), and from 1946 to 1981, three grades of competition (the seniors, Reserves, and Under-19s). Local players were primarily recruited via the league's metropolitan and country zoning rules, and the clubs had full ability to develop its players through its Under-19s and Reserves teams. This same basic structure was used consistently across all three of the elite leagues (the VFL, SANFL and the WAFL). Three major factors between 1986 and 1991 led to the end of this traditional arrangement in Victoria: Firstly, the Victorian Football League expanded interstate and became the Australian Football League. Secondly, VFL/AFL proposals for West Coast and Adelaide to participate in the minor grades were rejected by the WAFL and SANFL, while Brisbane (a Queensland based club) fielded a Reserves team in 1989 to 1992 but did not field an Under-19s team. Thirdly, the inaugural national AFL Draft was held in 1986, and the Draft gradually replaced zoning as the primary means of recruitment to the national league, thus defeating the purpose of the developmental continuity between the Under-19, Reserves and senior grades. As a result of these, the AFL agreed to relinquish direct control of the Victorian Reserves and Under-19 competitions to the newly formed Victorian State Football League at the end of the 1991 season. This also saw the AFL cease to be the governing body for football in Victoria after 95 years, while the Under-19s competition (and the