WHILE it must be stressed that the world is unlikely to end next weekend, footy as we've historically known it will undergo a change. Three of the eight matches in round nine will be return engagements between clubs that have already met this season. In previous seasons, rematches did not occur until after a 15-week round-robin had been completed. There is no longer any such rigidity in the AFL draw.

Next weekend, West Coast and Adelaide will clash for the second time in eight rounds, as will Port Adelaide and Sydney. The rematch of Melbourne and Hawthorn will be their second encounter in nine rounds.

The season's only home-and-away clash between the competition's pacesetters — Hawthorn and Geelong — won't occur until round 17. When the two finally come face-to-face, at the MCG on July 25, more than 15 months will have passed since their previous meeting. Expect such cliches as "long-awaited confrontation" and "keenly anticipated clash" to flow freely.

Another extreme outcome of the carte blanche the AFL has given itself in this year's draw is that by the end of round 12, Sydney will have played half of its 12 games against only three clubs — St Kilda, Port Adelaide and West Coast. Carlton doesn't play Hawthorn at all until round 22.

Any debate so far as to the pros and cons of this scheduling freedom has been about the flexibility it brings to the fixture on one hand, but on the other, the loss of that point in the season when overall performances can be properly measured. There is another issue to be considered — one no sports administration should ignore. It's called transparency. And this year's draw removes a layer.

For whatever deficiencies might have existed within the draw in past years — and clearly one that can't provide every club with the same conditions over a season is fundamentally flawed — an ineluctable level of transparency was built into it. Over the first 15 weeks of any season (fewer in earlier times), each team played every other.

Such fundamentals are important, if for no other reason than to give the single biggest stakeholding group in the game, the paying public, confidence that a certain level of detachment is brought to the process of producing the fixture. That's a pretty good reason.

Former Fitzroy president Dyson Hore-Lacy used to laugh that the AFL's fixture wasn't a draw so much as a schedule. He obviously had a view as to where his club was scheduled to end up. Perhaps his view was extreme, but he's not the only one to have held it. The AFL should do all it can to avoid such perception.

Football is a ridiculously emotional business. The talkback lines, the fan websites, the email inboxes of media outlets, the city's workplaces and watering holes are full of conspiracy theories. Most are laughable, almost all the rest outrageous, but they exist.

People take their football seriously. That's why the industry works. Supporting a footy team is, in a sense, a contrived fantasy about good and evil. There's one source of good at war with 15 enemies. The problem for the AFL is that the fantasy often involves a supreme power constantly seeking to sabotage the good and prop up the enemy.

Every vaguely serious supporter suffers at least to a small extent from this infirmity. That's why otherwise sane men and women transform at football matches into choleric, frothing, crazy people.

This is intended neither as satire nor exaggeration. It is reality. That's the environment in which the AFL must operate and it's why it must always be careful to err on the side of extreme caution when it considers relaxing the standards of propriety that apply to its competition.

The AFL provided six guiding principles in producing its draw for this season: equal opportunity for all clubs, maximising audiences at grounds, maximising television audiences, helping clubs get what they want, national development of the game and player welfare.

While each of these is significant, none is ultimately as important as the central administration maintaining the trust of the public. The problem with this year's draw is not that it causes that trust to be lost; it's that it takes away one of the checks and balances that ensures a level of trust.

This is not the time for any sports administration to play fast and loose. Too many around the world lately have tested their faithful by failing to respond adequately to issues such as performance-enhancing drugs and match-fixing.

This is the time for responsible sports administrations to be absolutely rigid in the disciplines they impose, not just on their performers but themselves. If that means the AFL establishing its draw under less flexible conditions, which may even disadvantage some, so be it.

Some things are more important than whether a club has to travel to Adelaide the week after taking on the Eagles in Perth. Besides, as the endless wait for the clash of the Cats and Hawks shows, sometimes you can outsmart yourself.