February 14 has been slated as a possible date for a competitive match between Victoria and Western Australia in Perth following the success of a representative match earlier this year.
The return of an AFL State of Origin series has long been an annually recurring debate amongst the football community since the series ended in 1999, when crowds of only 26,000 and 13,000 watched Victoria's two final matches.
In a similar vein, debate around the relevance of the AFL pre-season has never properly settled since the abandonment of the pre-season competition after 2013, with the AFL's 'Community Series' experiencing falling crowds from year-to-year.
The momentum for a return of representative football picked up some steam earlier this year when, whilst the rest of the competition were playing scratch matches, 37,865 spectators attended a pre-season game between Fremantle and the Indigenous All-Stars at Perth's Optus Stadium, the latter's first game in a decade.
"The All-Stars game at the start of the year showed that there's a real appetite for seeing that," AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said at a press conference outside AFL House in which he also spoke about the league's booking of hip-hop star Snoop Dogg for this year's Grand Final.
"Conversations are in progress with state governments and also with our players and our clubs.
"I'm really keen to see our best players on the ground at the same time.
"Hopefully there will be an announcement soon."
It's expected that the Western Australia state government will kick in some support for a fully competitive game between Western Australia and Victoria at Perth Stadium on February 14 next year.
It would be the first meeting between the two states since 1992, and there has been no word as yet of a separate game involving South Australia or other states.
