The Leagues Championship Cup, officially branded under the sponsor's name as the Foxtel Cup, was an annual

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

club knockout cup competition involving clubs from the various state league competitions from around Australia. The tournament was organised by the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL), and was held annually between 2011 and 2014. The competition was first held in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, featuring sixteen teams from around the country who qualified based on their finishing positions in their previous state league season. In 2011 and

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, matches were played mostly as curtain-raisers to AFL Saturday night games, or occasionally as a stand-alone game in the same timeslot; in

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and

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

, matches were mostly played as stand-alone games on Tuesday nights. In both cases, matches were televised on subscription television provider and competition naming rights sponsor

Foxtel Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...

; and clubs played matches on or adjacent to bye weeks in their respective state league fixtures. Total annual prize money for the competition was about $250,000, with $40,000 going to the winner. Williamstown was the inaugural Foxtel Cup champions when it defeated Claremont by 21 points in the 2011 Grand Final. Claremont went one better the following year to become 2012 Foxtel Cup Champions defeating

Werribee Werribee is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Wyndham local government area. Werribee recorded a population of 50,027 at the 2021 census. Werribee i ...

by 44 points. West Adelaide defeated

East Fremantle East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

by four points in the 2013 Grand Final. Williamstown won its second Foxtel Cup championship in 2014 by beating West Perth by 63 points.

Qualification

For the inaugural Foxtel Cup in 2011, the AFL invited the highest three ranked teams from the

South Australian National Football League The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport. Originally formed as the ...

, the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

and the

West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...

; the top two teams from the

Queensland Australian Football League The Queensland Australian Football League (QAFL) is an Australian rules football competition organised by the AFL Queensland, contested by clubs from South East Queensland. Previously known as the Queensland Football League (QFL), Queensland ...

; and the top team from

AFL Sydney AFL Sydney is an Australian rules football League, based in Metropolitan area, metropolitan Sydney, Australia. The AFL Sydney competition comprises 126 teams from 22 clubs which play across seven senior men's divisions, five women's divisions, ...

and the

Tasmanian Football League The Tasmanian State League (TSL), colloquially known as the "Tasmanian Football League (TFL)" (formerly known as the "Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL)" and several other short-term names) is the highest ranked Australian ru ...

– based on those leagues' 2010 seasons. The

Greater Western Sydney Giants The Greater Western Sydney Giants (officially the Greater Western Sydney Football Club and colloquially known as the GWS Giants or simply GWS) are a professional Australian rules football team based in Sydney Olympic Park, which represents the ...

(which was playing in the NEAFL in 2011 as preparation for entering the

in 2012), and the

Northern Territory Football Club Northern Territory Football Club, nicknamed NT Thunder, was a Northern Territory-based Australian rules football club that competed in the North East Australian Football League (NEAFL) between 2011 and 2019. It also competed in the VFL Women's in ...

received special invitations. However, despite the SANFL signing on to be part of the Cup competition, its top three clubs – Central District, Norwood and

Woodville-West Torrens Woodville-West Torrens Football Club is an Australian rules football club playing in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). It was formed in 1990 from an amalgamation of the neighbouring Woodville and West Torrens football clu ...

– all rejected their invitations to compete, citing lack of prize money, sponsorship conflicts, salary cap implications, schedule concerns and removing the focus from their SANFL premiership ambitions. Eventually, the SANFL positions in the competition were taken up by West Adelaide,

North Adelaide North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct and suburb of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands. History Surveyor-General Colonel William Light of the colo ...

and

Port Adelaide Magpies Adelaide Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club based in Alberton, South Australia. The club's senior men's team plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), where they are nicknamed the Power, whilst its reserves ...

, none of whom even reached the SANFL finals in 2010. In 2013 it was announced that the SANFL's top three teams of the 2012 season, Norwood, West Adelaide and North Adelaide, had committed to play in the Foxtel Cup in 2014. At the time of the announcement midway through the 2013 SANFL season the three teams were again the top three on the SANFL premiership ladder, showing that among South Australian clubs, the Foxtel Cup was gaining recognition. In 2013 and 2014, the scale of the competition was reduced from sixteen teams to nine or ten. In those seasons, the WAFL, SANFL and VFL each contributed two teams to the competition, who entered the competition at the quarter-final stage; and the remaining teams came from the NEAFL and TFL, who contested pre-qualifying rounds before entering the quarter finals. The AFL announced on 1 August 2011 that public interest and television audiences well-supported the inaugural year of the Foxtel Cup and as a result the competition would continue for the next five years. However, following the heavy burden of playing mid-week games on the competing clubs, the decision was made to cease the Foxtel Cup after its fourth season, 2014.

Results

2011 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

2012 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

2013 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

2014 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

Coles Medal

The Coles Medal was awarded to the best player onfield in the Foxtel Cup Grand Final.

List of participants

Stadiums

References

External links

Qualification

Results

2011 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

2012 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

2013 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

2014 Foxtel Cup

Grand Final

Coles Medal

List of participants

Stadiums

See also

References

External links