Players to get special protection

BRISBANE will take a chartered flight to Melbourne on Saturday and could have a bus take them from the tarmac to a private floor of a hotel as the AFL pushes ahead with Round 1 under trying circumstances.

Lions chief executive Greg Swann said every precaution was being taken to ensure players were shielded from the coronavirus pandemic, particularly for travelling teams.

Brisbane is scheduled to meet Hawthorn at an empty MCG on Sunday.

“At this stage, we are going ahead this week,” Swan said Tuesday.

“Virgin are effectively going to give us a charter plane.

“We’ll have designated areas in the airport. I think we’re even looking to get a bus onto the tarmac and get us straight off. We’ll have a floor of the hotel just to ourselves. So they’re taking some pretty strong measures to keep us isolated and get us in and out without too much interaction with the general public.”

Swann (pictured) said the AFL’s plans to push ahead with a 17-game season “makes sense” and was a best-case scenario for clubs under the circumstances.

However, the Lions have asked staff to work reduced hours as they prepare to take a sizeable financial hit and their wider business “grinds to a halt”.

“We’re all facing big financial challenges, no doubt,” Swann said. “Everyone’s doing the modelling now. It depends which games you get and which are in front of crowds and which games aren’t.

“I think the first four rounds are going to go as is and one of those is Collingwood (in Round 4), which was going to be Easter Thursday.

“That was going to be a massive day for us.

“From a gates perspec- tive, it’s prob- ably going to cost us the better part of $5 million if we don’t play in front of crowds. So all the clubs are tightening their belts.

Swann said the decision to reduce the season to 17 match- es is a practical and fair out- come.

“At some stage someone will get tested positive and we’ll close the comp down for a while and then we might re- convene at a later stage,” he said.

“So going back to 17 rounds now takes that pressure off to not have to deliver 22 games.

“We’ll just see how that un- folds.”