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Essendon CEO Xavier Campbell confident of AFL return within three months

The West Australian
VideoThe AFL has revealed plans to restart the AFL season at the end of April.

Essendon boss Xavier Campbell reckons there’s a chance the AFL season could resume within three months.

Speaking with Bombers greats James Hird and Jobe Watson on the club’s ‘Working Through It’ podcast, Campbell said conversations with AFL powerbrokers gave him confidence some form of season will be played this year despite continual uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic.

His estimate comes after reports that the AFL have formed a working group called ‘Project Return’ with multiple scenarios being considered including the ‘hub’ system.

“I’m becoming increasingly confident based on different insight from the AFL and others, but in terms of when it’s really challenging to give a clear timeline on that because so much of that is out of the AFL’s control and clearly we want to make sure we work really close with the government on those sorts of things.” Campbell said

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“But even these concepts like the hub... that was news to me a couple days ago when it came out in the media and we’ve since had a high-level briefing on that as a concept.”

While the impact could be felt in seasons beyond 2020, Campbell remains optimistic with his timeline for the season at hand.

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“I feel relatively confident that in July we’ll be back playing football, at the latest,” he said.

“I don’t say that with any great insight or as an educated insight but I feel confident.

“Now, it’s not going to be in front of crowds obviously, that’s going to be a really challenging aspect for our members and our players who thrive off that but hopefully it’s not too far from that.

“You can’t hold me to it because we just don’t know because it’s out of our control, but I feel relatively confident on that.”

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