By saying Tasmania's AFL hopes are reliant on a white elephant no sane taxpayer will ever allow to be built, Gillon McLachlan has effortlessly lined up his latest excuse not to grant the state a franchise.

Losing a vote no sane club president would ever be in favour of will only underline the decision.

It is now surely the time for a sane state to take its sane money and put it to a more sane use than financially underwriting as undeserving and ungrateful an organisation as the AFL.

The difference between what basketball has achieved in Tasmania and footy hasn't is that the NBL not only wanted the JackJumpers to happen but financially backed the operation. Neither is true of the AFL.

They would rather repeatedly place unrealistic expectations in the path of any such notion while happily accepting the state's best players and a two-decade-old intravenous drip to Tasmanian taxpayers' money.

In the unlikely event the AFL ever contributed towards the whizzbang, shiny new $750 million stadium it says Tasmania needs, the first feature it would install would be moveable goalposts.

Tasmanians have already paid for two stadiums with virtually no contribution from the AFL and now they would like a third?

Strange how both UTAS and Bellerive Oval were good enough when three AFL clubs needed our support, but suddenly now they're not.

And McLachlan's observation that: "Every Tasmanian I have spoken to agrees" that a new stadium is needed, suggests the AFL chief executive does not talk to many Tasmanians.

It was only three years ago that the AFL said a Tasmanian team would need at least 50,000 members, while conveniently overlooking the fact that seven existing AFL clubs (including recent or soon-to-be premiers Western Bulldogs and Melbourne) had less than that.

The AFL know that by imposing ludicrous and unrealistic demands, they can be seen to say it's Tasmania's own fault it hasn't got a team. All the while the AFL continue to welcome Tasmania's best young players and an annual contribution towards teams who were financially strapped when they originally came here.

And calling Premier Jeremy Rockliff's offer of $150 million over the next 10 years "a strong start" smacks of arrogance from a sport with diminishing participation and crowds.

As if to prove the point, on the day McLachlan made his token appearance to be seen to support Tasmania, Richmond and Port Adelaide attracted just 21,757 to the MCG - the Tigers' lowest home crowd at the venue since 2010 bar two impacted by COVID.

And North Melbourne versus GWS at Marvel on Sunday hardly needed a new stadium built for it either.

Admittedly, our two existing AFL venues are not perfect.

Bellerive is too crickety for footy's purposes and UTAS too northerly for the government's liking.

But both have done a competent job all the while the AFL needed them to.

As Rockliff entertains the notion of a $750 million 27,000-seat roofed stadium proposed for the Hobart Regatta Ground foreshore while treading the doomed path to rejection, one of those who preceded him, David Bartlett, pointed out that Perth's Optus Oval was budgeted at $800 million and came in at $1.6 billion.

During his flying visit to Hobart on Thursday, McLachlan stated: "I'll take responsibility for this - this team needs and will have a new stadium if it wants a licence."

To clarify, he meant he was taking responsibility for the condition, not for financing the stadium.

And when he added: "And I think Tasmanians will expect that, north and south" it was to remind the state that the AFL is more than happy to play the parochial card if their latest concealed ace doesn't work.

Tasmanians have got to stop hanging on to a fantasy that's never going to come true.

It's long past time to call the AFL's bluff and take control not only of our own destiny but our own money.

Don't renew the Hawthorn and North Melbourne deals in the delirious hope it might bring our own team one step closer. It won't, it will just reinforce the success of the AFL's policy to ensure ongoing funding from a footy-mad but gullible state.

The past 20 years have had their moments - Buddy's baker's dozen, Fraser's end-to-end 50m penalties, Sirengate, last year's finals - but it's time Tasmania stood up for itself.

Hawthorn's record number of Tasmanian supporters won't thank me for saying this.

Neither will North Melbourne's Tasmanian supporters - both of them.

But, as Greg Norman said when asked about Saudi Arabia's assasination, decapitation and disposal of Jamal Khashoggi, ordered by The Shark's LIV Golf financier Mohammed Bin Salman: "Look, we've all made mistakes."