THE AFL will rewrite the father-son rule, removing a club's unconditional right to a second-generation player and instead enforcing a bidding system with opposing teams.

In a move that certainly would have had impressive Geelong newcomer Tom Hawkins taken as a first-round draft pick, the AFL will introduce the new system before the national draft later this year.

The change, the 12th to the father-son rule since it was first amended in 1967, means every club will have the opportunity to bid for father-son players by committing a first-, second-, third- or fourth-round pick before the national draft. The club with the first rights to take the player must then match the best bid from any other club or lose the player.

Should the premiership club, for example, commit to a first-round pick — in other words pick No. 16 — then the father-son club would be compelled to give up its next closest pick, in that case a second-round choice, to take the player.

The father-son rule is one of the last traditional bastions of the equalised AFL system but repeatedly has been changed by the competition's governing body, fearing it could be accused of draft-tampering.

The changes implemented in recent years, for example, would have removed the right of the Brisbane Lions to take its star centre half-forward and co-captain Jonathan Brown, as his father played only 51 games for Fitzroy. Not long after the Lions recruited Brown, the games component was changed from 50 to 100 as the minimum for the father-son rule.

The rule is believed to hold significant sentimental attachment for key figures at the AFL, including chief executive Andrew Demetriou, whose football lieutenant Adrian Anderson is understood to have presented his revised version of the rule to the AFL Commission recently.

Anderson, who refused to comment last night, is believed to have spent months fine-tuning the new regulations. He has done so in a bid to prevent clubs from forcing father-son clubs to sacrifice higher draft picks than necessary in the bidding wars to take players whose fathers played for them.

Geelong, long seen as having benefited unfairly by some from the father-son rule, has fought to retain it in recent years. Cats chief executive Brian Cook said last night: "I think it's a pretty good rule and it's a very popular rule and I'm not sure that a bidding system is consistent with equalisation. When a player comes out of contract, clubs are not expected to bid for him."

But Cook conceded that Hawkins, a Rising Star nominee in his second AFL game, would have been taken by the club as a first-round pick and not a third-round choice as took place under the existing rules. Geelong's recent father-son acquisitions include Matthew Scarlett, Gary and Nathan Ablett, Tim Callan, Mark Blake and Marc Woolnough.

Other recent father-son choices who probably would have been taken before the third round include Travis Cloke and, potentially, Marc Murphy, who knocked back signing with the Lions under the father-son rule but was taken by Carlton at No. 1 in last year's national draft.

The prevailing fear among dissenting clubs is that teams would be forced to ignore calling the bluff of rival bidders in taking favourite sons. Should Stephen Silvagni's boys become available for the national draft, for example, it would be inconceivable that they play anywhere but Carlton, which could be exploited.