THE AFL's planned push into western Sydney and southern Queensland is sabre-rattling. Football is a war game and teams can neither be recruited nor trained overnight.

It took rugby league 20 years and four reincarnations before the Titans were taken seriously on the Gold Coast. The AFL expects to do it in three years.

A western Sydney team, scheduled for 2012, would at least have a home ground - the Olympic stadium at Homebush Bay - but drafting 90 first-grade AFL players over four years is unrealistic.

A second Sydney team would seriously undermine the Swans, whose popularity is based on their monopoly of NSW.

It would more than halve the Swans' support, and failure on the field in Sydney - as the Waratahs have demonstrated in rugby union's Super 14 - is not tolerated.

This AFL war plan is typical bullying behaviour by its chief executive, Andrew Demetriou. Chagrined that his old club, North Melbourne, refused to move to the Gold Coast, he is trying to panic it into a relocation. However, the AFL is concerned about the spectacular success of soccer since Australia's second richest man, Frank Lowy, resurrected the sport in Australia. While AFL is played in one country and the two rugby codes in about 20, soccer is the world game. Whenever the Socceroos failed to qualify for a World Cup, a bottle of champagne was opened at AFL headquarters.

The Socceroos' success in the last World Cup in Germany, the expanding A-League and its push into Asia are all danger signs for the AFL's dream of national domination.

The AFL's national exposure allows it to attract broadcasting and sponsorship revenue double that of the NRL. The turnover of the AFL's top club, Collingwood, is twice that of the NRL's richest franchise, the Brisbane Broncos.

Similarly, the AFL salary cap is almost double the NRL player payment ceiling. The AFL would draw revenue from a code already squeezed by the downturn in the income of its poker machine-financed leagues clubs. Should the AFL brazenly demand its broadcasters finance this expansion to 18 teams, it will compromise News Limited, half-owners of the NRL. News Limited half-owns Fox Sports, which televises four live AFL games a week and also carries the AFL's Friday night match to NSW and Queensland, the territory the AFL imperialistically calls "our developing states".

If News Limited, which holds the management rights to Foxtel and Fox Sports, further funds and facilitates AFL expansion, the media giant will attract conflict of interest accusations and criticism that it is jeopardising the future of rugby league, the No.1 sport of NSW and Queensland.