THE AFL has moved to declare war on tagging and now looks certain to trial an extra field umpire during the NAB Cup competition next year with a view to extending the trial into the 2009 home-and-away season.

The Age understands that the laws of the game committee has been impressed by an impassioned presentation early last month from John Worsfold in which the Eagles coach showed a series of videoed incidents featuring Gary Ablett, Daniel Kerr and Chris Judd.

Laws representatives Adrian Anderson and Shane McCurry and AFL official Andrew McKay agreed to take Worsfold's arguments, which were backed by a number of senior coaches, to their committee.

As a result, a series of new interpretations and a potential rule change could be ratified by football boss Anderson as early as next week and taken to the commission for approval next month.

The AFL also now looks certain to take on the controversial issue of rushed behinds, with the commission expected to approve a rule change in the NAB Cup, which again could be adopted in the home-and-away season. It is expected that a free-kick will be awarded to an opposition player from the position the ball was pushed through the goal posts or behind posts.

However, it is the attack on tagging that will prove a major influence on the way coaches instruct their players should the AFL persist in the move to take on players blocking, wrapping their arms around or grabbing the shorts or hands or arms of opponents, particularly at stoppages.

Worsfold compared the relatively luxurious treatment awarded to forwards compared with playmakers such as Ablett, some of whom he claimed were tagged out of games in which they were the star attraction.

Umpires boss Jeff Gieschen has been pushing for some years to add an extra field umpire and has argued that a fourth field umpire would prove a deterrent to aggressive tagging, given the speed of play and the heavy workload now afforded umpires in the modern game.

The AFL trialled a fourth field umpire at a practice game at Princes Park at the start of 2005 but current thinking would see the extra field umpire as a deterrent to a tactic that has become an integral part of modern football.

Umpires are also expected to be told to strictly officiate heavy-handed tactics, such as blocking players at stoppages, and prevent the hindering of players more than five metres from the ball.

The 16 AFL coaches, all in Melbourne for tomorrow's national draft, are scheduled to meet AFL commissioners today over the question of tagging and the possible impact on the game next season of rule changes and new interpretations.

■ AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said yesterday the State Government needed to intervene if the 10 Victorian clubs were to achieve a fairer stadium deal with the MCG and Telstra Dome.

Demetriou told the opening of a conference on 150 years of football yesterday that it was inequitable for the stadiums in Victoria to retain 70 per cent of revenue from games and return 30 per cent to clubs when the inverse of those figures applied at stadiums in other states.

A delegation of five club presidents or chief executives has organised to meet Sports Minister James Merlino on Monday to lobby the State Government to help in brokering a better deal for the clubs.

"It is the clubs that are generating the economy. We can't have a situation where 10 Victorian clubs generate 4.5 million people to go to the football yet the return to the Victorian clubs is significantly less than what is happening in other parts of Australia," said Demetriou.

Meanwhile, former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has urged the AFL not to be swayed off expansion by the global financial crisis. He said the plans made sense, provided any new clubs would grow the sport's fan base, regardless of the economic climate.

With MICHAEL GLEESON