The two new senior competitions have been named AFL Riverina Premier Division and AFL Riverina Community Division

The new league will be known as AFL Riverina Premier Division and was unveiled at a special launch at The Rules Club on Wednesday.

The Riverina and Farrer League names will be dumped as part of the brand new era for Australian rules in the region.

The 'old' Farrer League will become AFL Riverina Community Division One, while there will also be AFL Riverina Community Division Two (reserve grade) and AFL Riverina Community U17.5. The premier divison will have their own reserve grade and under 17.5s.

AFL Riverina released their timeline for the switch at the launch with applications for all leagues to close on June 30, with clubs to learn their fate on August 8.

A six-person assessment group will determine how many clubs form AFL Riverina Premier Division and will mark applications against a weighted critera list.

The weighted criteria list will be sent to clubs on April 15, as part of communiction inviting clubs to nominate for the competitions.

AFL Riverina chairman Michael Irons believes it was important to introduce new league names for a brand new era.

"It's having one brand name across all of our competitions and a reflection of the purpose of our two competitions," Irons said of the names.

"Obviously it's a big change from what we've had for the last 40 years but we feel it's important, it's a new chapter within our history so we thought new names needed to go with it.

"It's about the new chapter going forward. We've still got the Riverina name, and that's a key part to our identity that we'll look to maintain."

AFL Riverina hope to finalise the make-up of the six-person assessment group by the end of the month. It will consist of an independent chair, two AFL representatives, an AFL Riverina board member, an AFL Riverina Competition Management Committee (CMC) member and an AFL Riverina netball representative.

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Irons revealed AFL Riverina is considering someone from outside the region with an extensive football background as chair.

"We had a board meeting (Tuesday) night and had a discussion about some of those representatives and we're working to finalise the independent chair, our netball representative and speak to the CMC representative," Irons said.

As part of the new structure, new names for premiership trophies, best and fairest awards and leading goalkickers will be introduced.

AFL Riverina also confirmed the two leagues will have different salary caps and player points allocations. It was also explained that the clubs in each competition will be reviewed annually for the first three years.

There was some concern about the August 8 date that clubs will be informed of where they are playing and the impact it has on planning for 2023.

Irons does not believe it will impact clubs too much.

"It comes down to the decisions clubs are going to make about what they're applying for," Irons said.

"There may be some clubs that aren't going to apply for the premier league so they'll be able to plan ahead regardless. It's really those ones around premier league and I suppose they've got to have confidence when they go through their application process as to where they'll sit."

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