Former Players Slam AFL For Banning Skinfolds Testing

Former Port Adelaide player Kane Cornes has slammed the AFL for reportedly putting an end to skinfold testing for upcoming draftees.

Cornes described the move as "ridiculous", after the league told clubs they would be banning teams from using the common body-fat numbers for prospective players.

The AFL told clubs to adopt other body-measurement methods, in order to learn of the fitness and physical condition of players.

The skinfold test also known as a body composition test, is a health measurement that rates the body fat percentage of players by pinching skin at different areas of the body.

West Coast Eagles premiership player Will Schofield took to social media to discuss the report.

“This is absurd. “Fat shaming” you’re signing up to be an elite athlete, not a social media influencer,” he posted on Twitter.

“Don’t get me wrong, I hated skinfold tests, it’s an antiquated measure of body fat percentage…. However to remove it to protect player well-being is a f*rken joke.”

Essendon CEO Xavier Campbell was another in the footy world to voice his concern.

"I could sort of understand it at a grassroots level, I think there's some merit there, but we are a performance-based industry," he said on SEN.

"A big part of that is the physical aspect of that. I'm not sure we've got any skinfold metrics that are included in contracts these days, but it still is a big part of the testing that the high performance does on the players.

"There are different ways to go about it, body mass index and everything else like that, so it's not my area, but I'd say there's still got to be some sort of form of assessment that needs to be included in that part of the game."

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