Subsection g

[BazBoy]

This subsection states any AFL player not able to play in final AFL round can
play finals for VFL affiliate in the bye week end

Howe is expected to play

[K]

Well, from memory one of the other subsections clearly says that while both AFL and VFL teams are alive, the whole list is free to play in either (which makes complete sense).

[BazBoy]

[K]

[BazBoy]

Thanks

[K]

...
But in practice, if a player is clearly returning from injury (e.g. the player has not played any game at any level the whole year because of injury), the club just needs to ask the AFL and the AFL will sign off on it. That's allowed, because "Despite any other provision in Rule 20, the CEO of AFL Victoria (or nominee) may deem any Player eligible to play in any VFL Finals Series Match", and in the past I think it's routinely been applied.

In short, there's no problem here. The rules are there to prevent the club from artificially improving the VFL team, not to prevent an injured player from taking crucial steps in his comeback from injury.

To labour the point(s), I note that there are four plus one provisions beginning "Despite any other provision in [of this] Rule 20": these are (e), (g), (h), (i).
The provisions (e), (h), (i) say in spirit that when both VFL and AFL teams are alive, all players can play in the VFL. It's longwinded because the byes complicate a simple idea. But provision (g) --- "no more than 12 AFL Matches" --- could very well conflict with (e), (h), (i). This is very shoddy wording of the rules, to say the least. [And easily fixable, if they could be bothered to show some minimal level of professionalism.] It doesn't matter in practice, though, because of the last catch-all that the AFL can deem any Player eligible for VFL Matches, which has the effect of protecting genuinely injured players from ineligibility concerns.*


* Treloar, for example, has played 13 AFL games in 2018.


Clarification: it seems they've altered what's written on the website (vfl.com.au/finals-eligibility) since it was quoted in this forum, so the labelling of provisions has changed. It seems they deleted the provisions regarding the Development League (formerly (c) & (d)), so the old (e), (g), (h), (i) (as stated above) are now called (c), (e), (f), (g), with the catch-all provision now (h).