AFL National Championships
The AFL National Championships is an annual Australian national underage representative Australian rules football tournament. Since taking over as national governing body in 1995, the AFL has gradually restructured the competition into a primary junior pathway for its fully professional national club competition.
| Current season, competition or edition: 2023 AFL National Championships | |
| Formerly | Teal Cup (1953–1995) |
|---|---|
| Sport | Australian rules football |
| First season | 1953 |
| Administrator | Australian Football League |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Most recent champion(s) | Allies (2023) |
| Most titles | (D1) Vic Metro (18) (D2) Tasmania (8) |
| TV partner(s) | Fox Footy |
| Sponsor(s) | National Australia Bank |
| Related competitions | AFL Women's Under 18 Championships |
The National Championships grew out of the Teal Cup which began in 1953 as a junior representative competition between the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales. It was rebranded in 1976 to reflect its expansion to include representative teams from each Australian state and mainland territory, rotated between host cities.
The current competition is contested as a hybrid representative format. The best players from the Academy competitions (AFL club feeder teams) combine to form an 'Allies' team in conjunction with South Australia, Western Australia and two Victoria teams—Metro (Melbourne Metropolitan Area) and Country—to contest the division 1 tournament.