AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou admits Subiaco Oval is substandard and is restricting the growth of the national competition in Western Australia.

Plans for a new stadium or a redevelopment of Subiaco Oval have been put on the backburner by WA Premier Colin Barnett due to the global financial crisis.

But Demetriou said the venue was costing both Fremantle and West Coast vital support and money due to its limited capacity and sub-standard corporate facilities.

"When you've got 42,000 capacity and you've got a lot of reserve seating being sold and a lot of members for both Fremantle and West Coast, it means there's a lot of young people who can't go to the football and pay at the gate," Demetriou said in Perth on Tuesday.

"So we are actually denying a lot of young people, children, an opportunity to come to the football and watch and enjoy the experience.

"So we have the potential of disenfranchising a lot of people from a generational perspective.

"We want people to go along to the football, it's a good place for families to go.

"We'll keep working with the clubs and the footy commission to go forward with that.

"It's very important that we kick-start the momentum again about the stadium.

"It's important for this state, it's important for football followers, for everyone that attends that ground."

Demetriou acknowledged that it was understandable that the WA government had put the plans for a new stadium or a redevelopment on hold for the time being.

"These are difficult and uncertain times so every government has to be prudent," he said.

"But we need to keep working on that issue because at the moment everyone acknowledges that the Subiaco stadium is probably the least adequate of all of our grounds around Australia, the smallest capacity and facility-wise and so forth.

"So everyone understands that and we need to keep working on it."

Subiaco has been the only AFL venue in Perth since the WACA Ground hosted its last match in 2000.

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