A slanging match involving three of the AFL's highest-profile club presidents has erupted over the league's plan to narrow the spending gap between rich and poor.

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has criticised the plan to pump more money into struggling clubs, so they can invest enough in their football departments to be competitive on-field.

McGuire said increasing handouts would leave such clubs too reliant on the AFL "drip" feed and they would be better off "dying on your feet than living on your knees".

Kennett said that having a high proportion of clubs surviving on handouts was "unsustainable" and made those clubs too frightened to question AFL decisions.

But North Melbourne counterpart James Brayshaw - whose club will be one of the main beneficiaries - hit back angrily, saying helping strugglers will make all clubs better off.

"It's nice of a couple of the competition fat cats to view their brethren so generously," Brayshaw said sarcastically of McGuire and Kennett.

"I'm not really sure what Ed and Jeff want. Do they want to end up with a competition where they just play themselves every week?

"I just think it's a ridiculous premise, to be honest."

Brayshaw said the financial success of the richer clubs relied heavily on the AFL's recently-announced $1.25 billion broadcast deal, which would not have occurred without an 18-team competition.

He added the AFL's increased distributions should not be termed handouts, as they would be conditional on clubs increasing their own revenue sources and supporter numbers.

He said the funding was needed to counter inequities in areas such as the AFL fixture, stadium contracts and match timeslots.

"We can equalise the gate, we can make Friday nights (available for all clubs to) take them in turns, we can make the big nights available to all the clubs one after the other, the marquee days," Brayshaw said.

"But if we went down that path, you would hear those two start squealing very loudly."

Brayshaw's comments came after McGuire compared clubs receiving special AFL assistance to Australia's indigenous community.

"Have a look at what welfare has done for Aboriginal Australia. It's been fantastic hasn't it?" McGuire said on Triple M radio.

"This is what we're getting with the AFL.

"If you've got clubs who think the only way they can prosper is to meekly put their hands out and maybe get a few crumbs off the table of the AFL, they're never going to fight their way to the top."

Kennett said the Magpies, Hawks and Geelong - the AFL's three most recent premiers - had all been close to extinction within the past 15 years, but had fought their own way out with good business models.

"Unfortunately, for a number of years now, many of those businesses have not been run successfully enough to be sustainable, independent of the mother ship, which is the AFL," he said of less successful rivals.

Kennett expected at least half the AFL's clubs would receive special assistance next season.

"The chances of them rebounding financially in the next five years is very limited. So we do have an underlying issue. It's a question of sustainability."

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