The AFL can refer to different organizations depending on the context. Here are the details for each:

• Australian Football League (AFL): This is the pre-eminent and only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition from the Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season in 1897. It changed its name to Australian Football League in 1990 after expanding its competition to other Australian states in the 1980s. The current 18 teams are based across five states of Australia; the majority (ten) still remain in Victoria, nine of which are located in the Melbourne metropolitan area. The states of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia have two teams each, while Tasmania will have a team enter the league in 2028. In addition to administering the national competition, the AFL is heavily involved in promoting and developing the sport in Australia. It provides funds for local leagues and in conjunction with local clubs, administers the Auskick program for young boys and girls.

• American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO): This is a federation of autonomous labor unions formed in 1955 by the merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The AFL was founded in 1886 as an umbrella organization for unions of skilled craft workers. It focused on obtaining the right to bargain collectively for wages, benefits, hours, and working conditions. The CIO, on the other hand, was founded in 1935 and organized workers by industries. It focused on organizing unskilled workers and was more politically active than the AFL. The two organizations competed bitterly in the late 1930s but then cooperated during World War II and afterward. In 1955, the two merged to create the AFL-CIO, which has comprised the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States to this day. The AFL-CIO works tirelessly to improve the lives of working people and is the democratic, voluntary federation of 60 national and international labor unions that represent 12.5 million working people.