The
1997 Westar Rules season was the 113th season of senior football in Perth, Western Australia. It featured a number of dramatic changes to a competition whose popularity had been dramatically reduced by the drain of players
to the Eagles and
Dockers of
the AFL. The competition's name was changed from the prosaic ‘West Australian Football League’ to ‘Westar Rules’ in an attempt to update the local competition for a more sophisticated audience.
[1] However, this change became regarded as unsuccessful and was reversed as per recommendations of the “Fong Report”
[2] after four seasons. West Perth also changed their name to Joondalup to recognise their location in Perth's growing northwestern suburbs, but changed back after the ninth round.