Through the late 1930s and the 1940s, the ANFC faced the first serious challenge to its ability to maintain uniform rules and a nationwide permit and transfer system for players, owing to the actions of two unaffiliated bodies: the Australian Amateur Football Council (AAFC) – which was a body similar in structure to the ANFC but in charge of amateur football – and the VFA. The VFA made a bold step in 1938 by making major rule changes which legalised throwing the ball and re-introduced the boundary throw-in, and by aggressively recruiting VFL players without clearances, causing a football schism in Victoria and Tasmania. The AAFC also played with different rules to the ANFC, although its differences were not as significant as in the VFA. This meant three distinct variants of Australian rules football were being played in Victoria, and this lack of uniformity filtered down to developmental levels, with many schools adopting the VFA's rules as a matter of preference, and others adopting the amateur rules due to their close association with their Old Boys' amateur football clubs. This made the ANFC's national administrative role increasingly difficult to carry out, particularly as the schism was centred in the sport's heartland state of Victoria.