Selection Process
Nomination Phase
During the nomination phase, any fan can nominate one or more players, coaches, referees, officials, or other supporters of American football in Germany for induction into the Hall of Fame. Players must have ended their careers at least five years ago. This restriction does not apply to the other categories. Active jury members are not eligible for nomination.
Selection Phase
After the nomination phase, the jury selects 11 candidates from all nominations received. These candidates will then be put to a vote in the final election phase.
The candidate list is determined by the jury members in several rounds of voting. In the first round, each member selects as many names from the nomination list as there are places available on the candidate list.
If all 5 jury members were to select the same 11 names, the selection process would be complete. It is more likely, however, that more than 11 of the nominees will be selected.
Example:
The first round yields the following results:
- 4 nominees each receive 5 jury votes
- 4 nominees each receive 4 jury votes
- 6 nominees each receive 3 jury votes
All nominees who receive 5 or 4 jury votes are added to the candidate list. In this case, 8 places would be filled, leaving 3 to be filled.
In a second round, each jury member can therefore nominate three more names from the list of those who received three votes in the first round. The evaluation of this second round, as well as all subsequent rounds, is carried out analogously to the evaluation of the first round. With each round, the number of remaining positions is reduced until all 11 positions on the candidate list have been filled.
Finally, the 11 selected candidates are submitted to the AFVD Executive Board for confirmation.
Eelction Phase
Each fan and each jury member has as many votes as there are new members being accepted, i.e., three. It is not necessary to use all of your votes.
The combined votes of all fans and all jury members carry equal weight.
Example:
100 fans participate in the election. A candidate can therefore receive a maximum of 100 votes from the fans. Similarly, all jury members together can also give a candidate a maximum of 100 votes. In total, a candidate can receive a maximum of 200 votes.
The jury’s voting weight is distributed equally among the jury members. With 100 participating fans, each jury member’s vote would count as 20 votes.
The candidates who receive the most votes are elected. If several candidates receive the same number of votes, making it impossible to clearly allocate the available positions, the number of new members accepted will be increased accordingly.
The names of the newly admitted members of each year are announced shortly after the end of the election period.