An embarrassed and frustrated AFL has intervened in a bid to prevent the Adelaide Crows from wearing the South Australian football jumper in next month's first showdown game at the Adelaide Oval.

The competition's governing body is understood to have accepted that it erred in unknowingly clearing the Crows' provocative push which has enraged the wider football community and deepened the divisions between the two South Australian AFL clubs.

South Australians celebrate during a state of origin game in the 1990s.

The SANFL has also accepted its error in allowing the Crows to wear a traditional state jumper in an away game - a move which has once again eroded its relationship with Port Adelaide on the eve of the AFL's season launch to be held in Adelaide for the first time.

Late on Thursday a Port Adelaide's frustrated chairman David Koch applauded the about face telling Fairfax media: "No one knows who made the decision but it was just so divisive and mind-bogglingly dumb.