CASH-strapped country football leagues will be denied about $100,000 in funding this season as the sport’s governing body channels the funds to competitions prepared to form central administration hubs.
The Victorian Country Football League (VCFL) is under fire for ending a long-held tradition of paying a player registration rebate to leagues.
Warrnambool and District Football Netball League president Justin Balmer says many competitions wouldn’t even be aware of the change which was documented to leagues in an email leading into Christmas that was only discovered weeks later.
He is lobbying other leagues in a bid to force a backflip.
Balmer said the rebate totalled about $3600 a year to his league. After venting his displeasure to VCFL chief executive officer Steven Reaper, he was told 34 competitions — or about half those in country Victoria — would miss out unless they formed central administration hubs. The WDFNL has staunchly refused to be run from a central hub, believing it would lose its independence and many of the benefits of its shrewd volunteer-based executive had delivered to clubs would be lost.
“The VCFL has decided to redistribute it (the money from the rebate) to leagues in hubs. Why should we be funding football in Ballarat and Geelong?
“To send it out two or three days before Christmas, they were trying to sneak it through. It’s a stunt. It’s a major policy shift.
“(The money is) just being ripped out of country footy, out of smaller leagues.”
Balmer said the Hampden, WDFNL, South West and Mininera district competitions would miss out on funding this year because they weren’t part of hubs.
He said the WDFNL had asked him to lobby other competitions.
He said the WDFNL used the $3600 to offset some operating costs.
“We could deal with it but it’s the principle of it,” Balmer said yesterday.
“Why should we be funding football in other cities like Ballarat and Geelong.”
Balmer said the VCFL had not consulted leagues and had made the decision at a time when leagues were throwing their weight behind the governing body which could be swallowed by AFL Victoria.
VCFL south-west area manager Brett Anderson said no leagues would be paid a rebate for registering players any more because most clubs or players completed the registration process on-line.
“The funding has been shifted across to hub funding,” he said.
The VCFL in a submission to the AFL review into country football last August proposed 14 central administration hubs be created across the state between this year and 2016, with each hub given funding based on the number of players registered in that region.
The VCFL argued in its submission that hubs generated efficiencies and “greater benefits” for all participants.
It proposed the WDFNL, Hampden and Mininera district leagues be centrally administered with $25,000 funding provided by the VCFL each year.
The Standard understands that amount would be more than double what each of those leagues would have received under the player registration rebate system this year.
VCFL chief Steven Reaper and its finance and administration department manager Stephen Smith were unable to be contacted for comment.
Hampden Football Netball League vice-president Peter Manoel said the matter had not been discussed by the executive since its new chief executive officer was appointed.
“What will be, will be,” Manoel said.
“We will discuss it but in the bigger picture it is an infinitesimal amount of our turnover. It may all change in the next 12 months anyway with the cross border review.”
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