By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
AFL Barwon should delay its promotion and relegation system for local football until the impact of new equalisation measures was known, club and league presidents said on Thursday.
North Shore Football Club’s Dale Purcell said local leagues needed to first experience the new salary cap and points system for players.
“As clubs we understand the region’s growing and AFL Barwon wants to see growth and participation in football but… the timeframe for this restructure is not right.
“If there’s little or no impact in three or four years then maybe we need to say the restructure needs to happen.
“After all, we (Geelong) are the guinea pigs in this and it’ll be brought in state-wide next year, so we need to give that a good run and see what happens.”
Geelong and District Football League (GDFL) president Neville Whitley said local footy had other pressing issues besides introducing a new system.
“The way junior football is organised needs a review, with strong clubs fielding a number of junior sides and struggling clubs with too few juniors coming through.
“Struggling clubs have problems with juniors and that exacerbates their situation.”
Mr Whitley said his experience with relegated clubs was that they lost players, sponsors and competitiveness, making promotion difficult.
“We understand parochialism and protection of your own backyard can come into it but we should let the points system and salary cap be in for a few years.
“This just seems to be the way AFL Barwon believes is best for football but only time will tell.
“It looks like their way or the highway. They said there’s no vote to be taken, it will be left to the AFL Barwon commission.
“That’s very undemocratic. I’d have thought stakeholders would have a say in the way they want the commission to go
“If a majority don’t want it they should be listening to them.”
South Barwon president Richard Holz said his club still needed to digest AFL Barwon’s “detailed” presentation on the changes this week.
“There are a few things as a club we’ll be looking at but, overall, we are pretty happy.
“The promotion and relegation criteria needs to be explained more.”
