‘Give back zones’ – seven-time premiership player George Fiacchi’s plan to keep Port in SANFL
A Port Adelaide premiership great has a plan which he believes can keep Port Adelaide in the SANFL and help it remain viable.
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A Port Adelaide premiership player says giving back the club its junior development zones is central to the iconic state league team’s survival in the SANFL.
Seven-times SANFL flag-winner George Fiacchi believes a restructure of the rules in place for Port’s state league side must happen to keep 150 years of tradition alive.
Fiacchi is urging the club to fight to have its junior zones returned.
He also wants the club to have more selection autonomy for the Magpies, rather than current rules which force any available AFL-listed players to be picked in the side.
Port’s future in the SANFL is in some doubt as it deals with the financial fallout of the coronavirus shutdown and the AFL’s proposed plan to introduce quarantine hubs to restart its 2020 season.
The SANFL, however, says a condition of having AFL clubs compete in the state league is that they cannot have their own recruiting zones.
This resulted in Port relinquishing its zone from 2015.
Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas said the club had “every intention to remain in the SANFL” and it had “fought too hard to ensure (the club) was united in 2011 and we have no intention of dividing it again”.
Fiacchi, who spent six years on Port’s board as a member-elected director from 2012 to 2019, said the structure of the Magpies needed a reset to ensure survival in the state league.
He said it would be “devastating” if there was no Magpies in the SANFL.
“The Magpies are the heart and soul of the Port Adelaide Football Club,” Fiacchi said.
“To lose it would be devastating for all supporters because that’s what we’ve grown up supporting.
“It doesn’t need to happen and it’s crazy there’s even discussion about it.
“The Magpies can survive, it’s just you’ve got to take away all these restrictions about how it can perform.
“Tough times need tough decisions — all businesses and sporting organisations are in the same boat and reviewing their business models.”
Fiacchi believed there would likely be “kickback” with bringing the junior zones back.
But said the Magpies should become a ‘sub brand’ of Port Adelaide and at least one or two staff in the football department need to be aligned exclusively to the SANFL side.
“The Magpies need some independence internally so they are not just an afterthought.
“They (the club) need to understand the importance of the Magpies to Port Adelaide and the emotional connection the supporters have with them.
“Factions had to be reunited and it made sense to have everyone under the same umbrella.
“This shouldn’t change.
“But (they should) have key people responsible for the Magpies’ success.”
Thomas said the club was dealing with “a number of significant issues relating to COVID-19 at the moment”.
“Obviously there are a lot of questions at the moment regarding AFL list sizes, spend caps and football department structures and no one knows the answers to those questions yet,” Thomas said,
“As a club and an industry we are still working through these important issues.”
SANFL chief executive Jake Parkinson said the league was in “regular discussion” and would continue to be with both AFL clubs about their future in the state competition.
But it was hard to work through solutions without much clarity on the structure of the 2020 SANFL and AFL seasons.