Tough times for football’s last true believers at Adelaide Uni

FOR a 108 years Adelaide Uni Football Club has built a culture based on fun and amateurism. But its amateur ethos is making success harder to come by.

FOR a 108 years Adelaide University Football Club has built a culture based on fun, amateurism and success.

The fun shows no sign of dissipating, at least not while the legendary Bob Neil remains the Blacks’ most revered figure.

Amateurism too, remains a cornerstone of the Uni culture.

But The Blacks’ strict amateur ethos is making top-level success harder to come by in the increasingly money driven world of local football.

Uni has won just one match in the amateur league’s division one competition this season and faces a battle to avoid being relegated from the top-flight for just the second time in its history.

The club’s chairman Sam Bridgwood says attracting and retaining elite local players has become increasingly difficult in the face of big money offers from surrounding clubs and leagues.

“There’s no question it’s getting harder,’’ Bridgwood says.

“It’s always been difficult to draw (top-level) players here because money has been around in the amateur league for a long time but there’s no question that we’ve seen that money grow over the last few years.

“Some of the country leagues like the Barossa and the Hills are so accessible and they are obviously paying large amounts.”

Bridgwood says Uni supports the introduction of a cap on team spending in SA’s amateur and country leagues, or another measure to control payments.

It comes as River Murrary Football League president Mick O’Hara on Wednesday revealed his competition was so concerned about the increasing bidding war in SA for recruits it had written to the SA Community Football League proposing a ceiling on individual payments.

Both O’Hara and amateur league CEO John Kernahan say they wouldn’t be surprised if total undisclosed payments among SA’s 287 amateur and country clubs totaled $20 million a season.

The pair is part of an SA Community Football League committee set to make a set of recommendations next month on how to curb the issue.

The Advertiser has heard reports of individual players earning up to $40,000 a season, a figure which wouldn’t surprise Bridgwood.

“When the offers were $400 or $500 a game, players could perhaps decide they could play without being paid but when it’s $1000 a game, which it can be these days, that’s very hard to turn down,’’ he says.

Bridgwood says he doesn’t blame individuals for accepting big money offers, instead saying the system needs to be looked at.

As for Uni’s overall plight, triple-digit numbers on the backs of lower-grade players remain a fixture at the club which still fields seven senior teams - more than any other club in Australia.