WA premier Mark McGowan says state won’t be dictated to by sport leagues when easing border controls
The AFL’s hopes of avoiding hubs to restart the 2020 have taken a hit after Western Australia’s Premier reaffirmed the state’s hard line border stance due to COVID-19.
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The AFL’s bid to relaunch the 2020 season without hubs has been dealt a hammerblow by the hard line Western Australian government.
WA Premier Mark McGowan said on Wednesday his government would not be dictated to by sporting codes and ease its border controls to allow football to restart.
The AFL is desperate for WA and South Australia to relax their tough border restrictions to allow for a fly-in fly-out season to begin as soon as June 18.
“We are not going to compromise on our hard borders just to meet the needs of football,” McGowan said.
“The hub arrangement, in which teams were going to move to Western Australia and play football, was a great arrangement.
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“I’d urge the AFL to continue to pursue that arrangement because it would have meant that the integrity of our borders (remains).
“Lots of people move away for work and live in difficult conditions.
“Football players in the current difficult economic times should be no exemption to that.”
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said the WA government’s stance would likely result in Fremantle and West Coast being based in a hub on the east coast.
“The least we can possibly do is allow West Coast and Fremantle to decide where they play,” McGuire said on Footy Classified.
“If they come and make the hub in Melbourne, if they are playing Richmond or Collingwood for example, they can say, ‘we’ll play you at Marvel Stadium’. But we might set up our base in Queensland.
“We might go up to the Gold Coast. We could go to Sydney.”
McGuire said consideration would have to be given to families joining Fremantle and West Coast players in hubs.
While McGowan has left the option of a WA hub on the table, the most likely option for the AFL now is to relocate West Coast and Fremantle to Victoria.
“Our football teams have been disadvantaged by football hierarchy for a long period of time and if that is what happens then that would be a further disadvantage for Western Australian teams,” McGowan said.
Softer border restrictions in NSW and QLD will allow the rival NRL to resume on May 28.
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