AFL Outer East picks preferred start time for football to return
People are desperate for the football to return. Any football. And in news set to get players and supporters excited, one suburban comp has given it’s preferred start time for the season to kick off.
Outer East
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AFL Outer East has slated a return to action for “late June, early July” should AFL Victoria restrictions be lifted on May 31.
In a statement released on Friday, the league said 75 per cent of clubs were in favour of a return in 2020, and were unanimous that a pre-season period be allocated with a round-robin format for practice matches to be played.
“There is a strong desire from clubs to return playing football and netball this year,” the league said.
AFL Outer East region general manager Aaron Bailey said mental health and wellbeing spearheaded the clubs’ concerns.
“One of the key pieces of feedback we had from our clubs is that if we can get back they believe the benefits in terms of wellbeing and the social aspect of footy and netball is the key component there,” he said.
“That’s got to be tied in with sustainability and we’ve got to make sure that it’s affordable and accessible and doesn’t put clubs at risk.”
An overwhelming 90 per cent of junior and senior clubs supported the season to run into October if required, with the league stating it “provides greater flexibility to start and complete a 10 round season as late as the first week of August.”
With a potential clash of seasons with cricket and a ground-squeeze facing many of the suburban competitions, Bailey said his competition was well-equipped to deal with the clash.
“We won’t go past October, we think October is the cut-off,” he said.
“We have Healesville and Beaconsfield which are both really good facilities which don’t have a cricket pitch, and we also have Kilsyth which is Eastern Ranges where we’re based which doesn’t have a cricket pitch — that’s more for juniors.”
Meanwhile, 100 per cent of clubs backed a reduced salary cap in 2020, with 88 per cent supporting the action from 2021 and beyond.
AFL Outer East said it supported the AFL’s advice to all leagues to adopt a stage-two reduction to the Allowable Player Payment (APP) for 2020.
Stage-one reductions on the APP are a 50 per cent reduction on current APP caps, with stage-two “a further Pro Rata reduction based on the number of matches re-fixtured, relative to the original number of fixtured matches.”
A cap of $100,000 would be reduced by 50 per cent making it $50,000 under stage-one, and stage-two reductions in the case of an 18-game season reduced to nine would result in a further 50 per cent decrease, with a revised cap being $25,000.
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Women’s and veterans’ is set to return in-line with the senior men’s with dates and lengths of seasons yet to be determined, while 77 per cent of junior clubs supported midweek night games in lieu of training, along with 86 per cent backing lightning premierships or round-robins in August/September if a full season cannot be played.
The AFL Outer East commission will meet later in the month, with clubs set to receive the league’s preferred return structure on May 1. The commission will await feedback before an announcement of competition and season structures following the State Government’s movements on May 11.
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