Why these junior footballers can’t play for the team they want

These kids just want to play footy. But instead they’ll be sitting on the sidelines, as their Hoppers Crossing club won’t let them transfer to a rival team to play with their mates.

A stoush between two junior footy clubs has left a group of suburban kids unable to take the field for their preferred team.

The boys’ hopes of playing footy in Melbourne’s west are in limbo because Hoppers Crossing Football Club is refusing to grant them a transfer to a neighbouring team due to red tape.

Eight Hoppers Crossing under 16s juniors want to transfer to Western Region Football League rival Tarneit so they can play with their friends.

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Under 16 junior footy players who have been refused permission to change teams to Tarneit because of league red tape. Picture: Tony Gough

But Hoppers Crossing has blocked the move, citing a league bylaw which states clubs do not need to transfer more than three players to any one other club.

Parent and Tarneit assistant coach Tony Millar said the teens no longer wanted to play for Hoppers Crossing and his club would not be able to field an under 16s team this weekend due to the “horrible injustice”.

“It’s really tough on the kids … it’s really playing with their heads now that they might not play this year,’’ he said.

“They’re just young kids that want to play and are worried they won’t get to.’’

Hoppers Crossing president Darren Casser said the club had already approved clearance of three players to Tarneit under WRFL bylaws and the furore was “being driven by adults’’.

“I’m not going to release 11 kids to one football club and that’s the committee’s stance as well,’’ he said.

“We’re following the rules, we’ve been open in our communications to the parents and we’re not going to bend those rules.

“Let’s not use the kids as scapegoats, we would welcome the kids back with welcome arms.’’

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The players won’t get to play this week. Picture: Tony Gough

Mr Millar said the “ridiculous stance’’ would “prevent teenage boys from playing the sport they love’’ and called on the WRFL to intervene.

“With the eight players denied transfers, we will not have enough players on a week by week basis to play, and risk losing not only the eight players denied but the nine extra kids that have come to play with their mates,’’ he said.

“That could be up to 20 players lost to football at an age where it’s statistically shown nearly 50 per cent of kids stop playing football forever.”

WRFL chief executive Matthew Duck said where more than three players wanted to leave the same club “it requires club and league approval’’.

He said it sought to “curb mass player migration … often triggered by the move of a single, influential and at times disgruntled coach or adult.’’

“Like any rule, it may prove inconvenient for a club here and now, but may be the very same rule it relies on in a year’s time when the shoe is suddenly on the other foot,’’ he said.

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