Susie O’Brien: Junior clubs are struggling and AFL must help

THE AFL should stop trying to promote the game overseas and help the many junior clubs doing it hard, writes Susie O’Brien.

THE AFL should stop its relentless push for overseas expansion and get its house in order back home. Auskick is in crisis, fewer young boys are strapping on the footy boots each week and junior clubs are closing or amalgamating.

Meanwhile, AFL boss Gill McLachlan is wondering what he can do about getting more bums on seats at Jiangwan Stadium in Shanghai.

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Earlier this month, many local junior footy clubs were stressing over the dwindling number of male players for the 2018 season. Many were offering cut-price memberships and giveaways to get new players to sign up.

And what were the AFL bigwigs doing? Heading off to India to organise a game there. I agree with Jeff Kennett. (That’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d write). The AFL’s push into China and India is a waste of time and money which is diverting attention away from what really matters.

The issue the AFL is ignoring is this: a high number of new female players are propping up many junior footy clubs, covering up a crisis in the participation of boys.

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan should stop trying to promote the game overseas and help the many junior clubs doing it hard. Picture: Richard Jupe

At this stage, the AFL can still put a positive spin on participation numbers and churn out fancy infographics designed to impress.

But grassroots sport means more than corporate pie-charts in pretty colours; it’s about ensuring new players of both sexes keep coming through.

State Minister for Women Fiona Richardson said there have been more than 300 new women’s and girl’s football teams since the introduction of the AFLW. That is wonderful, but the growth in girls hides the fact that boys increasingly don’t want to pay footy any more.

there aren’t as many boys who want to spend their weekends pulling on a guernsey and having a dob of the Sherrin.

They’ll go to blockbuster AFL games and they’ll watch it on TV, but when Saturday and Sunday roll around, they’re strapping on the shin guards and arguing about who’s going to be goalie in soccer. Or they’re doing karate instead; martial arts is going gangbusters.

Something is going awry when the participation figures of boys in particular are dwindling so fast.

My own junior football club in Melbourne’s east is seriously struggling for players. It’s a club that’s been around for more than 100 years and yet we sweated on every single registration this year.

I live in an area with one of the highest Chinese populations anywhere in Melbourne — 21 per cent in terms of ancestry — and yet only a handful have joined our club, or any other football club.

Auskick is in crisis, fewer young boys are strapping on the footy boots each week and junior clubs are closing or amalgamating. Generic picture

If the AFL was serious about attracting new fans, it would be doing more to connect with local migrant communities rather than filling foreign stadiums.

In the same week that our committee was discussing our declining numbers, the AFL general manager of China and India was overseas once again.

So where’s the general manager for struggling suburban clubs? Of course, there isn’t one.

Our club reached out to the AFL to get some support to recruit more female players and got no help at all. The AFL is too big and too busy concentrating on growth, expansion and new territories to help proud 100-year-old junior clubs battling to survive.

The AFL spends millions on Auskick yet was unable to offer any real aid to our club to help us reinvigorate our near-dormant Auskick program.

According to the latest Ausport report, 674,094 kids play soccer (14 per cent) compared with 366,462 who play Aussie rules (8 per cent).

Soccer accounts for nearly one in five of kids and adults playing club sport, with Aussie rules on 11 per cent. It’s lagging behind golf (11.9 per cent).

Soccer accounts for nearly one in five of kids and adults playing club sport, with Aussie rules (on 11 per cent), which is lagging behind golf.

It’s not even about the money. In many cases, soccer is twice the price and yet they’ve got more kids than they can find teams for. It’s the same across the state, where a recent country football report showed strong growth in major regions and a sharp decline just about everywhere else.

There are serious issues with junior football numbers in and around Dandenong, with 11 junior clubs folding in the past 15 years. It’s the same in the Yarra Ranges, Yarra Junction, Hume and Bendigo, where clubs are closing or under threat. Many suburban clubs are in the same boat, although it’s not crunch time — yet.

The AFL needs to stop obsessing about its international reach and domination in new countries and concentrate on fixing up its home patch instead.

The AFL says it’s a charitable organisation — and enjoys a very beneficial tax-exempt status — so why aren’t they doing more to help their own heartland?

They owe it to the kids, but also to the volunteers and parents working their arses off every weekend to make it all happen.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

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