Coronavirus: Chaos for AFL as South Australian border stays shut

The AFL season has been plunged into fresh confusion after the SA government scrapped a promised opening of its NSW border on July 20.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall. Picture: AAP

The AFL season has been plunged into fresh confusion and tourism operators have been forced to withdraw holiday packages after the South Australian government scrapped a promised opening of its NSW border on July 20 because of rising COVID-19 cases in that state.

Instead, Premier Steven Marshall announced anyone visiting from NSW — including AFL teams — would be required by law to self-isolate for 14 days before entering the community.

He placed no end date on the arrangement, which he said was forced by the concerns of SA health chiefs over the nature of the Casula Hotel outbreak in western Sydney and the potential for community transmission.

“We don’t want to go backwards,” he said on Tuesday.

“We know what’s happened in Victoria with the second wave in Melbourne in particular. We’re being cautious, we are looking at the epidemiology of what is going on, we’re looking at results in NSW.”

SA has opened its borders with Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania, but imposed a hard border closure with Victoria last week. It is using Australian Defence Force soldiers to assist SA police at more than two dozen checkpoints along the SA-Victorian border.

Mr Marshall ruled out a hard border with NSW as unfeasible and unnecessary, urging anyone coming from NSW simply to do the right thing.

One of the biggest casualties of the announcements could be the AFL, with SA’s two clubs, Ade­laide and Port Adelaide, now Adelaide-based and set to play home games before crowds of up to 25,000 in the next fortnight.

While those home games at the Adelaide Oval will not be affected because they are against opponents based in Queensland, the Premier’s announcement means any of the six teams based in NSW would have to self-­isolate in SA for a fortnight if scheduled to play in the state.

“We know this is going to be very inconvenient … but our primary responsibility in SA is to the health, safety and welfare of all South Australians,” Mr Marshall said.

“We’ll be informing the AFL of the decision, which has been made by the transition committee. This is a very difficult season for AFL schedulers and this is probably going to throw a little bit more confusion into the mix.”

The state’s biggest tourist operator, Phil Hoffman from Phil Hoffman Travel, told The Australian the confusion over borders was having a devastating effect on business. He has shifted the focus of his business solely to domestic travel in a bid to bring in some revenue and create work for his 234 staff, but that the stop-start nature of border closures has made it “a major headache”.

“Queensland has been huge and the NT has taken off but with everything else, it’s one step forward, two steps back,” he said.

“We had great sales for the resumption of the Ghan, with ­people wanting to go to the NT, then that was put off until September to make sure no Victorians were on board. I appreciate the health pressures but none of my European and American operators can understand how we as a country of 25 million with such low COVID numbers can be effectively closed.”