Politics at play in the battle for AFL’s big day
Rift between two powerful men from oppositie sides of the tracks could cruel WA’s shot as grand final hosts.
It’s often said politics and religion don’t mix. When you’re talking about the AFL grand final, it’s a variation of the same maxim. With the game’s traditional host, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, out of action due to COVID-19, the political battle is on to lay claim to the biggest day in the Australia’s sporting calendar.
On paper, you’d probably give three votes to Western Australia — it boasts arguably the country’s best venue (the $2bn Optus Stadium in Perth), it’s devoted to AFL above all other sports, and its two hometown teams (West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers) have for decades unfairly endured the tyranny of distance when it comes to flying across the country every second week to compete.
But there are no fairytales in footy, and it’s looking increasingly likely for AFL fans in WA that the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness a grand final in their home state may have slipped away, largely due to the dark arts of politicking.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan and WA Premier Mark McGowan have never seen eye-to-eye over sporting matters. The two men from different sides of the tracks — McLachlan of the landed gentry, and McGowan from a modest upbringing in rural NSW — have had a long-running disagreement over ongoing funding for Optus Stadium, with the Premier steadfast in his refusal to pour more taxpayer money into its upkeep, and the AFL reluctant to contribute further.
The spat is the backdrop to next week’s announcement by the AFL as to the venue of the 2020 grand final. On Friday, Tourism WA, Optus Stadium and its operator, Venues West, submitted WA’s response to the AFL’s call for details about how a finals series and grand final would work in WA. Yet the consensus seems to be that while it should be Perth, it will almost certainly be Brisbane, a rugby league town, but one with a Premier who has publicly lobbied for the event.
When Labor came to power in WA in 2017, McGowan was unable to extract a contribution from the AFL to finish Optus Stadium. He has not forgotten it.
It was at the front of McGowan’s mind in April when he told the AFL it was welcome to have a hub in Perth — indeed, it should — but only on his terms and with not a cent of taxpayers’ money to go with it.
One AFL identity described McGowan as “prickly” in his dealings with the sport, but noted that was often his default position. “There’s no doubt there’s some tension there though. Something has ticked him off.”
McGowan is holding firm. Perth is perfect for the grand final, he says, but there will be no weakening of border controls or quarantine systems, and no cash to be used to lure the event.
Across the other side of the country, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is prepared to offer a multi-million-dollar incentive to get the grand final. Queensland is already in good odour with the AFL — when McLachlan first asked states to help save the season, WA made a “take it or leave it” offer with rigorous quarantine conditions, but Palaszczuk responded with a deal that gave players some freedom of movement.
The moment 10 Victorian teams relocated to the mostly COVID-free state, Palaszczuk told McLachlan: “If the season is based here then the grand final should be played here too.”
McGowan has been asked almost daily about the possibility of a Perth grand final, and what he is doing to make it happen. On Friday he gave perhaps his most candid answer yet: “Queensland have teams of people working on it, we haven’t acted like that. We’ve played hard to get.”
The fact McGowan has not wooed the AFL hard is not a surprise. For each of the three years McGowan has been Premier, the AFL has invited him to watch the grand final in the Olympic Room at the MCG. Each year he has declined. Grand final day in the Olympic Room is the biggest corporate and political event of the year, the best networking gig money cannot buy for only 550 guests. Think prime ministers, opposition leaders, premiers, billionaires, chief executives and chairs, plus football and sporting legends.
When West Coast won the grand final in 2018, McGowan was watching from a pub with his family in Margaret River, 270km south of Perth. In a speech he gave months later at a party thrown in Perth by insurer RAC, he told how neither West Coast nor the Dockers — the team he supports — looked like making the finals early in the season when he promised his children he would take them camping that weekend. He cut the family holiday short to greet the Eagles at their welcome home event in Perth.
The Weekend Australian has been told some in the business community who appreciated McGowan’s consultative approach at the beginning of his term — and especially at the beginning of the pandemic — now find him less accessible. When McGowan told reporters the grand final was “not our main priority”, some took it to mean he did not care. “He’s a squash player from NSW who doesn’t want to risk his iron man image that he’s developed during the pandemic,” one former senior government official said. WA has not recorded community transmission of COVID-19 for 132 days but McGowan talks openly about how easily the virus could re-emerge.
The AFL is not at war with the McGowan government but there is an awareness on both sides that many West Australian footy fans feel the AFL spends proportionally more on clubs elsewhere.
Ron Alexander, the former Fitzroy ruckman and Eagles coach who led the state government department that got Optus Stadium built, says this has been a source of frustration in the west for a long time. “If you look at what the AFL invests in the 18 clubs, WA doesn’t get two eighteenths of it,” he says.
The AFL will be turning its back on an estimated $36m payday if it does not choose Perth as the grand final venue. It would get a further $40-$50m windfall if it was to hold the entire finals series in the west, The Weekend Australian has learned.
By next weekend all bar three of the competition’s 18 clubs will be based in Queensland. Palaszczuk is now playing a careful game; taking personal control of the bid, gagging ministers and their offices, and fending off questions about Queensland’s behind-the-scenes bid to host the final at the often-maligned Gabba.
It is understood she has put together a team that includes Gold Coast Suns president Tony Cochrane and Lions chairman Andrew Wellington, with the their respective chief executives, to advise on the bid.
Under WA’s current coronavirus restrictions, Optus Stadium could take 30,000 people. Palaszczuk believes the Gabba can match it. Optus Stadium is by far the best venue for the league’s biggest and usually most lucrative day of the year given its vast amount of corporate suites and hospitality rooms: 37 per cent of Optus Stadium revenue comes from corporate seats.
While AFL chairman Richard Goyder is a parochial West Australian and is expected to push for Perth, The Weekend Australian has been told the AFL commission is likely to vote for the Gabba as the grand final venue while also hoping Perth and Adelaide will host finals matches.
If Perth misses out, it will not be due to a lack of rapport between Goyder and McGowan, who are known to have a respectful and constructive relationship.
Final negotiations over Optus Stadium were difficult but settled in September 2017 when Goyder met the WA Premier privately at his government office. The final arrangement props up grassroots football. The WA Football Commission had derived a healthy income as leaseholder of the old home of AFL in Perth, Subiaco Oval, but it was due to get nothing from the Optus Stadium deal.
Now the Dockers and West Coast pay the WA government for playing at Optus Stadium and, from that total, the state guarantees $10.3m a year — indexed to inflation — for the WA Football Commission. It means the AFL does not have to put its hand in its pocket to support the commission-run state footy league, but McGowan was said to be happy to have struck a deal guaranteeing the future of the local competition using income from AFL teams.
The result — which effectively leaves the state of WA with the bill for the stadium, its ongoing losses and a guarantee to underwrite the local football league — is a demonstration of the AFL’s tough approach to deal making.
Meanwhile, SA Premier Steven Marshall says Adelaide has a claim to hosting not only a qualifying final but also the decider.
“We are working really hard at the moment on a proposal,” he says. “A lot of it is going to come down to who can host the most people and I think SA has proven time and time again with the Adelaide Oval they can manage large crowds. I know it has been contracted to the MCG for a long time but this could be that silver lining for that otherwise very dark cloud of COVID-19 that we might be able to have a grand final outside the MCG and that could be right here in Adelaide.”
Additional reporting: Courtney Walsh, Michael McKenna
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