Officials fight for 500 fans at TSL footy venues

The coaches are dusting off game plans and players are training hard, but the number of spectators allowed to watch the TSL season resume next month will be decided by State Government.

THE TSL and TSLW will start their seasons with a limit of 100 people per venue — including players and off­icials — on July 18 but AFL Tasmania is trying to boost that to 500.

AFL Tasmania chief executive Trish Squires said the limit was required for public safety and her goal was to pave the way for fans of Tasmania’s top football competition to get back to the game as soon as possible.

Callen Daly from Glenorchy and Jacob Boyd from Launceston. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

Having been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and forced to be shortened, the State League season will kick off in five weeks (subject to stage three coronavirus restrictions) and consist of 12 home-and-away rounds and a two-week finals series.

A committee led by TSL operations manager Ben Ling has been formed to draw the roster. It will meet for the first time today.

“At the moment the advice is that only 100 people maximum will be at a venue so we will work towards that,” Squires said.

“We have put in a submission to Public Health to have 500 in the venue, but that is something that we will wait for advice on because we don’t want to put anyone at risk — that is a big thing here for us. We want to play safe footy. We want to keep the community safe. So we have to work towards 100 people maximum in the venue at the moment.”

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Squires revealed the TSL season came back from the brink to be a viable option thanks largely to the determination of club presidents.

“Four weeks ago they presented to us — AFL Tasmania and the AFL — and said they just wanted to get footy up and that they were willing to do whatever it took, and so were we,” Squires said.

“This has been a really long road to get footy back, so we are really excited.

“We had a discussion with the TSL in early March around how we could bring the TSL to light. At that point in time there wasn’t a lot of hope that a season would come about. So we parked it for a couple of weeks and we picked it up about five weeks ago when there was a lot more positivity around a season commencing.

“We looked at what is the lowest cost model to get the season out.

“As part of that we have all had to make sacrifices, but what we’ve all decided was we all wanted to play footy this year and we wanted to engage everyone in that process.

“We were able to get to an agreement where we can get it going, which I think is fantastic.”