AFL Gippsland review keeps plans for 15-club competition

THE merger of the Alberton and Mid Gippsland leagues will proceed under plans from AFL Gippsland’s football review.

THE merger of the Alberton and Mid Gippsland leagues will proceed under plans from AFL Gippsland’s football review.

The final recommendations from AFL Gippsland’s football review were released last night, three weeks after the draft recommendations were revealed.

Plans to merge nine of the 10 clubs from the Mid Gippsland league and six Alberton league clubs to form a new competition is unchanged.

However, “governance and administration structure (is) to be determined by member clubs”, rather than automatically taken over by AFL Gippsland as originally touted.

Further details of the new league’s fixture, player payments and player points allowances were included in the final recommendations report.

The clubs will have allowances ranging from 38 to 46 points, and all clubs have a $90,000 player salary cap, an increase from this year’s $80,000 allowance for Mid Gippsland clubs but a decrease for Alberton clubs from $120,000.

Other recommendations that went unchanged were Mid Gippsland club Yarragon will join the Ellinbank and District league, while Ellinbank club Warragul Industrials and South East club Tooradin-Dalmore will join the West Gippsland competition.

However, the draft recommendations proposed changing from under-16 and under-18 age groups for all senior leagues, except Gippsland League, to under-17. Junior leagues’ age groups would end at under-14s.

Now, a trial of that structure will be adopted in just the East Gippsland league in 2019.

“The AFL Gippsland commission is firmly of the view that for football to flourish in the region it requires a whole-of-region approach,” AFL Gippsland region general manager Ben Joske said.

“The future of the six remaining Alberton clubs is dependent on a willingness for the Gippsland football community to embrace change and work together.

“We all know how important sporting clubs are to the fabric of our communities and we don’t want to see any clubs disappear which is the reality facing some of our clubs and communities if things don’t change.”

The affected stakeholders have until Friday to lodge an appeal with AFL Victoria.

Mid Gippsland league president Gary Matthews said the league would need to speak with its clubs.

“I am pretty sure the clubs will want to appeal it,” he said.

“I can’t see us winning any appeals, but we’ve got to try I suppose.”

He said AFL Gippsland had made the “right choice” in changing the proposals about the junior age groups and the governance and administration of the new league.

“They have conceded on a couple of points, whether that will appease the masses is another thing,” he said.