Regional rollout ahead of schedule, says AFL Victoria

THE rollout of country footy’s new administrative structure is at least 18 months ahead of schedule, according to AFL Victoria.

Team: AFL Gippsland general manager Travis Switzer is on the ground.

THE rollout of country footy’s new administrative structure is at least 18 months ahead of schedule, according to AFL Victoria.

Twelve of the planned 13 ­regional commissions have been established since the Victorian Country Football League announced its integration with AFL Victoria in September 2012.

AFL Victoria deputy general manager Steven Reaper said only Sunraysia was still in the pipeline.

“We probably thought we might have four or five of them up and running now, so we’re well ahead of where we anticipated,” Reaper said.

“It shows a good appetite from the leagues and clubs to be involved.”

The stumbling block in many regions, however, has been getting leagues to hand administration over to the commissions.

Many, including the powerful Ovens and Murray and Goulburn Valley leagues, have opted to continue handling their own administration.

Goulburn Murray commission chairman and VCFL president Nicholas Rolfe said the poor uptake, particularly in his region, was disappointing.

“The local working party, consisting of representatives of each league in the Goulburn Murray region, adopted the concept of the regional commission,” Rolfe said.

“The commission would, among other services, offer a fee-for-service arrangement to the various stakeholders to ­administer their leagues.

“Unfortunately, there has been a marked reluctance by some stakeholders to fully adopt the concept.”

Reaper said there was “some work to do” with reluctant leagues.

“In some regions, we’ve only had our football development managers in place fully for two or three months, so the leagues haven’t seen the full benefits,” he said.

“There’s always going to be some (leagues) that don’t come across immediately, but longer term — and it’s always been a longer term project to have them come in — the benefits will start to sell themselves.”