Official AFL branding adorns country football grounds throughout south-eastern Australia. But along a narrow stretch of the Murray River, one league has decided to go it alone.
It’s the second time in six years that the Picola and District Football and Netball League (PDFNL) has de-affiliated from the AFL.
“Lots of footy people in the regions have had a gutful of the city-centric AFL and the affiliation system,” says Tim McCormick, the senior coach at Mathoura Football and Netball Club, which plays in the PDFNL. “It feels like the AFL doesn’t get country footy; doesn’t care about the health of the game at the grassroots. They just take the fees and give little back.”
McCormick has played, coached and been an administrator in clubs and leagues across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland for close to 40 years. He has watched with growing disillusionment as the AFL has increased its administrative influence over local football.
Picola is the only Aussie rules league in Victoria not affiliated with the AFL in the 2023 season. A spokesperson for the AFL says the fact that the remaining 82 football bodies are affiliated “suggests that the benefits of affiliation far and above are better than the unaffiliated”.
But conversations playing out in football and netball clubrooms across the state suggest cracks are starting to show. The catalyst for the latest round of discussions is the shock decision to strip the Wangaratta Magpies of the 2022 Ovens and Murray premiership, after the club was found to be $28,000 over the $125,000 salary cap.
Wangaratta was issued a $28,000 fine, payable to the AFL. A senior administrator from a club playing in a premier league, who asked to remain anonymous, said those fines “never filter back” to the local game.
“What does that money deliver to country footy?” they said. “Does it help clubs get more umpires? Or run junior programs? Or alleviate any of the pressure on a dwindling number of volunteers who keep grassroots clubs alive? Does it keep struggling clubs alive?
“I doubt it. It goes into the AFL coffers. (At best) it might be another bloke walking around in an AFL polo shirt somewhere.”
A spokesperson for the AFL said the fine would go toward “education and supporting clubs in the management and integrity of the Community Club Sustainability Program”.
A ruling from ‘on high’
Criticisms of the AFL’s administration of local leagues centre around the salary cap and the player point system, which the AFL says is designed to promote “even and fair” competitions. The points system allocates a value to footballers based on their playing history and achievements, with considerations for junior development, club loyalty and other factors. A player who has played at least one game in the AFL in the past three years is worth six points; a junior player who has been at the same club for three seasons, or has never played for another club, or an adult player who has not played anywhere for the past three years, is worth one point.
McCormick says both systems are inflexible and do not work for smaller, more isolated communities.
“They want leagues to run in a uniform and consistent way but every league, every situation is different and that’s what the Picola league has tried to get across,” he says.
“You set a salary cap from on high. But that doesn’t mean every club has that much money to spend. And then there’s the [player] points system, which is very cut and dry and doesn’t seem to take into consideration what’s actually happening on the ground.”
In the 2022 season, he says, the senior football team at his club lost five games by more than 200 points, and still more by more than 140 points. The obvious solution, he felt, was an increase in “player points” which would allow them to bring in more competitive players.
But while a few clubs were offered more player points by AFL Victoria, it wasn’t enough to ensure competitiveness.
Now that PDFNL is unaffiliated, “we were able to plead our case to the Picola board direct and got more points … and we’ve been much more competitive this year as a result”.
McCormick is also critical of the AFL’s approach to development, which he says is often based on “setting up a heap of junior leagues in larger centres”.
“All of a sudden you’ve got clubs with two or three under-10, under-12 and under-14 teams,” he says. “It’s great to have that many kids playing footy, but where do they all go when they graduate to senior footy?”
A spokesperson for the AFL says while junior participation numbers in country Victoria show the game is growing overall, the organisation “recognises there are challenges, including population shifts and other factors contributing to some clubs experiencing player number shortages”.
‘A framework for everything’
Greg Watmore, who has had an almost decade-long involvement with Tocumwal Football/Netball Club – which switched from the PDFNL to the nearby Murray Football and Netball League this season, in part because of the de-affiliation – says while imperfect, the current system is the best on offer.
“I agree with affiliation and was deadset against Picola [league] leaving,” Watmore says.
He says the AFL affiliation provides “a framework for everything”.
“You might not like all the rules, because of course they’re not tailored to suit individual clubs or leagues, they’re tailored to suit everybody,” he says.
“It guides clubs in relation to transfers, suspensions, how match days run, player points, salary caps, umpire abuse, clearances … everything. I think it’s too complex for individual leagues to manage.”
In a response to Guardian Australia, the AFL rejects criticisms of its administration of country football and says the feedback it has received is that the system is working well.
It says each region is governed by locals “who generally have strong connections to community clubs and are well informed”.
“They are best positioned to manage a region within one framework but apply localised regulations and decision-making based on the evidence available to them,” it says in a statement.
It adds that “no decision will please every club” but that every league has “the opportunity to be consulted on the development and setting of [salary] caps”.
“A small number of clubs seek additional travel or salary cap assistance and applications are never rejected without a process which the club submits to,” the statement says.
It says AFL Victoria is “committed to directing support to where it’s needed most”, including “investment in dedicated club development leads in regional areas, to provide on-the-ground, localised support to clubs and the volunteers who drive the success of community football”.
Shane Railton, the operations manager of the PDFNL, says many other league administrators are watching how the 2023 PDFNL season unfolds, with a view to potentially doing the same in the future.
He says he believes affiliation agreements are about the AFL “amassing control” and that while local commissions are meant to give voice to what’s happening at the grassroots level, “everything is seemingly driven out of head office”.
“I think the issue with the AFL is they don’t get that there is so much variation in football,” he says. “It would be ideal to have a one-model-fits-all and that’s what they want, but that’s not how it works. You can’t make something work by just setting rules and being inflexible.”
