Braybrook players line up to pay their respects in the Anzac Day clash last week. 80323 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
By MICHAEL ESPOSITO
BRAYBROOK coach John Whelan urged administrators to be more proactive in addressing the widening gap between the haves and have-nots in the Western Region Football League.
He said incorporating a netball competition into the league would help struggling clubs attract players and would financially strengthen the league.
“They need to sit there and think about it for the next two months and certainly get it on the agenda ASAP. I think it will be one of the great boon factors for the WRFL if they were to initiate that,” Whelan said.
Braybrook is well entrenched in the “have not” category, and have struggled to attract enough players to fill competitive senior and reserves football sides. “Some clubs can spend anywhere up to $200,000 on a playing list and some clubs can’t even get within 20 per cent of that,” Whelan said.
“There’s a huge difference between the rich and the poor clubs in the Western Region Football League.”
But Whelan has dismissed the idea of a salary cap, which the WRFL have tried before, and a points cap, saying both systems would be impossible to police.
He said some inner western clubs have been victims of the changing landscape of the western suburbs, where some areas have experienced huge growth while others have remained stagnant.
“I think the demographics of the WRFL have changed dramatically. For instance, Braybrook’s lost its juniors. If our ground and our club was on the other side of Ballarat Rd, we’d probably have a fairly strong junior contingent, but we haven’t,” he said.
“That makes it very difficult, because you haven’t got that ongoing drawing source to be able to bring into your senior side and develop those junior kids to develop and become senior footballers for the same club. That’s one of the problems that I think is quite inherent in the Western Region Football League.
What needs to be done to close the gap between the rich and the poor in the WRFL? Email starsport@starnewsgroup.com.au or visit Star’s facebook pages to have your say.
