THE 2020 Riverland Football League (RFL) season could start in July and go until the middle of October, according to the league’s commission.
The news comes as the RFL continues to receive information from the SANFL regarding a possible timeline for the reduction of social distancing restrictions and what that means for grassroots football.
Speaking to the Murray Pioneer last week, RFL chairman Shane Uren said progress continues to be made towards a possible return of country football.
“We had a commission meeting on Monday night and the presidents of the RFL clubs also got together on Monday night as well,” he said.
“I have been asking individually from the clubs when they think could be their last possible game and how they see a season being structured.
“They all sent back stuff that was similar, but to their credit they got together and have come back with a united plan of what they would like to see, which is a long the lines of what we were thinking anyway.
“Clubs are able to go back to training from next week, following strict protocols from the State Government and the SANFL.
“Hopefully following that timeline that they set out, we should be able to start playing early July, hopefully with crowds.”
Mr Uren highlighted crowds as the decisive factor as to whether the season will go ahead or not.
“If there are no crowds and we can’t have a canteen and bar, even if it is a takeaway type thing, then we won’t be able to play because the clubs can’t afford to play with no income at all,” he said.
“If we can get some sort of patronage to the games, then ideally, we will be looking to start on July 4 or the absolute latest being the week after, July 11.
“We would have 10 minor round games, with one bye in there.
“Otherwise we would go 10 minor round games and a finals series of three weeks, so that would mean that one team would be playing from start to finish 13 weeks straight if we didn’t have a bye.
“We will probably throw the bye in there around round seven or something like that.
“Then we would finish at the very latest on October 11.
“With the Independents, they would start as soon as possible, then play as many games and then work out when we can play finals that don’t clash with the A grade games, so we can make sure we have umpires available and things like that.”
Mr Uren thanked all clubs for their involvement throughout the past few months.
“The clubs have probably surprised us a little bit with being willing to go into October,” he said.
“We were originally thinking that we would have to finish the first weekend of October at the latest and that is a long weekend, so we were concerned if they would want to play then.
“To their credit, they have given themselves the opportunity to get a football season happening.”
Mr Uren said the fate of the 2020 season is now reliant on the State Government and how they choose to reduce restrictions.
“Now it is just about following the protocols, not just us, but everyone in the state and hopefully we don’t have any outbreaks anywhere,” he said.
“If everyone is doing the right thing then hopefully the State Government can give us the go ahead to move into the next phase and then the next phase after that, which would mean playing football.”
In a recent statement, SANFL said it will continue the process of consultation with SA Health and the Office of Recreation Sport and Racing for commencement of competitive training followed by matches from June 8 onwards, understanding the current restrictions will be groups of 20 people.