TOO many unknowns surrounding gameday logistics have seen the Riverland Football League cancel all senior and under 18 matches this season.
The decision was made at a commission meeting last Wednesday night, with the A grade, B grade and under 18s seasons called off.
RFL chairman Shane Uren said the decision wasn’t made lightly by commission members.
“It was probably one of the toughest decisions in all of our football lives for those involved,” he said.
“It wasn’t a decision that was made lightly and it wasn’t a decision that was just on the night either.
“It was something we had been working towards and one way or another a decision had to be made last night.”
The final call on the RFL season was made following a meeting between the SANFL and league presidents across the state on Tuesday night.
Mr Uren said while some positives did come from the meeting, the SANFL were unable to pass on as much information as first hoped.
“Tuesday night’s meeting was about the fact we could have crowds of up to 500 people,” he said.
“That was fantastic news and then they extended into that a little by saying that the players and participants of the games were not included in the 500, which we thought was great news.
“But then it was a shifting crowd, because once the players that were playing had finished and come back out of the changerooms, they were part of the crowd, so crowd numbers were going to be a very difficult thing to monitor.
“We could have possibly worked around that, but then we didn’t get any more information on gameday logistics, which was the crux of what forced our hand.
“We still don’t know if we would know any more in one or two weeks.”
Mr Uren said lingering questions surrounding gameday logistics were the key reason for the commission’s final decision.
“The unknowns and amount of stress it would have put on an already small volunteer base from each footy club to make sure the crowd number was stabilised at 500 or less and making sure the aren’t too many people in change rooms,” he said.
“There aren’t really any changerooms that would allow a whole football team inside them to be getting changed at the same time.
“Use the under 18s and B grade for example, if the under 18s were out on the oval playing, the B graders wouldn’t be allowed to go into the changerooms until the under 18s had come out and that changeroom had been cleaned.
“These are all unknowns and we didn’t know what we could do.
“The SANFL were unaware of what we are able to do and that is why they just haven’t been able to pass on that information to us.”
According to Mr Uren, the commission had been “in communication with the footy clubs extensively” in the lead-up to making a decision.
“We knew exactly what the football clubs were requiring,” he said.
“A lot has been made about the spectator numbers and that has been driven a lot by the general public and that was obviously a high requirement of the football clubs.
“But there is also a lot of mechanics that happen on gameday, what happens inside the boundary line is just a small part of the day.
“There is a little army of volunteers running around outside the boundary all day making sure things are happening and running smoothly.
“To have that extra stress and workload put on a few people as far as making sure the numbers are okay and making sure the changerooms are being cleaned and that sort of thing, they were all things football clubs came to us with concerns about.
“We couldn’t get those answers and we didn’t know if we were going to get those answers for a week or more, so it just got to the point where we needed to make that call.
“The football clubs were expecting a call either way this week, so we thought if we were to go back to the football clubs now, it’s not being fair to them and it was up to us to make the call as the commission.
“The final decision was based on all the information we could gather from all the individual clubs.”
Mr Uren said the SANFL’s recent announcement of no player payments in community football this year had no effect on the final decision made by the commission.
“Rumours about clubs not being able to fill sides because of the zero salary cap being the reason behind the final decision are not true,” he said.
“All RFL clubs wanted to play if we could have had a clear idea on how to function on game day.”
Mr Uren said he was mindful of the RFL losing players to competitions that are playing this year.
“It has been underwritten that any player who gets a clearance out of any league that is not competing in 2020, and then wants to return to their original club in 2021 for the new season, that club they played at this season cannot hold them,” he said.
“The biggest issue is that if someone goes off to a new club and really enjoys it, then they might stay. The leagues around the state on Tuesday night were falling pretty quickly.
“It is a concern, but you run the risk of losing players every year.”
Mr Uren thanked all involved in Riverland football for their efforts through the uncertainty over the past few months.
“I can’t thank the other commissioners enough,” he said.
“It was very robust meeting last night and there were no smiles afterwards, because it was a very tough decision and it has been playing on their minds and mine as well for months now.
“Each of the football clubs have been absolutely awesome to deal with. I cannot speak highly enough of how they came together.
“There was no feeling of what’s best for my club, every conversation I had was what is best for football in the region and I think football in the Riverland is in a very strong place with that quality of people involved at each club.”
Local footy
Too many unknowns to play on
Jun 17 2020
5 min read
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