AFL Central Victoria will soon launch a commission review into their competitions to help plan for their respective future directions.
The Bendigo, Heathcote District, Loddon Valley and North Central leagues all currently fall under AFLCV’s guidance.
Commission chairman Nicholas Rolfe said the main reason for the review was that some sides were struggling to fill their full complement of football and netball sides.
He added that by having all grades filled it would help to re-establish a clear top tier competition.
“Every geographical area by definition has one competition which is better than the others,” Rolfe told Australian Community Media.
“Therefore, you can't have the premier competition prejudiced by a number of clubs which can't have a full complement of sides, which is the situation at the moment.
“I think it reflects badly on the league and the commission and is just not a good look and something needs to be done about it.
“I would have thought that if I was involved with Eaglehawk, I'd be much happier playing Lockington or Leitchville-Gunbower for example at Eaglehawk then I would be playing Castlemaine or Maryborough because those clubs have a full complement of football and netball teams.
“Ultimately, it affects football overall in the sense that clubs rely on support on and off field.
“If you know that you're playing a club that hasn't got a full complement, you've got the problem that your players aren't getting a game every week and that you don't necessarily get the same amount of people through the gate, which then flows on throughout.”
Rolfe added that having a premier competition would also help to strengthen lower divisions.
“If you've got a cracking premier competition it has an overall flow-on effect because good players come here wanting to play and then you have players disseminating back through the ranks,” he said.
“Everyone has to agree on it conceptually going forward... some leagues will have the view of why should we mess up our league to sustain the premier competition.”
Rolfe also believes that any changes could help those clubs who struggle to fill a reserves team on a regular basis.
“One of the great problems with country football in some areas is they can't sustain a seconds competition. And therefore, what you could look to create is a competition where you don't have to have seconds,” he added.
It is expected a term of reference will be drawn up for the review at this month’s commission meeting.
“If there's no competition our staff would have the time to devote to it conceptually, philosophically and operationally that otherwise they would have had to devote to the operation of the leagues if they were playing,” Rolfe said.
“Country people tend to be very conservative, but the definition of insanity according to Einstein is someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, which is what we do.
“Conceptually, it's a huge shift if you've never been exposed to it (promotion/relegation), but if you had you might not be exposed to some of the problems that are there now.”
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