REPORTS on the impending death of the Millewa football competition are greatly exaggerated and unfair, a former league president says.
In a detailed letter to me this week, Adam Astill, the Millewa Football League boss from 2016-18, hit back at recent coverage that the near 100-year-old league’s days are numbered amid massively lopsided results this season.
Astill argues that the viability and worth of the league comes down to more than just results.
“To have the competition’s future publicly questioned over the last couple of months has caused a lot of nervousness, frustration and in some corners, anger,” he wrote.
“While many people relate league and club success to the football results, there are many more aspects to Millewa clubs.
“The forgotten people in this debate are actually the majority of sport participants associated with Millewa clubs – the participants in the Millewa Netball Association (MNA).
“At nearly all clubs, there are more registered netballers than men’s footballers.
“When women’s football is added, close to 70 per cent of participants associated with Millewa clubs are women.
“Currently the only point of view that the majority of so-called stakeholders have does not take the majority of members of the clubs into account.”
Astill goes on to say that the MNA has more than 300 women and girls playing in its five netball grades each Saturday.
“Should the decision be made by local football governing bodies to wind up the league, it’s likely the Millewa Netball Association, in its current format, will not be viable and lose its long history. All through a decision made by a committee (Sunraysia AFL Commission) that has no authority over them,” he said.
He makes the point that the social side of the league would be lost if the MFL and MNA competitions were axed at season’s end.
I interviewed the current MFL president, John Hall, for a Serve column a few weeks ago, where he said: “The whole concept of Sunraysia and Millewa football has got to be looked at. It can’t survive the way it is now.”
These comments clearly riled his predecessor.
“There has been a lack of leadership on many levels in the football side of this debate,” Astill said.
“Club executives feel frustrated by a lack of advocacy at MFL executive level. John Hall’s comment that ‘two football leagues are unlikely to survive’ doesn’t show a great level of confidence or will to advocate for the clubs that have given him leadership of the league.
“The AFL Sunraysia Commission has not demonstrated a great level of leadership with regards to the future of the Millewa league and its clubs either.”
Astill then turns his attention to solutions for making the MFL more sustainable.
“A starting point would be for the league to have a strong advocate for its future, and for the AFL Sunraysia Commission to begin consultation with the member clubs of the league,” he said.
“The AFL Sunraysia Commission is right in saying that football across the area needs to be looked at moving forward.”
In Hall’s defence, at least he has put his hand up to perform a role that seemingly no-one else wants to do.
I asked Astill if he would reconsider running for MFL president next term, but he declined to comment.
Astill offers up a four-point blueprint to “increase participation, bring competitive balance and ensure that participation numbers at minimum remain the same” in the SFNL, MFL and Sunraysia Women’s Football League.
These include:
* Setting match numbers in all open-age football grades at 16 + 4. That is 16 on the field with up to a maximum of four on the bench (total 20 per team)
* Realigning junior age groups to U/17, U/15, U/13s in line with most large regional areas around the state
* Reduce the game time of open-age football from 20 minutes plus time on; and
* Reduce the player points allowance totals and the salary cap amounts across senior competitions
Astill goes into greater detail around how each of these could work (which I’d suggest he forwards to the commission), before finishing with: “Fixing football is not easy by any means.
“But continually potting a competition in the area and saying it won’t survive isn’t doing anyone any favours either.
“Millewa member clubs are much bigger than the results that occur on a footy field on a Saturday.
“But many in the wider community rarely, if ever seem to look past that fact.
“Millewa clubs provide a social aspect for the communities that they serve and their members and players both past and present. Millewa clubs want to survive in their own right.”
CAN’T LIV WITH THAT
Talk about greed.
The number of players exiting the US PGA Tour for the Greg Norman-led, Saudi-backed rebel LIV Golf tour is growing by the week.
Hypocrisy reigns for major winners including American Brooks Koepka, who only a couple of months ago wanted to “grow” the PGA Tour before he sold out to LIV for a reported $150 million.
I’m a traditionalist and loyalist. I think it’s disgraceful what’s happening in world golf at the moment.
Many breakaways over the years have done it in the name of better pay for players and to lift the profile of the sport.
This was the case with Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket.
But the departure of top-line golfers such as Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Bryson DeChambeau is nothing but a money grab.
They’ve forgotten that it was the PGA Tour that helped forge their reputation as world’s best golfers.
How much more money do these already super-rich golfers want?
Some of those who have turned their back on the PGA Tour say they want to grow the game. What a joke. It’s about lining their pockets even more.
The 54-hole events have no cuts and are no more than exhibition events.
There’s even talk this week of the newly minted British Open champion, Cameron Smith, and fellow Aussies Mark Leishman and Adam Scott being on the verge of signing with LIV for mega-bucks, thanks to the pulling power of Norman.
I’ve already wiped Norman as my sporting hero after his disgraceful comments in defending the murderous Saudi regime earlier this year.
And don’t get me started on his late-in-life love of posting naked selfies.
I’d hate to think that Norman will get Smith, Leishman and Scott to put pen to paper with LIV.
DISPENSING BABY NEWS
Congratulations goes out on Sunraysia sport’s glamour couple, Nick and Bronte Pezzaniti, on wonderful news that they are expecting their first child in early 2023.
I’m getting in early on a nickname for their child – “Junior Pez Dispenser”.
With star footballer Nick and brilliant basketballer Bronte’s top-shelf genes, their child is sure to be both good looking and have incredible sporting talent.
Unfortunately, Bronte is going to miss the rest of Mildura Heat’s campaign as the team mounts a serious charge towards Big V Division 1 finals glory.
Nick, meanwhile, will be looking to help Irymple repeat their 2019 SFNL seniors’ flag success.
