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AFL Barwon has opened talks with clubs about its plans for promotion-relegation in local football.
Geelong West-St Peter’s, Lara and North Shore are among the clubs that have been called in individually for a meeting with members of the AFL Barwon commission.
The discussions took place during the GFL finals series.
Club representatives were brought up to speed with how a promotion-relegation system would operate if AFL Barwon followed through with plans for a divisional setup.
Clubs were given the opportunity to provide feedback but it is understood no club was read the riot act or threatened with demotion.
“It definitely wasn’t ‘bring your books and show us your recruiting plan’,” one club official said yesterday about the meeting.
“It was more about ‘this is what we’re thinking and what are your thoughts about it? This might affect you with the position you’re in, it might not’.”
AFL Barwon has spent the season looking at the structure of its local competitions, with a view to implement change as early as 2016.
One option could include an overhaul of the GFL, BFL and GDFL to create a divisional setup with promotion and relegation, as used in English soccer.
Under any change, each club’s football and netball teams will remain together and play in the same division.
The recent discussions with club delegates prove that some form of restructure is coming closer to reality. A view expressed yesterday was that if AFL Barwon had already made up its mind about the structure, it should put it on the table now out of respect to the clubs that will be affected.
West, Lara and North Shore were the GFL’s bottom three sides this season.
While those clubs each acknowledge they must improve their on-field performances, they maintain they have their off-field house in order and boast strong junior programs.
All these factors come into play when determining a club’s value to a particular division.
Strong BFL clubs Torquay and Geelong Amateur would be frontrunners to earn promotion to a division one competition.
The Tigers are nestled in a booming growth corridor and have the biggest junior participation of any club in the region, brimming with 416 junior footballers and 270 Auskick players.
So big is the growth along the Surf Coast, a new club is being earmarked for the North Torquay precinct.
BFL premier Geelong Amateur, with its strong junior program and long-standing success at senior level, is also a prime candidate for a move to the top flight.