Weekly Times | CLUNES will stay in the Central Highlands league for now, but a club representative says a “serious review of the competition is required”.
The majority of the 200 club members who voted on whether or not Clunes should move to the Maryborough Castlemaine District league wanted the side to remain put.
The announcement of the result on Sunday follows a revived push from fellow Central Highlands straggler Carngham-Linton to split the 18-team competition into two divisions.
Central Highlands league president Eddy Comelli said that a proposal lodged by Carngham-Linton was “exactly the same” as the one rejected by the clubs in 2012, after Carngham-Linton lobbied the league to hold a competition-wide vote.
Carngham-Linton wants to divide the league geographically to form east and west conferences, with nine teams in each division.
Teams from opposing conferences would not compete against one another throughout the season, and each conference would have its own finals series. Comelli oversaw the vote three years ago and said about 80 per cent of the clubs did not support the original motion.
“I’m not saying that support might not have changed a little bit — it probably has — but not a great degree,” he said. “I think there are more than two teams (who support it). But we’re governed and ruled by the majority of our members.”
Carngham-Linton president Sam Richardson declined to comment on the proposal until it went before the other clubs next week.
AFL Goldfields acting region general manager Aaron Nunn said that the decision was “up to the league” and clubs would need to be canvassed before AFL Goldfields was consulted.
Clunes director of football operations Chris McLennan said he suspected more clubs were uneasy with the current competition structure than were letting on and a “serious review of the competition was required”.
“I certainly think there’s some unrest among the members, and they would want us to follow through and find out whether other clubs share similar feelings,’’ he said.