Weekly Times | CENTRAL Highlands club Springbank will not be penalised after it was confirmed it breached its player points limit in a game this season.
The player points policy was introduced across Victorian community leagues this year to address recruitment and competition equalisation issues.
Senior players are allocated a value based on their playing history and clubs have a limit on the total points they can use in their senior team.
The Weekly Times understands Springbank allocated one point to a player, the lowest that can be given. The AFL Goldfields commission confirmed on Monday night the player should have been worth three points.
It confirms that the club fielded a team worth 43 points in Round 3, when its limit is 42.
“We acknowledged there was some ambiguity in relation to the interpretation of player points allocations undertaken by the club,” commission chairman Craig Fletcher said.
“We accepted there was an inadvertent mistake made.
“We have (yesterday) taken the matter of sanctions and penalties to AFL Victoria for clarification for matters into the future, but as there are no aspects of retrospectivity in relation to this matter we’re not applying a penalty.”
In this implementation year, breaches can be addressed with further training or penalties.
AFL Goldfields region general manager Rod Ward said the club originally allocated one point to the player so “they would’ve been in the system for 41 points” in Round 3.
He said the issue had been discussed for about three weeks and advice and clarity sought from AFL Victoria “on this player and his circumstances”.
Central Highlands league manager Diane Ryan said clubs did initial player point allocations and she and another auditor reviewed them.
She said some clubs reported difficulty saving their allocations in the online system, a problem she also encountered.
Ryan said she completed a second audit of most of the league’s 18 clubs “just to be thorough”, but not Springbank.
She believed the player was originally registered as a one-point player, but a change making him a three-point player at the start of the season was not recorded.
Springbank could not be reached for comment.