s17sr971 . Rod Ward .Ballarat Football League CEO . Picture: Andrew Tauber Source: Leader
AS AN integrity crisis continues to blight the sporting landscape, Ballarat Football League chief executive Rod Ward has revealed the region's primary football hub severed a commercial tie to protect its own integrity.
The league has previously been the beneficiary of a commercial arrangement with a Ballarat-based betting agency, which ran a market pertaining to the local competition.
It was a premiership market, not a market on individual matches, but Ward moved to terminate the two-year sponsorship after further analysing the inherent risks.
"We can't stop betting companies running markets on grassroots football but we no longer have an association with them," Ward said.
"We entered into a relationship like that because there were companies running markets on our competition. We felt they were doing so without investing anything back into the game.
"Last year, we started thinking more about the dangers of it.
"I'd be horrified to think anyone would throw a grand final, but we just felt it was probably a path we didn't want to go down any further. And I dare say we won't again."
One of Australia's major betting agencies, Sportsbet, runs a premiership market on the Ballarat competition, but players within the league are prevented from wagering.
Meanwhile, Ward concedes he cannot be certain performance-enhancing drugs have not found their way to the competition.
Ward said, in lieu of the impossible testing measures, the league would continue to take steps to educate its players and coaches.
"I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say it doesn't exist. I do believe that the biggest concern at a grassroots level is social drugs," he said.
"It's an issue in society. We'd be naive, given the statistics, to say that players in our leagues haven't tried social drugs.
"But I've never seen evidence of it. We're very diligent in terms of our coaching and education programs and we will continue to be."
