Weekly Times | AFL Victoria Country has upheld an appeal from Ouyen United which will allow the club to join the Sunraysia league with the nickname the “Kangas”.
Ouyen United — a combination of former Mallee league clubs Ouyen United and Walpeup-Underbool — was notified last night of the decision.
The North West Structural Review completed earlier this year resulted in the Mallee league disbanding, and it recommended Ouyen United and Walpeup-Underbool merge and join the Sunraysia league.
The two clubs eventually decided to retain the name Ouyen United, but play in Walpeup-Underbool’s jumper which has blue and white stripes.
The club also sought to nickname themselves the “Kangas”, a play on Walpeup-Underbool’s nickname.
Ouyen United launched an appeal with AFL Victoria after the Sunraysia league placed conditions on its entry into the league.
There was particular focus on the logo and “Kangas” moniker, which has similarities to existing Sunraysia league club Wentworth District’s “Roos” nickname and logo.
AFL Victoria found that the condition that Ouyen United could not join the league if it had a similar or the same logo as other clubs was “unreasonable”, and the proposed nickname and logo was “not similar enough to other clubs in the league to warrant non-acceptance into the competition”.
It found that disallowing the merged club to join the league would breach AFL Vic Country rule 4.7, which related to implementation and appeals of reviews, and was satisfied changing the logo would put at risk the newly amalgamated club.
Ouyen United president Jarrod Munro said it was a relief for the club because “now we know exactly where we stand”.
“Now we can move forward and concentrate on some more formalities of a merged club getting together and also organise our team on the ground and netballers on the courts and getting organised to move forward,” he said.
But Wentworth District president Andrew Murdoch said his club was “very disappointed” with the decision, and saw it as AFL Vic Country going against the wishes of the clubs and league which put the conditions in place.
“As a club up here we were quite happy for them to come into the league as long as they didn’t have a jumper or logo to be clashing with anyone in the league,” he said.
“It’s a merger of two existing clubs to form a new club so surely they could come up with a logo that doesn’t clash with the ones already up here.”