Weekly Times |THE Mallee Football League will fold and its five clubs merge into three under proposals from the review into football structures in Victoria’s northwest.
The recommendations are the culmination of the northwest structural review involving eight senior football leagues that began last year.
Clubs and leagues have until May 29 to submit feedback before the final report is released on June 30.
AFL Central Murray, Sunraysia and Wimmera Mallee region general manager Bruce Petering said any change would meet resistance, but the panel would assess the feedback on the proposals to see if any alterations were required.
“Clubs are genuinely telling us something needs to change and there is only a limited amount of things that we can change to rectify some of the major issues that they’re all telling us,” Petering said.
The review panel has recommended the Mallee league wind up at season’s end, and the Walpeup-Underbool and Ouyen United clubs merge and join the Sunraysia league next season.
Its preferred option is for Sea Lake Nandaly and Woomelang Lascelles to merge and join the Central Murray league next season.
The alternative is for those two sides to compete as individual clubs in the North Central or Golden Rivers leagues, but the panel deemed those options “short term” solutions.
It also points to the possibility of a future AFL Central Victoria review including the North Central league.
Southern Mallee Giants is advised to join the Horsham and District league.
Another recommendation was for Golden Rivers league club Wakool, in southern NSW, to merge with Koondrook Barham in the Central Murray competition.
The review was initiated following uncertainty around the Mallee league’s future last year when several clubs investigated shifting competitions.
Mallee league president Mick Brown said it was a “defining moment” for a league to fold.
“I will be interested to see if they’ve got a vision for the other leagues or are just going to be reactive, because this has been a reaction,” Brown said.
Long-term recommendations include setting minimum standards for clubs and investigating promotion-relegation structures and alignments between nearby leagues.
