Free to play

CHILTERN Football Netball Club is starting to see the impacts of their decision to make football and netball free of cost for their junior players. The club made the generous announcement late last year they would be willing to compensate as much as $12,000 in registration fees for their entire junior football and netball grades through sponsors, in an effort to help counter the rising cost of living and decreased numbers in country sport participation. According to president Tom Lappin, the club has seen a big improvement in under 17s football participation compared to this time last year and seen strong numbers in their junior netball grades. But Lappin said there was still room for improvement in securing numbers in the under 14s football side, which are currently shorthanded. “It’s certainly had an impact, is it the impact we would like it to have; not quite yet,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of junior kids around our local area; it goes through stages and at the moment the fact is that there aren’t many locals.” Wodonga Saints earlier this year became the second TDFL club to compensate their junior footballer registration fees, hoping to save families around $300. Lappin said the club had received many messages of gratitude from parents and the community since the committee came to their decision, as they looked for ways to alleviate financial pressure and attract more juniors to the club. “It’s good to see some of the other clubs following along, we’re all in the same boat and we’ve got to look at why the kids aren’t playing,” he said. “The parents who have kids of junior age, they’re trying to buy houses, put food on the table and buy cars and kids sport can become pretty expensive. “We’re trying to get kids to play who haven’t played before and parents who maybe couldn’t afford for their kids to play but they would like to.” Lappin said the club will continue to monitor the impacts of their free junior participation initiative when their season begins next month, and they will be hoping to attract assistance from sporting bodies like the AFL. “The disappointing part for us is that the AFL just don’t seem to see how hard it is,” he said. “Of course it hurts us financially because we have to pay out all of the fees ourselves, but I think the AFL need to have a serious look at how they can encourage these kids to not only play but keep the ones who are playing. “Registration fees carry an insurance part of it and if the AFL could cover junior insurance or anything else it would help, but they just don’t seem to be too concerned about it.”

Free to play

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