Burnout, lack of support, high turnover: The problems brewing as country footy gets biggest shake-up in years

3 months ago 18

High staff turnover, burnout and pressure on a small number of people to administrate tens of thousands of players are among the issues highlighted by local footy officials as country football in Victoria gets its biggest shake-up in more than a decade.

AFL Victoria announced on Monday that its “regional administrative centre model” – brought in based on recommendations made in 2011 – would be scrapped after AFL Barwon decided to exit the program and go it alone.

AFL Victoria announced on Monday that its “regional administrative model” would be scrapped.

Barwon joined AFL Sunraysia, AFL Gippsland, AFL Goldfields, AFL Western District, AFL Central Murray and AFL Wimmera Mallee in quitting the program, with leagues under those six regional administrative centres (RACs) returning to self-management.

Now AFL South East, AFL North East Border, AFL Barwon, AFL Central Victoria and AFL Goulburn Murray will make the same transition.

West Gippsland Football Netball Competition chair Tony Mitchell, a former member of both the Victorian Country Football League and AFL Victoria community football boards, told this masthead he was disappointed by the decision and said the AFL’s support for regional football clubs had “been languishing over the past few years”.

Timboon players huddle during a clash with Old Collegians in the Warrnambool and District Football Netball League.

“High staff turnover and burnout, they are 100 per cent the biggest issues facing clubs,” he said.

“They’re [staff] under immense pressure.”

Mitchell said the program had needed more time and support to be viable.

“Throughout regions, we just lack support from a development point of view, and we can do better,” he said.

“The whole premise around developing the RACs was that we got more support… so we all supported it on that basis that these people would be out there, helping clubs, [and] helping leagues develop and continue that, but that’s just diminished.”

Incoming AFL Barwon chair Ashley West – who will replace long-time chair Michelle Gerdtz in February – said the decision to move away from the RAC model “was the right move for us”.

AFL Barwon recorded an operating loss of $170,000 in their 2024 annual report.

“With the growth that we’ve had, in particular in our area, it’s made the role of the region manager really stretched,” he said.

“We’ve got over 25,000 participants across all football and netball competitions, and then the requirements from AFL Victoria, so one person for managing both of those things became really hard for somebody to do that role.”

Merrivale and Allansford in action in the WDFNL. The two sides finished atop the ladder in 2025.

West said the administrative change would allow for them to focus more on the “operations side of competition”, especially the netball divisions.

“We’re a really big netball centre down here as well – probably half of our 25,000 are netball participants, and when we’re being administered from an AFL perspective, obviously that doesn’t take into consideration a lot of the requirements from a netball point of view,” he said.

Goulburn Valley Football Netball League chair Peter Foott had mixed feelings about the abolition of the RAC model.

“I think it brings new opportunity, we can reset and change financial models,” he said.

“I was a fan of the regional administration centre anyway but if the AFL chooses to do this, then there’s not a lot we can do about it.

Former Hawthorn skipper Jarryd Roughead and former Western Bulldogs counterpart Bob Murphy played a one-off game for Inverloch Kongwak in the West Gippsland competition in 2021.

“Our bigger problem is being able to get people to sit on boards,” he continued. “So [that] brings the risk back to the league – how are we going to employ people? So we’ve got to have some thoughts around how we model that.”

Foott – who was the former board chair of Goulburn Murray AFL – also said that burnout was a “big factor” in sports administration across football clubs in Victoria.

He said the GVFNL still has 12 months to go on its contract with the regional model and confirmed clubs would be brought up to date on the announcement at a meeting later this week.

“I guess it’s about how we turn Goulburn Valley Football league into more of a business model than being a football league,” he said.

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