THE Victorian Country Football League hasn't slammed the door on an AFL-led push for sweeping changes to country footy.
Show us the money.
That's the message from the Victorian Country Football League to AFL Victoria as the two groups continue to work through the detail of the AFL-commissioned review of bush footy.
After initially reserving its judgment on the review, the VCFL held a board meeting late last month and surprised many football followers by showing tentative support for many of review chairman Peter Jackson's recommendations for sweeping change.
"In general, there's a lot of positive recommendations there," VCFL chief executive Steven Reaper told The Weekly Times.
"The question now is how it would all be funded, so until it's all costed we're not really in a position to say 'yay' or 'nay'.
"At this stage, we just don't know all the facts."
Among Mr Jackson's 25 recommendations was a proposed merger of AFL Victoria and the VCFL, with the country body's assets and liabilities transferred to AFL Victoria.
Mr Reaper said a merger would be the first step to implementing Mr Jackson's recommendations, if they were green-lighted by the VCFL and its member clubs and leagues.
"I think bringing the two bodies together would probably be the easier bit," he said.
"It's part two where you might get a kick-back from some of the regions."
"Part two" involves shrinking the VCFL's current affiliates - 82 leagues and 28 umpiring bodies - to 13 "regions", each responsible for the wellbeing of football in its patch of Victoria.
"At the moment, you've got 82 leagues all making decisions in the best interest of their league, not the best interest of the game," Mr Jackson, also AFL Victoria chairman, said at the launch of his report last month.
"That's not a criticism, that's their job. But we're unashamedly looking at the sustainability of clubs, not necessarily leagues or governing bodies.
"Clubs are the ones that need to survive for our game to grow."
Mr Jackson's blueprint splits Victoria into eight large and five small regions, along similar boundaries to AFL Victoria's development regions.
He has recommended each of the eight large regions - Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Hampden, Goulburn Murray, North East, East Gippsland and South East - establish an independent commission, similar to the AFL's, and employ a region general manager.
Each region would also have one or two community/club development officers, funded by player registration fees currently paid to the VCFL.
Mr Jackson flagged an additional $750,000 AFL Victoria investment in country football if his recommendations were implemented.
"This investment is made up of a grant of $50,000 for each large region to appoint the region general manager; an allowance for a ... financial return to regions to develop NAB AFL Auskick participation (about $150,000); funding the development of umpire and volunteer development programs and strategies (about $100,000); and the implementation costs of the review recommendations (about $100,000)," the report says.
Mr Reaper said he understood this to mean an "ongoing commitment" of $650,000 annually, after the recommendations had been implemented.
He said an in-depth financial analysis of Mr Jackson's recommendations could take up to six months.
An implementation team, led by Mr Reaper and AFL Victoria's Jim Cail, has been set up to work on designs for the future governance of country footy.
