Phil Cleary says the AFL must intervene and support struggling VFL standalone clubs

Coburg, the club Cleary coached to two premierships in the old VFA, has yet to win a game this season and their Battle of Bell Street rivals the Northern Bullants have suffered demoralising losses in their past three matches.

Last Saturday the Brodie Holland-coached Ants failed to kick a goal against Footscray.

The 157-point margin has again put the future of the VFL into sharp focus.

Minutes after the game a leading AFL recruiter messaged CODE Sports, saying “the comp can’t survive with results/games like that’’.

Unlike standalone rivals Werribee, Williamstown and Port Melbourne, the Bullants (two wins this season), Frankston (three) and Coburg do not have gaming machines, and the gulf in the clubs’ financial positions and off-field resources was highlighted last week in a CODE Sports investigation.

It reported that Werribee’s The Tiger Clubhouse in Hoppers Crossing generated close to $18 million in the past 18 months.

In contrast, Frankston recorded a profit last year of just over $1000.

Dolphins treasurer James van Beek wrote in the club’s annual report that there was a “direct correlation between winning and financial performance’’.

“Frankston, Coburg and Northern Bullants are disadvantaged, although being socially responsible, making it difficult to strive for and become financially sustainable and, by extension, competitive on-field,’’ he said.

The AFL no longer gives six-figure annual grants to the standalone clubs.

They were withdrawn when the league sharpened the pencil after Covid.

Cleary declared that it was an “an indictment on the AFL that VFL clubs can only survive if they have massive gaming-machine revenue’’.

“The AFL has to put an end to this disgraceful funding model and find ways of funding the standalones clubs who serve their communities in so many significant ways,’’ he said.

Cleary added the AFL should be helping clubs get out of gaming machines, which were “ripping the heart out of communities’’.

“We do not want a football competition based around poker machines,’’ he said.

“The AFL must take a stand and enable the VFL clubs to disassociate from the poker-machine industry and be funded accordingly.’’

Cleary said if the situation didn’t change, Werribee, Williamstown and Port Melbourne should pay a “luxury tax’’ to be distributed equally among the clubs without gaming.

“What we’ve got in the VFL is inequality based around rich AFL clubs playing against standalone clubs, and the only way those clubs can survive is to have gaming machines,’’ Cleary said.

“The clubs that don’t have them are impoverished and languishing at the bottom and looking like sick football clubs.

“The AFL has to put an end to that, and acknowledge that clubs like Coburg are playing a major role in the community and can play other major roles in the community.

“They have great facilities and can attract people to conferences and events that are based around good values.

“How ironic that the Coburg Football Club can run Vicki Cleary Day (which raises awareness of violence against women) while other clubs like Werribee are engaged in poker-machine revenue-raising, which is a scourge.

“Yet the Coburg Football Club is the poor club! It’s astounding.

“The AFL have got to acknowledge the multi-faceted role of the old VFA/VFL clubs in the community and in the football landscape. And they have to fund them. They cannot be lost to our game.’’

Cleary said the AFL should be “embarrassed’’ that gaming machines had created such a lopsided playing field among the Victorian stand-alones.

Bullants chair Leighton Wood, the head of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, told CODE Sports last night: “I think the current situation is inequitable and needs to be addressed, but what the answer is, I think we need to get a lot of wise heads together in a room and beat it out.

“I wouldn’t like to purport what that solution might be without those wise heads in the rooms. That’s potentially problematic and unhelpful.’’

He confirmed the club was committed to staying in the 21-team VFL.

Wood said the Ants had done a lot of work this year “and probably the focus has been getting the off-ground stuff right’’.

“Brodie (Holland) has done a fantastic job with what he’s had at his disposal, and not for one second have I questioned the attitude of our players,’’ he said.

“I know they’re giving it their best. But it is very difficult when you’re playing against full-time footballers.’’

On the day they lost to Footscray, the Bullants raised $11,000 for disadvantaged children.

Earlier in the season they also raised $22,000 for the Royal Children’s Hospital.

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Wood said the Bullants were about “community, connection and belonging’’.

The AFL said last week there were no plans to change the VFL.

“It is imperative that clubs remain financially viable, while being independently run. The AFL is clear on its responsibility to preserve the history of the VFL clubs and will continue to work closely with all standalone clubs to provide guidance and support,’’ it said when asked if it was concerned about the financial plight of some stand-alone clubs.