‘Weaponizing the children against clubs’: The issue dividing gymnastics, leaving kids behind

Grassroots clubs around Australia are on the brink of abandoning affiliation with Gymnastics Australia and their state bodies as they weigh up the costs of being involved in the sport.

Caught in the crossfire are promising young gymnasts whose clubs were banned from competing in qualifying for the national championships this weekend on the Gold Coast due to the political bickering at the administrative level.

“They are weaponizing the children against clubs,” says Andy Bassett, owner of Focus Gymnastics in Dubbo and twenty-two year veteran of the industry.

Bassett and Michelle Keeffe, owner of Active Gymnastics in Perth estimate more than 100 grassroots clubs have ended, or are considering ending, their affiliation with the state and national bodies due to its dissatisfaction with the fragmented approach of the respective state bodies, the duplication of services and the financial impost it’s creating on clubs.

They think the entire sport is suffocating under the layers of administration from above and that the one-size-fits-all federated model (where state bodies elect the majority of the national board, so effectively ‘own’ its strategic direction) that governs most sports in Australia is horribly ill-fitting for gymnastics in 2024.

“The issue with the federated model is that it was designed to support small, not-for-profit clubs run predominantly by volunteers,” she says.

“90% of clubs are now professionally-run businesses, both private and not for profit.”

She believes that affiliating with her state body (Gymnastics Western Australia) will cost her as much as $100,000 a year.

“Simply, it’s the difference between a profitable and sustainable business.”

Vicki Flamsteed who owns Allstar Gymnastics in Toowoomba agrees.

“The difference between gymnastics now and gymnastics when I was doing it 30 or 40 years ago is that they were all volunteer coaches, volunteer clubs and not-for-profit organisations run by small committees,” she says.

“They are not anymore. We are an industry where people’s livelihoods depend on it.”

Keeffe agrees that if clubs aren’t profitable, that grassroots bedrock that provides our nationals team will be threatened.

“As much as it would hurt us, because we love the sport, many of us will simply have to shut our competitive programs down and only run recreational programs using other service providers because we’re unable to afford the costs imposed by the state associations.”

Similar stories are being told across Australia in addition to general dissatisfaction about state bodies not being aligned with one national vision.

“There is this big emphasis on kids getting to the elite level,” Bassett says.

“And let’s be honest, at the elite level we are not that great. But here is a governing body restricting kids from competing. The politics of gymnastics is stopping clubs from focusing on the athletes.”

The nub of the disagreement is state associations’ want to treat, and financially charge, toddlers and preschoolers programs and ‘recreational gymnasts’ the same as competition participants.

Both groups are customers of gymnastics clubs who may only attend one class per week for an hour and do not compete in competitions operated by the national and state bodies.

Club owners liken this to customers of a learn to swim program who do not swim in competitive races.

Many clubs structure their businesses in accordance with this, creating separate business entities for each classification.

Keeffe says that the competitive side of the business operates for different motives too.

“The recreational business is profitable and makes the club a financially viable business option. Whereas most of us operate the competitive sides on very slim profit margins purely because we love the sport and want to see our young students have the opportunity of earning higher honours.”

In many clubs, the profits from their beginner programs effectively subsidise their passion for the higher performing athletes.

Belgravia Group, owners of leisure giant Belgravia Leisure, has operated fundamental movement education and recreational gymnastics programs across Australia for many years, via their BK GymSwim business.

Yet it was their move two years back to set-up its own commercial services entity for recreational gymnastics - Recreational Gymnastics Australia - that caused seismic change for the grassroots level of the sport.

In basic terms, RGA offered critical services the clubs could previously only access through their state association, but at much reduced fees. Bassett likens it to Aldi moving into the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths. “We now have choice and RGA gives us all the bells and whistles.”

In some cases state body fees equate to almost four times the cost per child compared to RGA.

RGA charges a peak enrollment of $17 that includes insurance, while states charge anywhere between $26 and $52 for the same service. RGA also provides free education and accreditation for casually employed coaches as compared to more than $250 per person per year charged by state associations. Owners effectively bear the cost for all these services.

Ross Gage, CEO of industry body Gymnastics Clubs Australia says these costs are harming participation.

“The fees charged are now a barrier to participation. In a time that we have growing levels of inactivity and obesity our system is stopping kids participating.”

So affiliating its recreational users, who have no need to be in the state and national competition systems and receive little value from governing bodies, to the new body instead of the state association has been a no-brainer.

It has resulted in savings of up to $100,000 for big clubs.

The state associations see this differently and want everyone under its umbrella.

Subsequently a standoff has ensued where clubs that register their recreational and educational users with RGA instead of their state association claim they are being blacklisted by state bodies in various ways; fines or changes to membership policies that disallow affiliation with another body.

In some cases they claim they are being disciplined via disqualifications of the competitive side of their business.

Flamsteed, who has been involved with the sport for decades and served on state boards, is one of those.

For responsible financial management reasons she structured her business to affiliate her competitive club with Gymnastics Queensland and her recreational club with RGA.

In response she says her club is currently not allowed to enter any Gymnastics Queensland competition.

“The club is suspended. So the kids can’t compete under their home club, which is just heartbreaking for the families,” Flamsteed says.

At qualifying for this week’s national championships, athletes from Allstar Gymnastics were forced to join other clubs, buy new uniforms and compete for them. The overwhelming support by other clubs willing to take them in highlights the support among the sport’s community for those that have been banned.

It’s a similar story ahead for the Queensland junior competition season.

“The sanction is under appeal and the appeal process is underway, but at the moment Gymnastics Queensland won’t allow the gymnasts to compete unless they join another club.”

Bassett uses the example of the punishment of a club in the Hunter Valley region to illustrate the tactics used.

“Five days before a major competition they were de-affiliated because the owner’s other recreational business had used another insurance company.”

“These girls would train 15-20 hours a week and were absolutely gutted. This gym owner was told all you have to do is affiliate your other business with Gymnastics NSW and you will be allowed to compete, even though these competitive gymnasts are already affiliated,”

“In my opinion that’s weaponizing the children, to receive payment and business.”

Gymnastics Australia and Gymnastics Queensland did not reply to questions at the time of publication.

The growing group of recalcitrant club owners and managers are unanimously supportive of Gymnastics Australia’s role as a national body for operating Olympic-pathway competitions, teams and national sport strategy.

Yet Gage says there needs to be change to keep clubs engaged in the system.

“They want a Gymnastics Australia that operates without state parochialism and they now see many of the services provided by the state bodies as a duplication and unnecessary expensive cost to clubs and participants, or no longer relevant to clubs that have evolved into professional providers,” he says.

“They’ve also seen through the emergence of RGA that a number of services can be provided more economically and efficiently by others in the marketplace.”

For owners like Keeffe, Bassett and Flamsteed, the issue is now at breaking point.

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“We’ve tried to approach this as very professionally and supportably and collaboratively with the states and they just refuse to engage,” Flamsteed says.

“There’s no level of collaboration. It’s very frustrating.

“And the kids are the victims.”