Editorial: Welcome back again, No Crowds & Do The Right Thing!

Brett Connell – VAFA CEO

Welcome back is not a term we would usually associate with July, but such is the nature of the world we are currently living in. While we will return this weekend to VAFA football across the grades, there will be shades of a month ago when we returned to play with no crowds – yes that’s us again for the next two weeks.

While we would all rather a return to ‘normal’ Saturdays and going to the football, we must remember that we are all required to do our bit so we can, by August 14/15 (fingers crossed), return to a somewhat ‘old normal’ and actually attend the footy.

Having said that, we do implore the VAFA community to respect the AFL Victoria Return to Play Protocols which do not allow for spectators at matches for the next (2) weekends, only those people required to run a matchday should be present onsite.

I know there will be people scoffing at this suggestion, but as we have seen recently, we ALL need to follow the state government orders so as to get back to ‘normal’ quicker – so please, do the right thing.

While we kick off our finals series this weekend with our women’s competitions, it was with no joy that we had to make the decision to cease the women’s season last weekend, effectively ending the year for many of our women’s teams. Trust me, this decision was not made lightly.

COVID has disrupted all of our lives in so many ways, and this was just another disappointing outcome. While we planned for prospective scenarios via our COVID policy, we ultimately were left with no alternative other than to follow the policy in place and cancel rounds.

Another moot example of the disruptions are our finals eligibility rules which, via our current Constitution, require a member’s vote and associated timeframes to be met. Given snap lockdowns, this has been made impossible and left many players unable to play in this week’s Women’s finals and next week’s Thirds finals. The new Constitution does not include such restrictions on rule changes, but alas this is not in place. Foresight is truly a wonderful thing.

Our goal now is to maximise the matchday opportunities afforded to us, knowing privileges can be swept out from under us at a whim. We return to normal matches as fixtured for the July 31/August 1 weekend and look forward to getting back out on the park. Rest assured we do sincerely appreciate the effect this had on our entire community, emotionally, physically, financially, and socially.

While COVID return to play and finals planning and re-planning have been our key focuses recently, we are still working away on key 2021 projects namely: 1) our new Constitution, 2) a new Affiliation Fee structure and 3) a large body of work being done on the Amateur Status/Integrity piece – the cornerstone of our Association.

There will be further updates as the weeks progress on these key 2021 projects. Despite the setbacks and other COVID-related focuses, we feel we can deliver on many of the above given the progress made to date, albeit some of the delivery timelines may need to be pushed out.

Enjoy your weekend and remember www.vafa.com.au for all this weekend’s live scores.

VAFA – More than Footy