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Collingwood respond to damning allegations they used their netball program to win funding for a facility upgradehttps://t.co/OWRBq8aE4Z
— Fox Netball (@fox_netball) May 25, 2023
What a disaster.
NA should have brokered a deal with the Pies and NV years ago so this situation never came up. NNSW owns half the Giants and a minority stake would have forced NV & Collingwood to work together. Instead they fought a turf war that the Vixens “won” but we can now see that absolutely everybody loses.
Except the Collingwood Football Club. A browse of codesport has some low key allegations the Maggies leveraged their SSN commitment into a seven million dollar grant for better training facilities. Collingwood will be okay.
The writing was on the wall a while ago and I’d heard – from the footy end of the club – that they found the netball thing just too big a distraction in the end. Regardless of the financial and on court problems the netball program had, which were serious enough, the Treloar/Ravallion mess was then followed by the Madi Browne/Chloe Molloy relationship mess. It’s not surprising that in such an environment that the sparks of attraction will fly, but it certainly didn’t help the cause among the football people. They could point to the tangible and real effect it was having on the core business of Collingwood Football Club and it ultimately made the netball program that much easier to fold.
NA is an absolute joke and how they have run the sport into the ground deserves a royal commission. Fast 5, rolling subs, the two point shot, inclusion of private equity, the abandonment of the trans Tasman competition for SSN must all go down as questionable decisions that seemed to have more input and support from non-netball people than those within the sport.
I believe there there is room for innovation and changes to make the sport more attractive, but that must come from the game as a collective and not from a bunch of spivs in Australia looking to get their palms greased. Netball Austrlia would no doubt point at cricket, the BBL and the 20/20 game as an example of how innovating a game can freshen it and bring a whole new audience.I would rejoinder that Cricket Australia owns the BBL and all the franchises – it is not dependent on the whims of a football club somewhere to ensure that it has a viable competition and broadcast deal.
NA tried to run before they could walk. And now they’re drowning in quicksand. It’s a mess.
So if they can’t get an eigth team by next year does foxtel pull the funding?
50% of NA money came from them.
Then its goodbye SSN and hello state league.
I hope we dont see another Government based bail out if need be.
Interesting mention of the relationships. I remember there was drama regarding Trelore’s contract when Rav moved back to QLD, but did Browne and Molloy’s relationship involve the club or contracts in any way?
I don’t think it will be hard to find an 8th team, but it might be hard to find an 8th team with the necessary cash. I doubt NA or the players would let the league crash though. Everyone knows that the remuneration is still significantly higher than playing in the UK or NZL so I expect the players will accept the same or lower levels of pay to make sure the league goes ahead.
It would be great to see Tasmania or a rural Victorian team, but I’m still thinking it will be Fremantle. WA simply has far more money than the rest of the country and seem to not have issues finding sponsors. Fever are richer than teams like the Swifts/Vixens, Tasmania and rural Victoria won’t be able to compete with the offering from the west if there is an interested stakeholder.
‘Untenable dysfunction and disharmony’: Players lash Netball Australia as Pies quit Super Netball
Interesting comment hidden in that article from Collingwood saying that players are pushing for more money that NA can’t afford yet players are still pushing for it.
Do netball WA even want a second team?
I’m on the fence as to a second team in Victoria. Yes they have the broader market and if they go regional then I can see that working. However, I wonder are they are better holding off for future expansion and being a 9th or 10th team? NV took a big hit during covid. Whilst they have a big membership base a lot of players didn’t play for two years due to covid. That has impacted the development coming through. They don’t have the volume of elite players they used to have as a result. They will pull this back over the next few years. At the elite level Victoria used to provide a significant number of players to interstate clubs but at the moment there aren’t a lot (Garrett, ATN, Dunkley and Smith, have I missed any? Ellis is from NSW but did have a couple years with Fury and as a Vixens TP). Collingwood only has 3 Victorian developed players in Newton, Jovic and Browne.
If the team is in Victoria I would not be surprised if Lisa Alexander is the coach.
Iď be surprised if the players take a pay cut because they are still pushing for more and more money every time round.
A bit delusional from every one involved from both sides.
ANZP players have a revenue sharing model, the Suncorp players will be trying to get the same.
Can I just say, grateful for this forum and the reasonable, informed and measured discussion we can have in here. Thank you all. Been difficult to have any discussion elsewhere without people being wildly off base and blaming Donnell Wallam.
How safe are the GIANTS, they also get not great crowds, and have under acheived as well.
Giants are backed by Netball NSW which I think is a key difference, as Collingwood are not backed by Netball Vic. They’ve also been at least moderately successful.
My two cents worth based on having to move to Melbourne (work) for a few years.
I arrived in 2017, thinking great I’ll get to see lots of games live instead of limited to TV viewing. May even take out a membership.
First game that came up: Collingwood vs Fever, got a ticket via re-sell (may have even been via someone on here) and ended up in the Collingwood members area where the “fans” booed and hissed whenever Fever scored, yelled out unspeakable things, and Sharni would turn around to the members/fans lifting her arms in the air encouraging the goings on. I declared never to go to a Collingwood game again. The fact this was how their members behaved (yes, with kids all around), the team members behaved indicated a club culture I didn’t want anything to do with.
And while the Vixens games I attended were much more pleasant, that first experience of netball in Melbourne was burnt into my brain and I decided no membership anywhere.
There was obviously a culture issue at the club to start with (thanks Eddie, pumping tires) that continued for a few years (merry-go-round of coaches) and in reality is also partially the responsibility of players. Their statement partially laying blame at Netball Australia and Netball Victoria is very disingenuous and wilfully naive.
Think U will find ALL SSN netballers took a substantial pay cut during Covid in order to keep the league functioning:
Not sure if original pay agreements have been re-instated?There was much more to it than money. Collingwood had a four hundred k a year deal to play in Tasmania until 2025 and they only signed that in December. Things have deteriorated quickly.
Centrepass gate and the (lack of) response or accountability from NA no doubt played a part. These are NA officials making mistakes that quite frankly shouldn’t occur at any level of the sport, let alone the elite one. In the very same round there is chaos with decals, power outages, games called at half time. The lack of professionalism around the top level of the game must have been alarming to people coming from a legitimate tier one sport.
Rumours of inhibited selection chances with the Diamonds, a brutal turf war with the Vixens that the Pies were roundly getting their asses kicked in, a governing body that inspires no confidence whatsoever and in many ways is less professionally run than Collingwood itself, massive cost uncertainty around the lack of an agreement with the players, the mutterings from members about the club not concentrating on footy and the netballers distracting the footy players – it all added up to a scenario where Collingwood didn’t see a viable path forward.
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