The Picola District Football Netball League will remain intact in 2023 with all 15 clubs to forge ahead into the new season unaffiliated with AFL Victoria.
It comes after AFL Goulburn Murray held a meeting with representatives from eight clubs last week, where options in regards to remaining affiliated with the governing body were discussed.
The possibility of clubs that wished to remain affiliated breaking away from the league is understood to have been one of the potential solutions discussed.
But in the end it was mutually agreed the best course of action was for all 15 clubs to remain together in the one league.
In a statement, AFL Goulburn Murray regional manager Shaun Connell confirmed a new competition was on the cards.
“AFL Goulburn Murray and AFL Victoria have been working with a number of PDFNL clubs that expressed a desire to participate in an affiliated competition and were exploring their options for reaffiliation, after the PDFNL decision not to renew their affiliation with AFL Victoria in 2023,” Connell said.
“Part of the discussion involving some PDFNL clubs has been around driving change and enhancements to governance and administration models, to suit the needs of all clubs.
“Clubs involved in discussions, while expressing a desire to be affiliated, have resolved to remain part of the PDFNL in 2023 with a key objective being to keep the 15-club league intact.”
These discussions came as a result of a long-running feud between the league and AFL Victoria in regards to an updated affiliation agreement for the 2023 season.
The league was not willing to come to terms with the governing body on a number of issues stated in the proposed agreement.
As a result, from December 31, the league will no longer be associated with AFL Victoria.
It will be the second time in five years the league has lost affiliation status after a similar situation in 2018.
Connell said AFL Goulburn Murray was still determined to help support those clubs seeking affiliation.
“AFL Victoria has set up an affiliation model for community leagues that aims to put in place processes and policies to best serve and support the game's sustainability and growth, while preserving the internal autonomy of affiliated leagues. Leagues and their clubs benefit in a number of ways from affiliation,” he said.
“AFL Victoria will continue to engage and support any community club wishing to explore affiliation or reaffiliation, as was the case with a number of PDFNL clubs.”
Picola League operations manager Shane Railton said the board was not informed of any club wanting to break away.
He specified that clubs attending last week’s meeting were not necessarily seeking to break away from the league.
“We’ve had no position (on the situation) because we weren’t informed of any meetings and had no clubs come forward to us at any time during this period and inform us they wanted to leave,” Railton said.
“There were not eight clubs that wanted to leave, there were eight clubs that turned up to a meeting that (AFL Victoria) held which was an information session on what it would look like if clubs wanted to leave.
“Eight clubs were represented in that meeting, but to suggest that all eight clubs were keen on leaving is factually incorrect.”
Railton said the league was never concerned about the prospect of losing clubs and he was keen to forge ahead.
“We had no concerns about it (clubs leaving) whatsoever.
“Even from our AGM we knew there were five clubs that would have potentially signed the affiliation agreement in its current state, and 10 clubs that weren’t supportive of signing it.
“We’ve continued to do planning around being non-affiliated and these events have been all noise to us.
“We've had no feeling there was going to be any change to our competition.”