Cashed-up game at crossroads as players plot changes

Powerful forces are running hard to reshape the future of football administration and development in WA after a golden era for the code.

On the wall of West Australian Football Commission chief executive Gary Walton’s office is a framed photograph of a momentous event in the history of sport in this state.

In it then-WAFC chairman Peter Tannock, surrounded by other football luminaries and representatives of the Subiaco council, signs a 99-year lease over an eight-hectare parcel of land which includes the oval now known as Patersons Stadium.

The deal, signed off on February 27, 1991, has been described as visionary by football industry insiders because it provided the solid footing that the sport needed after lurching from one financial crisis to another in the 1980s, prompting the state government to create the commission to review and oversee the game in WA.

For Mr Walton there may not be quite such a moment – when at the flick of a pen the sport’s financial future was assured. Nevertheless, despite that historic signing, the 23-year-old WAFC is at something of a crossroads as the sport it was created to salvage has blossomed into a major industry and once cash-strapped clubs now want to step out from under its shadow. 

More importantly, moves to shift the home of football to Burswood threaten to undermine the key revenue stream of football’s godparent in this state.

Once the salvation of WA football, Mr Walton, and his board led by chairman Frank Cooper, have the responsibility of negotiating a new place for the commission without giving up the strategic ground that was taken in 1991.

“It is complex,” Mr Walton said.

“We are charged with the responsibility of having an outcome that continues to enable the football commission to grow the game,” he said.

The WAFC was created in 1989 as numerous WA Football League clubs faced insolvency and the two-year-old listed owner of the West Coast Eagles, Indian Pacific, had all but run out of capital. 

The turnaround of football since those dark days was not exclusively due to the WAFC controlling the premier sporting venue in the state. 

But few could have expected the money making machine that Subi, as it is colloquially known, could have been for sport in this state as, fuelled by television rights funding, the Australian Football League transformed itself into a national game.

Patersons Stadium, which is rented on a peppercorn basis, generated about $14 million in operating surplus for the WAFC in the past financial year, dwarfing the direct contributions of the two Perth-based AFL clubs the Eagles and its local rival, the Fremantle Dockers, which amount to about $3.2 million combined, or the direct $2 million in grants received directly from the AFL.

Most of that surplus is funnelled out to grassroots football to expand the sport and further ingrain itself beyond a mere form of recreation as an integral part of local culture and society.

But, like all good things, such golden eras cannot last forever and, perhaps because of its extraordinary good fortune, the WAFC faces a different set of challenges as the sport in this state arrives at new crossroads.

The first challenge is the fact that Patersons Stadium’s role as both the cash cow and home of the football code in WA is coming to an end as the state government embarks on a $700  million state-of-the-art facility at Burswood, although some question if this can be achieved for that price.

At the same time, the AFL, the Eagles and the Dockers want to remove the WAFC as the middleman, putting the licensing relationship on a more direct footing.

There are a lot of very strong and strategic characters involved in both these forces of change, which are likely to result in a restructuring of football in WA.  Footy is a business with tough leaders at every stage, from AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou to the boards and management of all the AFL clubs, including the Eagles, chaired by Alcoa Australia chief Alan Cransberg, and the Dockers, chaired by Brand Agency Perth managing director Steve Harris.

There are also big media enterprises involved, such as Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media, which controls football broadcaster Seven Network and the state’s daily newspaper, The West Australian.

In addition, there is the politics involved, given Premier Colin Barnett has made the new stadium another one of his pet projects. 

None of these players, or insiders close to them, suggest they want any outcome other than that which benefits football. 

Football sources, including from local AFL clubs, attest to the magnificent job that the WAFC has done in growing the code in WA and want to see that continue.

But they no longer see the need for the commission, which controls the two Perth AFL clubs and their AFL licences, to intervene in business.

Mr Cransberg said it was time to move on from the current licensing structure. 

“It is very important for us that we have reached a level of maturity and shown we are successful as a club and we want to control our own destiny,” Mr Cransberg said.

However, his club was not seeking independence at any price, stressing the ability to develop and grow the game in WA must not be adversely affected by the outcome.

“The WAFC must have the wherewithal to run the game, from the WAFL level right down to schools programs,” he said.

A further complication Mr Cransberg raised was that a change in licensee might require a change in ownership structure. He said the club was reviewing the options available but it was too early to speculate on what might result from that.

“There might be a role for the WAFC in that or there might be a role for members that would be different from today,” he said.

The Alcoa chief, who would have been involved in a few hard-headed business dealings in his commercial life, would not be drawn on what any particular bargaining chips the clubs or the AFL might have in the discussions. 

For instance, AFL grants to the commission for development programs amounted to around $2 million a year, not an insignificant sum.

“In any negotiation obviously there are certain things people want,” Mr Cransberg said.

“From a WAFC point of view the biggest issue for them is making sure they have a sustainable funding model in the future.”