... but according to some people it is you who shoukd come up with the solutions to the death of grassroots and coubtry footy, not the people asking for a 1.1 million contract to run the game.
The thing is - we do come up with solutions. The other thing is - 'we' are volunteers working our arses off for nothing but the love of the game. The NRL are far more concerned with finding ways to pay already overpaid players even more money. They actually put more obstacles in the way of us playing instead of removing them.
2019 they spent approx $95mill on grass roots allegedly. Would love to know what the money goes on?
Honestly have no idea. Well actually, I'm guessing the salaries of the development officers are part of that. They run school clinics and the like, which is good, but really don't seem to do much with the running of the local comps, and definitely have not developed any new ideas to get more players in the game. As I said before, the referee development officer (who covers most of southern NSW) does a shitload more than anyone else from the NRL or NSWRL. But $95m? Like I said we only got referee payment reimbursements for our first year (about $2200) and that's all the money we've seen from the NRL. All the local clubs and comps are run purely by volunteers, people have to pay to attend coaching courses, ref courses, Level 1 trainer courses etc (which are all needed for a game to go ahead, yet the NRL will cancel a course if they don't get a minimum amount of attendees - how are clubs meant to get mandatory Level 1 trainers if you cancel the courses?) and we see very little of either the local NRL or NSWRL employees.
Someone above claimed the NRL were doing lots to combat abuse at local footy grounds - bullshit. The most I've seen from the NRL are printed posters at junior games. All our games we adopted a zero tolerance policy to both abuse and violence on the field and from spectators (season-long bans if need be) and I was the one enforcing it, didn't hear shit from the NRL. In fact the first instance we had of on-field violence the CRL
overturned our suspensions and said we couldn't do it, and the abusers got off scott-free and all our work was for nothing and we looked like a bunch of hypocrites. Along with organising the comp I was a player and a ref and I got an anonymous threatening letter about my refereeing, and still heard jack shit from the NRL. And ref abuse is rampant in country footy. If I wasn't playing I doubt I'd go to Group 20 games because you hear more abuse of refs than you hear support of players/teams.
If the NRL claim credit for any increase in grassroots participation, other than maybe little junior programs not even equivalent to Auskick, then f**king lol. They'd probably rather potential players stay home and boost the NRL TV ratings than actually play.
