Taxpayer funding for Sport - a fair go for all?

[eelandia]

This is from Crikey.com.au subscriber Email with no direct link to article.

Taxpayer funding for sport – a fair go for all?

By Jeff Wall

Instead of trying to “gag” the NSW Origin selectors, the chief executive of the ARL, Geoff Carr, ought to be asking questions about the allocation of Australian Sports Commission funding for the four football codes.

On top of the extraordinarily generous grants and loans the Federal Government gave soccer when it “restructured” several years ago – over $12 million in total – the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) has shown a clear bias in its annual allocations to the four football codes.

And the question needs to be asked – what are the National Rugby League, Australian Football League and Australian Rugby Union doing about it?

I am grateful to the Sydney Morning Herald's Roy Masters – who happens to be a Member of the Australian Sports Commission – not only for his revelations about how much the Federal Government lent soccer and how much it still owes, but just how unbalanced the annual payments to the football codes are. His piece seems to have been lost in the flurry of publicity for the World Cup, but it raises some serious issues.

For the 2005-2006 year, the ASC allocated $2.812 million to Football Federation Australia (FFA), the controlling body of soccer in Australia. In the same year, the AFL was allocated $466,000, the ARL $528,000 and the ARU $454,000. In other words, the allocation to soccer is more than double the total allocation to the other three football codes!

Out of the FFA allocation, half is for the Australian Institute of Sports soccer program – six times the allocation for each of the other codes. The beneficiaries of AIS soccer scholarships include at least three of the Croatian World Cup team! The other half of the annual allocation is for the development of sport – and on that score, soccer gets five times as much as the other three codes.

Does anyone seriously suggest that soccer in Australia – whether at the grassroots or any other level – is twice as big as the other three codes combined?

The AFL and the ARL in particular need to explain what they have done to get a fair go for their codes out of what is taxpayer-provided funding. Both codes leave soccer in the shade when it comes to programs for Indigenous and remote regional youth, yet their government funding is but a fraction of soccer's.

And the NRL and AFL officials, players and supporters most entitled to an answer are those struggling to keep their codes alive in the bush. At the weekend it was revealed that no fewer than three of the Groups in the New South Wales Country Rugby League are on the brink of collapse.

The FFA, utilising the likes of Frank Lowy and Alan Belford Jones, has been extraordinarily successful in lobbying for federal government funding. Successful yes, but is it fair and just?
_______________________________________________________________

There has to be a logical reason, surely?

 

[The Preacher]

Something smells bad there, very, very BAD !!:crazy:

 

[petetheileet]

hehe yeah doesn't seem right

 

[eelandia]

Good on soccer for getting the funding, but as the article suggests...what is the ARL doing to get more funding? Is it the participation numbers that affect funding? I know soccer charge alot more for registration, yet this doesn't seem to affect their lobbying.

 

[marshall stalin]

football is well behind in funds that come from sponsors compared to league/union and afl for starters.

will league/union/afl agree to funding from sponsors being put into a "bucket" and split 4 ways between the football codes.

 

[marshall stalin]

This is from Crikey.com.au subscriber Email with no direct link to article.

Taxpayer funding for sport – a fair go for all?

By Jeff Wall

Instead of trying to “gag” the NSW Origin selectors, the chief executive of the ARL, Geoff Carr, ought to be asking questions about the allocation of Australian Sports Commission funding for the four football codes.

On top of the extraordinarily generous grants and loans the Federal Government gave soccer when it “restructured” several years ago – over $12 million in total – the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) has shown a clear bias in its annual allocations to the four football codes.

And the question needs to be asked – what are the National Rugby League, Australian Football League and Australian Rugby Union doing about it?

I am grateful to the Sydney Morning Herald's Roy Masters – who happens to be a Member of the Australian Sports Commission – not only for his revelations about how much the Federal Government lent soccer and how much it still owes, but just how unbalanced the annual payments to the football codes are. His piece seems to have been lost in the flurry of publicity for the World Cup, but it raises some serious issues.

For the 2005-2006 year, the ASC allocated $2.812 million to Football Federation Australia (FFA), the controlling body of soccer in Australia. In the same year, the AFL was allocated $466,000, the ARL $528,000 and the ARU $454,000. In other words, the allocation to soccer is more than double the total allocation to the other three football codes!

Out of the FFA allocation, half is for the Australian Institute of Sports soccer program – six times the allocation for each of the other codes. The beneficiaries of AIS soccer scholarships include at least three of the Croatian World Cup team! The other half of the annual allocation is for the development of sport – and on that score, soccer gets five times as much as the other three codes.

Does anyone seriously suggest that soccer in Australia – whether at the grassroots or any other level – is twice as big as the other three codes combined?

The AFL and the ARL in particular need to explain what they have done to get a fair go for their codes out of what is taxpayer-provided funding. Both codes leave soccer in the shade when it comes to programs for Indigenous and remote regional youth, yet their government funding is but a fraction of soccer's.

And the NRL and AFL officials, players and supporters most entitled to an answer are those struggling to keep their codes alive in the bush. At the weekend it was revealed that no fewer than three of the Groups in the New South Wales Country Rugby League are on the brink of collapse.

The FFA, utilising the likes of Frank Lowy and Alan Belford Jones, has been extraordinarily successful in lobbying for federal government funding. Successful yes, but is it fair and just?
_______________________________________________________________

There has to be a logical reason, surely?

the collapse of the three groups is because the NRL are only interested in the NRL competition and not the grass roots including juniors. It is the same as super 14 - club rugby was on the verge of collapse until they realised they must do something and are now proposing a national club comp as the gap between club - super 14 and test rugby was Too great and players were not being developed enough for higher level rugby required for super 14's and tests.

 

[eelandia]

football is well behind in funds that come from sponsors compared to league/union and afl for starters.

will league/union/afl agree to funding from sponsors being put into a "bucket" and split 4 ways between the football codes.

No...because one is public money and the other is private. I realise your moniker suggests you'd disagree with this idealogy...but I'm think even Stalin would view your suggestion with the sarcasm you intended.

 

[JK]

THe NRL is just the elite comp you turkey. The ARL/NSWRL/QRL/CRL look after the rest.

And why would union/league/afl put their earned sponsorship money in a bucket for soccer to steal?? You are plain odd!

 

[dibo]

as frank lowy pointed out there were some really important things missed in masters's and wells's articles.

> association football has a large number of teams playing in regular international competitions - mens and womens, and across a number of junior levels. the cost of this is phenomenal, but essential to develop players to the standard of the socceroos and matildas.

> there are other sports of nowhere near the status nor mass participation of association football that received large amounts of money, and i'll quote lowy here:

Against the $3 million annual grant to football in 2005-06, there was $5.1 million to rowing, $4.6 million to athletics, $5.3 million to swimming, $2.2 million to volleyball and $2.3 million to water polo. This year, cycling got $4.6 million and hockey $4.7 million. Each deserves support.

other pertinent paras:

Comparisons of Sports Commission funding to other football codes are misleading. The other three football codes have all been "top-down" funded from the professional end of the game whereas this sport has traditionally been "bottom-up" funded by the grassroots, like other sports regarded as predominantly amateur.

The rescue package and any future funding arrangements for football must be viewed in the context that:

> At the time the current board took over, revenue and expense projections were prepared for the prospective three years. In many cases the revenue projections were aspirational and the expenditure projections conservative.

> We fund eight national teams (including men's and women's Olympic teams) which all compete internationally regularly. With our move to the Asian Football Confederation, most of our teams have to qualify for Asian, FIFA and Olympic events, which in some cases means qualification matches in two-year cycles. While the move to Asia is strategically fundamental for the development of the game, it does not come without significant cost, which was not forecast when we took over in September 2003.

> We operate in a true world market when it comes to recruiting world-class technical resources for our teams and opposition for so-called "friendly" matches. We have to compete with countries with a lot more money. We often pay in euros or US dollars when we generate the bulk of our revenue in Australian dollars. It would be nice not to have to look overseas for coaches and other technicians but we won't be in that position for several years. We face a massive task to build a national development system for coaches and players, from the grassroots to the elite level. It is only by doing this that we will build the depth we need to compete with the strong football nations.

i don't see football sucking the well dry, nor even being largely government dependent for a long time. i think that as the FFA develops here in a corporate sense to develop structures and relationships more like the ARL and AFL and less like soccer australia it will get on its own two feet.

i don't know why that should be a threat to rugby league at all.

 

[Misty Bee]

Is it ethical to pay taxpayers money to a code half owned and fully run by Rupert Murdoch?

Yes, the bush and the juniors miss out. But they missed out when the massive greed happened in '95. Can't expect the Govt to chipin for the shortfall when Murdoch won't!

 

[eelandia]

Is it ethical to pay taxpayers money to a code half owned and fully run by Rupert Murdoch?

Yes, the bush and the juniors miss out. But they missed out when the massive greed happened in '95. Can't expect the Govt to chipin for the shortfall when Murdoch won't!

But that's the NRL, whereas the ARL are the ones in the firing line here.

 

[hrundi99]

Funding SHOULD be based on competitor levels. If football ("soccer") has the highest number of registered players, then they should get the most money.

 

[rugged]

football is well behind in funds that come from sponsors compared to league/union and afl for starters.

will league/union/afl agree to funding from sponsors being put into a "bucket" and split 4 ways between the football codes.

That reminds of something that was suggested at our junior RL club a few years ago. Management objected to certain teams getting sponsorship while others missed out, so they had the bright idea that all sponsorship money would be shared. Needless to say, nobody bothered to chase up sponsors for their team when they knew their team wouldn't get the money!

 

[eelandia]

Funding SHOULD be based on competitor levels. If football ("soccer") has the highest number of registered players, then they should get the most money.

But then that is open to rorting re AFLs Auskick program.