| Autumn 2007 |
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Sam Percy It seems I'm back. We've known for some time that 2007 League President Ray Gazal would be heading home this year, and so at the AGM last night I put my hand up to go back into the position. We are wanting to detach the London Divisions into a new body, and in fact ensure that all leagues which wish to exist in Britain have their own structure for looking after their own fixtures, rules, issues and week to week administration. The Scottish league did this when it set itself up, and though it has been a BARFL League since its inception, it has run itself, and that has worked well for them. Due I guess to the fact that so many of the people on the BARFL Committee have been associated with London clubs, this has never seemed as necessary or relevant for the London divisions, but we are seeing now that the workload is too great. The desire for the BARFL to ensure growth in the regional areas, to have an organised junior development scheme, to run a national team, and especially send them to Melbourne next year, and for many other endeavours all to be focused on, is readily evident to all those at league meetings. Simultaneously, the desire for the London divisions to have the attention they need is high and very important to the sport in Britain, and we saw this year that the needs of the London divisions were ignored when national matters became more pressing early in the year. So, ideally, the London divisions will form their own committee and the BARFL will be free, indeed compelled, to only focus on matters which are not specific to any actual leagues. The methods for the change I outlined in a document, and I'll attach it below. It is all about the methods for committees to be related to each other, and reasoning, and it is not overly interesting unless you are into that sort of thing. Feel free to have a read if you want. So the first and more pressing agenda is to not only get the discussions done, but also to have the structures in place and generally agreed by the end of 2007. The second goal is wholly to do with the London divisions, rewriting the rules, and rethinking a lot of them. This will all have to be done fairly quickly I'd have thought, with changes needing to be implemented well and truly before the start of the next season. I really feel, after discussions with at least four of the London clubs, and having seen all of them playing short during the year, that our endeavours with Euro players are too stringent now, and are no longer in line with the goals we have been trying to achieve. We no longer, in London, need to provide the GB team with all of its players. A more realistic target is about half, and given the quality of the players in the regional sides, we would currently struggle to provide that many. So there are discussions to be had there, though of course it will not be my decision. We'll see how those go. Overall though, a neatening of the London divisions' rules should be implemented, and that is the second goal. Indeed, as I stated last night, if and when a separation of committees takes place I would be likely to stand down my BARFL positions and head up, or at least partake in, the new committee for London footy. Which brings on to the fun stuff. The concept of names will be probably the easiest part of the governance discussions, though that is not to say it is unimportant. Sadly in some ways, as there is a lot of history, it is generally acknowledged that it is time for the BARFL to rebrand, and no longer be the BARFL. The name I feel has for a long time in a small way held us back from major sponsorship deals, due to the negative connotations of the word. With the changes we are making, I think it is a good time to make a new name. The BARFL will still exist, it just won't be called that. In fact it will no longer be a league, so the suggestions we have heard of at the moment either make no mention of the type of body, or reference an association. Here are a few. The first is mine and is not serious. ARAB: Australian Rules Association of Britain BAFA: British Australian Football Association ARB: Australian Rules Britain Footy Britain AFL Britain The last one will be discussed with the game development department of the AFL to get feedback on whether they would encourage or discourage the name. Any other suggestions? Just email them in. For now the Dees contact email address is the best one to get me on. (Apologies for using the Dees site for this message, I'll try to get it moved to the BARFL site soon.) A similar naming process would be needed for the London set-up, and although 'Footy Britain' has been, quite reasonably, derided for not being specific enough for our sport on a national scale in a country which plays three other codes of football, I feel 'Footy London' would be fine in the sixth largest Australian city in the world. We'll see. In all, two large jobs ahead, and there is also the need to remember that all the rest of the football development needs to happen as well. Back to work it seems. Sam Percy |
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