WOMENS FOOTBALL

CHANGE TO COMPETITION 2011

The Sutherland Shire Football Association (SSFA) wishes to advise that the Executive Committee (EC) has resolved to make the following changes to its competition structure for 2011.

Junior Women’s Football age groups Under 12 – Under 15 inclusive from 2011 onwards will be played on a Saturday.

This is a result of months of consultation through a sub committee set up by the SSFA EC focused primarily on making a decision on this matter. Member clubs were asked to join the sub committee and many did to ensure rigorous debate and diversity of opinion.

Clubs have supported such a move by a 2/3rd majority.

The reason behind needing to make any changes was based on the projected growth in both Women’s football and Senior Men’s football which are both currently played on Sundays. With this growth and the impact of Small sided Football on Saturday mornings we find that many clubs have capacity for games on Saturday afternoons whilst Sunday utilisation reaches saturation on many grounds and overflow to non home grounds.

There was no debate on the fact something had to be moved from Sunday to Saturday only on which player group needed to move. Doing nothing was not an option. The options then became move Junior Women’s or Senior Women’s or Senior Men.

Whilst there are many individual circumstances that drove the debate in the end we feel that moving the young girls Under 12 – Under 15 gives us the best outcome for both field utilisation and player and parent preference. Women’s U16 – U21 remain unchanged.

The SSFA have been in contact with the Sutherland Shire Netball Association (SSNA) and will work closely to minimise the impact on players that currently enjoy playing both codes.

Change will always raise much emotion and lead to more questions about the risk to the status quo. Not addressing the problem would have created a greater risk to competition logistics. My thanks to all those who contributed with special mention to those members of our association who volunteered their time to the sub committee.

Thanks

Greg O’Rourke

President SSFA

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