Scott clarifies rules and protocols for community footy

The community football season is nearly here and Head of AFL Victoria, Brad Scott, has clarified misconceptions about COVID-19 protocols in place for clubs and leagues across the state.

In an interview with SEN radio this week, Scott emphasised that as the situation continues to quickly evolve, the game will be as close as possible to ‘back to normal’ when the community footy season starts.

“To clear up a few things, it’s not true that only one parent can go to junior footy games. Both parents can go, grandparents can go. Kids will be back hi-fiving at the game… so for all intents and purposes junior football is pretty close to back to normal,” Scott said.

“But it is a fluent environment and the state government have been really good in working with us on a daily basis to update protocols.

AFL Victoria will continue to be guided by the Victorian Government and is working with the government to help them understand the challenges that clubs and volunteers face at community level.

“Our priority first and foremost is that we create a safe environment for all our participants. AFL Victoria has been working tirelessly to get footy back. When you consider that we were in lockdown just a few weeks ago, and now having junior footy pretty much back to normal is a great result.”

When it comes to caps on crowd numbers at community football matches, Scott made it clear that leagues and clubs will be able to have large crowds at games.

“The 1,000 crowd cap is misleading, because that basically says that 1,000 people can gather without any significant crowd management protocols in place other than government guidelines, which everyone is well aware of such as social distancing and the other normal protocols that Victorians are very used to after the last 12 months,” he added.

“What we are talking about is community footy and country footy in particular, there can be big crowds of 5,000 to 10,000 people, and if they do have crowds of that size, they’ve got to have management protocols in place to manage a crowd of that size.

“So AFL Victoria are working with leagues and country commissions to assist where we can to make sure that those protocols are in place.”

“There won’t be a situation where you hit 999 people and people have to be turned away. If there’s any doubt that there might be over 1,000, AFL Victoria will assist leagues and clubs in the application process for crowds of up to 5,000 or 10,000.”

AFL Victoria is providing support in a number of ways, including working with Chemist Warehouse to make discounted products available, and also provide printed signage to take the burden off clubs.

“It’s no different to anywhere else in a public space. The onus is largely on the community to do the right thing, which Victorians have. We are well aware of social distancing protocols so it’s not going to be up to clubs to go out and individually police individuals and make sure they’re social distancing,” Scott added.

“It’s going to be up to clubs to make sure protocols are in place such as QR codes, which we are all well accustomed to, as well as appropriate signage around the grounds, making sure that people are aware of these protocols.

“So it’s no different to when you go to a shopping centre, where they are expected to have sanitisation stations, appropriate signage telling people to maintain social distance, it’s really no different. Victorians are well aware of these protocols so it will be no different at a country footy game.

“We are really excited that footy is back!”

Listen to the full interview here: Head of AFL Victoria Brad Scott (11/3/21) - Whooshkaa