SA Footy

Mark Ricciuto suggests that the best thing for the Crows and Power is to make the SANFL clubs weaker and to scrap the reserves comp?

Also found it hard to believe that the reserves team at an SANFL club costs 200k to run each year. Player payments would be a tenth of that, coaches and other staff would be there for league side anyway. Seems way off the mark to me, anyone able to shed some informed light on this one?

The Roo has obviously forgot where he came from

Ah, you just beat me to it!

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/afl ... 6041384268

Absolutely disgraceful article today IMO in which our hero proposes drastically slashing funding to our SANFL clubs that "have had it too good for too long" in order to send a couple of million over to the ailing Crows and Power. Killing off the reserves will also give our struggling AFL teams a short term cash injection apparently.

According to Roo the SANFL clubs should stand on their own two feet: "Crowds are on the rise and SANFL footy is as healthy as it has been in a long time, and the reason that's the case is because of the money being injected at the expense of the two AFL clubs."

When you put it like that, my heart bleeds...I feel so guilty that my club is beginning to post a meagre profit after years of pain (thanks entirely to the Crows and Power apparently and nothing to do with any hard work behind the scenes) when there are empty seats at the Showdown!

Like McDermott before him I'm gobsmacked by these ex-champs who turn their backs on the SANFL after hitting the big time (admittedly his ties with Westies are not comparable to Bone's link with the Bays) and seem to overlook the argument about it being a key breeding ground for the precious AFL when it comes to short term gain for the local AFL teams.

Teams that owe their heritage and existence to ALL of the SANFL clubs; it isn't and should never be the other way round.

Get fugged Roo

Too good for too long? WTF is he on about? How much does it cost to develop junior footy in the club's zones? He sounds like a Port supporter..

33,000 @ a Showdown says it all really.

The days of taking footy supporters for granted are gone!

There is so much more choice, now.

what a brainless halfwit.

Roo obviously has a problem with his memory. One laughable line is that we are all sick of seeing Victorian clubs at the top, hang on, the Vics were complaining the interstate clubs were too powerful only a few years ago!!!. Ever heard of cycles in football Mark?
As for SANFL clubs having it too good, well, i find that a nonsensical comment. In a town where the media is so AFL obsessed the clubs have to fight tooth and nail for any coverage.
What I think underlines a lot of this thinking is a certain weakness on the part of the AFL boosters, they don't want to put in the hard yards to get their clubs back to the top. The Adelaide Crows to me have a pretty good list, who knows, with the right list management and coaching they might get back to the top. Why is it so hard? To me their supporters are too thin skinned to put up with inconsistent performances but that comes back to football culture and to my, possibly jaundiced view, too many AFL followers are fair weather supporters. Don't blame the SANFL clubs for that.
When it suits their media careers, as distinct from their days playing football, some so called celebrity figures are happy to dump on the SANFL.

It probably would cost about $200k to field a reserves team.

Player payments would be about $50K or less, roughly, add coaches, etc.

On top of that is a share of footballs, jumpers and all the other operating costs.

I agree, though, that Roo's comments are nonsense, IMO, as the SANFL clubs bear nearly all of the burden of junior development, teams, etc, as well as providing a career path for all players.

Interesting article that I went through while downing the Weet-Bix this morning. On more than one occasion they nearly came back up.

Wont make many friends from this one and I doubt he would have many supporters behind the idea. Who would pay the reserves players at the Amateur clubs? So, so many unanswered questions.

Keep in mind though that an article a few weeks ago had Ruccuitto discussing his numerous concussions.

zipzap wrote:Absolutely disgraceful article today IMO in which our hero....

Speak for yourself.

So much could be written in response to the article. I think he should have focussed on the stadium deal issue and left it at that. I find it disappointing coming from Roo.
Also talking about football department spending equating to success, is not always true. I'm sure when North Melbourne won their premierships it wasn't due spending on facilities and football department spending. I don't think the Crows have sub-standard facilities or struggle in the football department - yet they've still been shite. Just because they made a loss on paper are they asset rich? If this is an issue and is leading to "uneveness" they should cap footy department i.e coaching spending, as they do with the salary cap. I still don't understand how Port can pay Williams out close to a million dollars, then cry poor, but I'm getting off thread.
The SANFL needs to support football. I'd like to know how much the AFL contributes to SANFL football compared to VFL football. They can spend a couple of million on two struggling rugby players, whilst cutting the SANFL salary cap to a shitty $350,000 for a whole team.
Wake up ROO.

The AFLPA is demanding more than 25% of total revenue is directed to player payments and more than 95% of the salary cap is paid out.
Last week there was a furore at the suggestion Power premiership players donate $5,000 to the club.
Instead of saving pennies by axing the reserves comp, how about trying to save some pounds and cutting back on staff resources and player payments at the AFL level? FFS, some players are earning twice the SANFL salary cap for one season playing AFL.

I'm also surprised he said he is a member at West AND Norwood. I'm assuming the latter is something to do with the Alma hotel being in the vicinity of Norwood Oval.

Squawk wrote:The AFLPA is demanding more than 25% of total revenue is directed to player payments and more than 95% of the salary cap is paid out.
Last week there was a furore at the suggestion Power premiership players donate $5,000 to the club.
Instead of saving pennies by axing the reserves comp, how about trying to save some pounds and cutting back on staff resources and player payments at the AFL level? FFS, some players are earning twice the SANFL salary cap for one season playing AFL.

I'm also surprised he said he is a member at West AND Norwood. I'm assuming the latter is something to do with the Alma hotel being in the vicinity of Norwood Oval.

Good call. How come the Adelaide clubs travel with everyone from waterboys to people who give the players hammys a rub, when Melbourne and Perth based clubs utilise locals (for free mind you) for these jobs.


What's funny is that people like Roo weren't screaming about this in 1997 and 1998. Didn't hear Port saying the same in 2004.

The Adelaide based clubs aren't the only ones to shift blame when they're cycling through the bottom rungs, about 5 years ago the "heartland" was shrieking that there had to be some equalisation system to keep the Vic clubs competitive because it was panic stations that the non-Vic clubs were going to dominate the finals. West Coast weren't calling to stuff up the WAFL system back in 1992, 1994 and 2006.

Barto wrote:

Squawk wrote:The AFLPA is demanding more than 25% of total revenue is directed to player payments and more than 95% of the salary cap is paid out.
Last week there was a furore at the suggestion Power premiership players donate $5,000 to the club.
Instead of saving pennies by axing the reserves comp, how about trying to save some pounds and cutting back on staff resources and player payments at the AFL level? FFS, some players are earning twice the SANFL salary cap for one season playing AFL.

I'm also surprised he said he is a member at West AND Norwood. I'm assuming the latter is something to do with the Alma hotel being in the vicinity of Norwood Oval.

Good call. How come the Adelaide clubs travel with everyone from waterboys to people who give the players hammys a rub, when Melbourne and Perth based clubs utilise locals (for free mind you) for these jobs.


What's funny is that people like Roo weren't screaming about this in 1997 and 1998. Didn't hear Port saying the same in 2004.

The Adelaide based clubs aren't the only ones to shift blame when they're cycling through the bottom rungs, about 5 years ago the "heartland" was shrieking that there had to be some equalisation system to keep the Vic clubs competitive because it was panic stations that the non-Vic clubs were going to dominate the finals. West Coast weren't calling to stuff up the WAFL system back in 1992, 1994 and 2006.

Beautifully put. I remember (it wasn't that long ago) the Vics going ape because they were watching a Sydney-West Coast Grand Final and the old style VFL gurus were up in arms.
I don't like Collingwood but they have a passionate supporter base and have made some smart decisions off the field. All of a sudden they're top, not common really since the 1950s.
The Crows make a loss and the next thing some commentators (not the club itself) are crying in their soup. Yet when some SANFL clubs hit really desperate times precious few highlighted their plight.
The problem this year is that the SANFL clubs made a profit but the AFL clubs didn't. Last year Rucci was critical of the SANFL clubs posting losses (no follow up article about the profits mind you from him) Who can win in this scenario when the double standards are so real?

When the AFL clubs are in trouble whip the SANFL clubs, when the AFL clubs have success they take all the credit. Not so long ago 7 of the 9 clubs made financial losses and our only newspaper questioned their future and relevance, now they are all profitable due to their own hard work so it's time the AFL clubs to whip em again.
These are professional full time sporting businesses who can't stand on their own two feet so why attack semi professional sporting & community clubs like our SANFL clubs? Answer, laziness, arrogance and because they are an easy target and Roo has fallen into line with his rubbish article.

Filth article.

Ronnie wrote:Roo obviously has a problem with his memory. One laughable line is that we are all sick of seeing Victorian clubs at the top, hang on, the Vics were complaining the interstate clubs were too powerful only a few years ago!!!. Ever heard of cycles in football Mark?
As for SANFL clubs having it too good, well, i find that a nonsensical comment. In a town where the media is so AFL obsessed the clubs have to fight tooth and nail for any coverage.
What I think underlines a lot of this thinking is a certain weakness on the part of the AFL boosters, they don't want to put in the hard yards to get their clubs back to the top. The Adelaide Crows to me have a pretty good list, who knows, with the right list management and coaching they might get back to the top. Why is it so hard? [b]To me their supporters are too thin skinned to put up with inconsistent performances but that comes back to football culture and to my, possibly jaundiced view, too many AFL followers are fair weather supporters. Don't blame the SANFL clubs for that.[/b]When it suits their media careers, as distinct from their days playing football, some so called celebrity figures are happy to dump on the SANFL.

not all their supporters are like that and every club has them, jumping on and off ship every week depending on the teams performance and i am certainly not one of them following south adelaide in the sanfl

Where's Royal City when you need him?

I get more and more angry the more I think about this article.

Can't wait for the follow up article that suggests the nine SANFL clubs cut back on their spending on school football and development within their zone because it is not profitable.

The AFL has screwed over some of their own clubs in search of a profit and now the suggestion is that our clubs should eat their own just to make their bottom line look better. How about the AFL realizes that it has a responsibility to support the game that far outranks their need to make massive profits, particularly when they use those profits to pay fat bonuses to the execs that are helping to kill off grassroots football.

One too many concussion injuries me thinks.