9 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

the notion of having multiple training ovals for our four sides is such a huge change

That is part of the plan being put forward apparently

The  caulfield locals are not happy with the suggestion of melb being based at the race course . The local state and fed member is on board . I would like to say further but certain  board rules prevent me from putting new arguments from the locals for there negativity for the alleged proposal

On 28/02/2024 at 15:25, Supreme_Demon said:

I understand the eternal bonds with our heritage at the MCG.

However, I am now convinced that the Caulfield Racecourse is the most plausible option and we need to forge ahead with that. Regardless, of any news articles to the contrary.

I would of loved the Jolimont Train Station project to succeed. To me, it was perfect. That would of been ideal. Unfortunately, that was scuttled.

So unless a generous and eccentric billionaire comes along who wants to build the Melbourne Football Club a home base, we gotta face reality and hope we can make a deal at the Caulfield Racecourse.

Besides winning more Premierships, a home base for the Melbourne Football Club must be a priority.

I think there is a correlation between the TWO.

31 minutes ago, Satan said:

The  caulfield locals are not happy with the suggestion of melb being based at the race course . The local state and fed member is on board . I would like to say further but certain  board rules prevent me from putting new arguments from the locals for there negativity for the alleged proposal

i don't think the board rules are that restrictive in this case

fire away. i'm very curious what objections local caullfieldians could have

Not so sure that all locals in Caulfield disagree with Melbourne being based at Caulfield Racecourse.

My understanding is that for Melbourne to get into the precinct, it also has to cater for local community groups and there are such groups happy to locate there as well.

Any argument that the development is going to "reduce green space in the area and shut the community out" is spurious because, as I understand it, part of the master plan for the precinct involves the removal of a large number of buildings which previously housed stables and the like. They, in turn, will be replaced by some buildings and plenty of attractive green spaces for community use.

As a resident of the area, I say bring it on ...

1 hour ago, Satan said:

The  caulfield locals are not happy with the suggestion of melb being based at the race course . The local state and fed member is on board . I would like to say further but certain  board rules prevent me from putting new arguments from the locals for there negativity for the alleged proposal

I am a Caulfield local and I am happy about it.

52 minutes ago, Whispering_Jack said:

Any argument that the development is going to "reduce green space in the area and shut the community out" is spurious because, as I understand it, part of the master plan for the precinct involves the removal of a large number of buildings which previously housed stables and the like. They, in turn, will be replaced by some buildings and plenty of attractive green spaces for community use.

 

I'm assuming that other than when we have the oval/s booked for training, they would be for full community use would they not?  That's a wonderful win for the community.

In Mildura where I'm living, we recently completed an absolutely amazing new $40m sporting precinct with 3 ovals, 6 new basketball courts in a first class stadium, huge function rooms and all the extra bells and whistles needed to ensure its compliant (change rooms, appropriate access).

The majority of the funding was state and federal with the local council having to put some up obviously and oh lord..... the carry on from some locals and as someone above beautifully quoted "lightweight pollies" was genuinely cringeworthy.

Anyways, a couple years on, we have it, the stadium is jampacked 24/7 and the ovals get a lot more use than expected with personal trainers filling them in the mornings, then dog walkers and mothers groups during the day.

The local footy club only has them for a few hours every Tues-Thurs night and obviously Saturdays and it works perfectly.

Far more use then vacant land.  As I'm sure the new development would be over the wasted space in the centre of the track now.

2 minutes ago, Deeko2 said:

I'm assuming that other than when we have the oval/s booked for training, they would be for full community use would they not?  That's a wonderful win for the community.

In Mildura where I'm living, we recently completed an absolutely amazing new $40m sporting precinct with 3 ovals, 6 new basketball courts in a first class stadium, huge function rooms and all the extra bells and whistles needed to ensure its compliant (change rooms, appropriate access).

The majority of the funding was state and federal with the local council having to put some up obviously and oh lord..... the carry on from some locals and as someone above beautifully quoted "lightweight pollies" was genuinely cringeworthy.

Anyways, a couple years on, we have it, the stadium is jampacked 24/7 and the ovals get a lot more use than expected with personal trainers filling them in the mornings, then dog walkers and mothers groups during the day.

The local footy club only has them for a few hours every Tues-Thurs night and obviously Saturdays and it works perfectly.

Far more use then vacant land.  As I'm sure the new development would be over the wasted space in the centre of the track now.

It feels as though some people just want to be outraged no matter what is happening.

It's like the Tasmanian stadium talk, they need to view this as an investment into the future of the state with potential sporting events and concerts to be held. Instead there are pollie's using the current economic issues to try stop progression, while fixing both is not necessarily unachievable.

Just now, DistrACTION Jackson said:

It feels as though some people just want to be outraged no matter what is happening.

It's like the Tasmanian stadium talk, they need to view this as an investment into the future of the state with potential sporting events and concerts to be held. Instead there are pollie's using the current economic issues to try stop progression, while fixing both is not necessarily unachievable.

Yes why don't they bid for the next commonwealth games for a start!

3 minutes ago, Kent said:

Yes why don't they bid for the next commonwealth games for a start!

Lol I would never be bidding for that.... maybe the olympics but sounds like our pollies can't work together to organise anything

MFC has done itself no favours, no effort to bring the local Community onside, not even a marquee on racedays.

Against, The local Council, The local member, friends of the racecourse reserve.

A few Caulfield Racecourse facebook pages popping up slamming the club daily.

(Rich private club taking over our parklands), it’s a long back from here.

 

2 hours ago, bluey said:

MFC has done itself no favours, no effort to bring the local Community onside, not even a marquee on racedays.

Against, The local Council, The local member, friends of the racecourse reserve.

A few Caulfield Racecourse facebook pages popping up slamming the club daily.

(Rich private club taking over our parklands), it’s a long back from here.

 

A big part of this is how you promote & try to connect / involve and win over the stake holders surely?

I'd be very dissapointed if we hadn't already realised this as part of the proposal / plan and aren't already  implementing some sort of PR / diplomacy and marketing program to do just that.

Edited March 28, 20241 yr by Demon Dynasty

On 28/03/2024 at 12:37, daisycutter said:

i don't think the board rules are that restrictive in this case

fire away. i'm very curious what objections local caullfieldians could have

Associated with a club of … addicts

I didnt say it was accurate but we have a bad odour 

38 minutes ago, Satan said:

Associated with a club of … addicts

 

I didnt say it was accurate but we have a bad odour 

too many people addicted to social media garbage (pi)?

I’d like to know how many of these people opposed to the MFC actually use the facilities inside the racecourse………bugger all I’d say.

Ive been there many a time and it’s not exactly teaming with people. A lot more use nearby Caulfield Park.

On 28/03/2024 at 17:55, daisycutter said:

too many people addicted to social media garbage (pi)?

These fb pages are set up by ppl with gripes . Those who support the plans are less likely to be proactive

PUBLIC MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT!!! 

Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trust are holding an 'Annual Public Meeting' online on Thursday, April 11 at 5pm. 

Register for this meeting to help stop the deal to have the Melbourne Football Club based permanently at Caulfield Racecourse Reserve. 

REGISTRATION LINK IS HERE:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/FriendsofCaulfieldRacecourseReserve/permalink/1563830937707537/

This deal will take away valuable public land for the next 50 years from public and community use. As per the Demons statement here: 

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/.../melbourne-commences...

REMINDER: This deal is not being shown to the public. The feasibility study has NO:

 - NO Mention in the current Strategic Management Plan. 

 - NO Terms of Reference.

-  NO Glen Eira Council involvement.

-  Finishes Mid-Year.

-  $500,000 of state government funding to back it.

We say NO MORE!!!

The Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trust is not to be TRUSTED!! 

We are raising these issues with MPs, Media and Council that the trust is UNACCOUNTABLE!!

Register, ask your questions, be COUNTED!!

Register to #stop the deal. 
Register to #block the steal!!

I’ve booked a ticket. 

On 28/03/2024 at 18:54, Demon Disciple said:

I’d like to know how many of these people opposed to the MFC actually use the facilities inside the racecourse………bugger all I’d say.

Ive been there many a time and it’s not exactly teaming with people. A lot more use nearby Caulfield Park.

Ive been working on the current redevelopment works at Caulfield for the last year and I completely agree with you that the area inside the track is a ghost town. Hardly gets used at all for the space it occupies. Given any redevelopment inside the track area would still have to include public use I don’t see that anyone would ultimately be worse off by having us based there.

On 28/03/2024 at 12:37, daisycutter said:

i'm very curious what objections local caullfieldians could have

If you are on FB, join "Glen Eira Residents Action Group" ... fair bit of anti-Demons agitation going on there. Seems to me the whole of Caulfield RC Reserve has to be set aside for the use of 9 dog walkers. Perhaps some local politicians need to be made aware of how many Demons members and supporters reside in The City of Glen Eira ...

Read it and weep - governments have spent $450 million spent on AFL grounds and facilities since 2017.

From Peter Ryan in The Age

-------------

Marvel Stadium will not be used for AFLW matches in 2024 despite recently being upgraded with $225 million of state government funding, in part for “improved facilities to support professional women’s sport”.

It’s the biggest single publicly funded upgrade to AFL venues and club training bases since 2017 as state and federal governments have poured $450 million into the code’s facilities.

In addition, a further $15 million each has been promised for Hawthorn’s Dingley and Richmond’s Punt Road redevelopments.

The Marvel Stadium upgrade, complete with a new-look stadium square featuring new bars, coffee spots and improved spectator amenities, was officially launched last month.

The occasion shone a light on the amount of Victorian taxpayer funds directed towards the league and AFL clubs to upgrade their stadiums and high-performance centres as other sporting bodies, including Olympic sports that rely heavily on government funding, battle for scarce dollars in a tight fiscal environment.

There were no AFLW games played at the AFL-owned Marvel Stadium in 2023 and two sources who attended a recent planning forum, but who were not authorised to speak publicly, confirmed to this masthead that the league would schedule women’s games at boutique stadiums again next season.

The AFL defended its decision, saying the changerooms at Marvel Stadium were used for two sold-out Matildas soccer matches in the past year as well as for female performers at concerts held at the venue since the redevelopment.

But AFLW commentator Chyloe Kurdas questioned why the AFL’s own stadium wasn’t being used to support the growth of the women’s game.

“It doesn’t make sense that the AFL’s own stadium, that has been so highly invested in through taxpayer dollars and the community, it doesn’t make sense that women will not be able to access it to play Australian rules football,” Kurdas said.

“The seating capacity of Marvel offers an opportunity to meet the needs and expectations of the AFLW fan base, particularly in high-value games like the finals, the AFLW finals or the AFLW grand final. It offers a real opportunity to help meet the community’s demand for those big marquee events.”

The league said it had been clear in its desire to grow AFLW sustainably and hoped Marvel Stadium would become a marquee venue for the competition in the future.

“We anticipate there will be a time in the future where Marvel Stadium will be used for AFLW marquee events, such as a grand final. Ultimately, we would all love the competition to be so big that we have no choice but to host more matches on the regular at the venue, but we must continue to sustainably grow the competition,” an AFL spokesperson said.

In January, the AFL also went into partnership with Development Victoria, the government’s property development arm, to discuss the potential redevelopment of the western side of the AFL-owned stadium that is a centrepiece of Docklands.

Athletes or stadiums?

Respected sports administrator John Wylie, who was the chair of the Australian Sports Commission for eight years, said much of the upgrading of facilities for women’s sport was necessary. But he said the boom came at the expense of Olympic and community sports and widened the gap between sport’s haves and have-nots.

“There is increasingly a sense of winner takes all, or winner takes most, economically in sports, and the AFL and the NRL are gapping a lot of other sports,” Wylie said.

“The Olympic sports are really facing a challenging future because they depend overwhelmingly on government funding, so it would be nice to see a greater focus on public investment on the sports that actually need the money.

“You would hope the public investment in sport wouldn’t reinforce what is increasingly a winner-takes-all economic situation that is emerging.”

Wylie was concerned that dominant sports attracted funding because of their blanket coverage, while organisations such as the Victorian Institute of Sport, which provides elite programs for potential Olympians, must fight for funding in this year’s state budget.

“It would be nice to see a greater sense of priority of investment towards investing in athletes and participation in sport rather than what seems to be a very strong focus towards investing in stadiums,” Wylie told this masthead.

He worries that people are being attracted to elite sport stadiums to consume “burgers and beers” rather than participate.

“As a country, we have a health and obesity crisis, and yet the public investment in sport seems to be really focused on the consumption of sport as spectators and as entertainment as opposed to playing and being active.”

‘The bigger sports get bigger’

AFL clubs seem to be winning the hearts of politicians. In Geelong, $142 million was contributed to stage five of the Kardinia Park redevelopment, while about $70 million of state government funds were invested via other mechanisms in a high-performance centre – and now completed – upgrades at Essendon’s Hangar, the Bulldogs’ Whitten Oval and North Melbourne’s Arden Street.

A source with knowledge of the process, who wanted to remain anonymous in order to speak freely about how funding decisions are reached, said Geelong’s stadium build should be regarded differently to the other projects as they enjoyed the benefits of being in a marginal and regional seat.

Richmond and Hawthorn have also been promised $15 million each from the state government. The Tigers will upgrade Punt Road Oval and facilities supporting the Korin Gamadji Institute’s programs for Indigenous youth, while the Hawks will develop a high-performance centre at Dingley.

Collingwood completed an upgrade to their training base, including a sports medicine centre, in 2023 using a federal government grant of $15 million. Its completion so soon after the club withdrew its team from the Super Netball competition caused controversy on social media, but the club said the redevelopment met the funding’s objectives.

A feasibility study is also under way to determine whether Caulfield Racecourse is a suitable location for Melbourne to create a high-performance centre.

Sports historian Greg Blood, who worked before retirement at the Australian Institute of Sport, said big professional sports have sophisticated lobbying mechanisms that assist them to make their case.

He first compiled a list of government funding of big sport in 2019 before updating it in 2024 to keep an eye on how public funding is impacting sport.

“The bigger sports get bigger and then the smaller sports are left behind, and they are totally reliant on government funding,” Blood said.

However, former Geelong president Colin Carter, who was a key architect of the AFL’s ground rationalisation policy, which resulted in more than 90 AFL games plus finals being played at the MCG and Marvel Stadium each season, takes a different tack.

“I have a big belief in stadiums. That is where people gather [and] whether you like it or not, footy plays an enormously important role in society and [it’s] mostly good. It brings people together,” Carter said.

“If you want to make the argument that a hospital wing or an infant health centre is more important then you would never build a museum, art gallery or a concert hall. At the end of the day, you have to say, ‘what are the things that add value to a community sense of excitement and belonging?’ Footy stadiums are up there.”

Carter said people needed to realise that funding for stadiums comes from a different bucket of money to the one allocated to education and health.

Grassroots funding

The Victorian government is cognisant of the importance of participation in local sport. As part of the 2018 deal to keep the AFL grand final at the MCG, the government committed $241.6 million to “upgrade facilities at suburban grounds, local clubs and high-performance centres across the state”.

Of that pool, $65 million went into the state netball and hockey centre, as well as $10 million to build the Melbourne Victory Football Academy and $12 million towards a rugby league hub that will house the proposed Melbourne Storm women’s team. That left about $110 million for suburban grounds and local clubs around Victoria, with $15 million of that dedicated to building female-friendly facilities.

The Victorian government also launched the community sports infrastructure loans scheme in that package, which provided eligible organisations access to low-interest rate loans of between $500,000 and $10 million to help build community sport and recreation infrastructure.

“We are supporting high-quality, accessible community sport infrastructure by investing more than $1.9 billion since 2014 to develop and upgrade facilities right across the state,” a Victorian government spokesperson said in a statement.

The AFL is also adamant that increasing participation is key to its plans. The commission has locked in funding for community sport as a percentage of revenue for the next 10 years.

“We provide 10 per cent of the AFL revenues to community [football], which is an estimated $1 billion invested over the next decade,” Dillon said at the SportNXT conference held in Melbourne earlier this month.

Two AFL sources, who wanted to remain anonymous as they were not authorised to speak publicly on the issue, defended the league’s approach, arguing the AFL puts broadcast revenue into community football, rather than seeking levies from participants to fund facilities.

They also argue that the AFL leverages its influence to build partnerships at all levels of government with the Australian Football Facilities Fund.

“[AFL clubs] understand the power they have in the community, and there is no better way to leverage this by utilising their training facilities for community groups. Each club has a different arrangement, but we have seen in more recent times those facilities being hubs for local community and at times other sports engagement. With all 18 clubs now having both AFL and AFLW programs, the facilities need to best reflect the amenities required for everyone to have the best experience possible,” a league spokesperson said.

Victorians are now waiting to see whether the big AFL build translates into a better sporting environment for all or a chance, as Wylie says, for more burgers and beers to be consumed.

“The Marvel Stadium redevelopment is delivering a first-class experience for sporting fans, concert-goers, function space users, and the athletes, both men and women who have used the facility over the last 12 months,” the AFL said.

But as the debate around government funding for the Tasmania Devils continues, the wait for AFLW games to be played at Marvel Stadium – which will host 43 AFL games in 2024 – continues.

Edited April 3, 20241 yr by Grapeviney

The Age also did graphics ( which I can't reproduce here) which just shows how far down the gurgler we are compared to other clubs and the years of inaction by the current Board.

Marvel Stadium: State Government $225M

GMHBA Stadium (Geel) : State Government $142M

IKON park (Carlton): State Government $20.196 M Federal Government $15M

AIA centre ( Collingwood): Federal Government $15M

Whitten Oval ( WB): State Government $36.6M ( plus land donation, not covered in this article)Federal Government $15M

Casey Fields: State Government $5M

Moorabbin Oval ( StK): State Government $13M (stage 2 only).  Stage 1+2  $30M

Mars stadium (WB):State Government $6.6M ( stage 2 only)

Arden St (Nth ): State Government $7M (stage 2 only)

The Hanger (Ess): State Government $6.3M Federal Government $4M ( upgrade only)

Victoria Park (Coll) :State Government $2M

Commitments:

Dingley (Haw): State $15M Fed $15M

Punt Road(Rich): State $15M Fed $15M

And these numbers are from 2017 only!!!

 

This is how it feels with the board.

2021 I remember they promised to have something done soon, we are midway 2024...

This stadium funding charade is a game of ticking boxes. Doesn't matter what your true intentions are, as long as you tick the right combination of boxes to unlock the $$$. Some clubs are very good at it. We are terrible.

It’d be just our luck to line up all the chairs and have a bunch of 75 year old dog walkers stymie the project