Junior league begs funding

Local sports enthusiasts hope a solution to the funding of junior league in the eastern suburbs will be found this month.

Any fix would need a consensus to be reached between the Sydney Rooster’s Rugby League Club (SRRLC) and the Eastern Suburbs Junior Rugby League Association (ESJRLA).

The debate started early last year when the Rooster’s club announced that funding for junior league would be cut back after its poor financial returns that year.

The decision would affect four eastern suburb junior league clubs: Paddington Woollahra, Bondi United, Clovelly Crocodiles and St Charles.

The SRRLC provides financial assistance annually to the four clubs to cover expenses such as insurance for players and ground hire. The ESJRLA wants to agree with the SRRLC on a specific sum before signing a new funding agreement.

“We need the Roosters to guarantee funding for junior league,” Paddington Woollahra representative Garry O’Sullivan said.

The Eastern Suburbs League Club, which provides the Rooster’s club with funding, was severely impacted by the State Government’s compulsory non-smoking legislation and a rise in gaming tax.

For the Bondi Junction club, gaming revenue was down 4.2 per cent from 2007 figures. Its 2008 annual report showed the club’s net profit was just over $3,520,00, less that its grant to the Rooster’s club of $4,300,000.

SRRLC chief executive Stephen Noyce says these figures mean the club needs to work harder and smarter to cut its expenses: especially since its own funding from the Eastern Suburbs League Club had been reduced this year.

“We had an enormous reduction in our grant but we’re still focused on giving a sustainable amount to the junior league. Change is always difficult,” Mr Noyce said.

But members of the ESJRLA questioned Mr Noyce’s argument.

“A lot of staff have been retrenched; that costs money, money that could have been spent elsewhere,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

St Charles representative Larry Raftery agrees with Mr O’Sullivan. “One wonders about the intentions of the Roosters towards junior league,” Mr Raftery said.

– By Jessica O’Sullivan