Are Junior Associations Members, or Metrics?

When being counted is not the same as being heard.

Junior associations are often spoken of as part of football’s participation base.

Pathways.

Feeders.

Growth.

Numbers.

But are junior associations treated as members of the game in a meaningful governance sense…

or mainly as metrics?

Ahead of Football Tasmania’s AGM, I keep returning to that question.

It is not a throwaway line.

It is a question about representation, reciprocity and what affiliation actually means.

Junior associations are central to football in this state.

CRJFA alone has around 4,000 participants, around 3,800 in last year’s registrations.

Add the other junior associations and we may be talking close to 10,000 junior players across Tasmania.

That is not peripheral to the game.

That is a major part of the game.

Yet I sometimes wonder whether junior associations are seen primarily through three lenses.

Participation.

Revenue.

Administration.

Visible in participation reports.

Visible in revenue lines.

Visible in strategic rhetoric.

But how visible in decision-making?

That is a fair question.

Visible in the accounts

With around 3,800 players and combined Football Tasmania and Football Australia levies of $46 per player, approximately $174,800 flowed upward through registration levies last year.

Pause on that.

Around $175,000.

From one junior association.

That is significant.

And under the newer registration system, those levies are deducted before junior associations even receive their share of registration income.

That is simply how the system now works.

But it does sharpen a question.

When the first slice of registration revenue flows upward automatically, what relationship sits behind that levy?

Because junior football is not only counted.

It is, quite literally, deducted.

And that may be why the accounting lens metaphor feels hard to ignore.

Are junior associations seen mainly as part of football’s financial and participation architecture?

Or as a constituency with authority?

If I’m honest, there are moments when junior associations can feel trundled out when football wants to point to participation numbers, then pushed back to the margins when the conversation turns to power, priorities or voice.

That is uncomfortable.

But worth saying.

Visible when our numbers are needed.

Less visible when our voice is.

Participation should mean more than being useful in a statistic.

It should imply representation.

Otherwise people may reasonably ask whether they are being counted…

without really counting.

Thousands of players. One vote.

CRJFA, representing around 4,000 players, has one vote.

One.

Thousands of players.

One vote.

One vote may satisfy equality of members.

It does not necessarily reflect equality of representation.

That distinction matters.

Especially when junior football is continually cited as foundational to the game.

If junior football is part of the foundation, what does one vote say about how that foundation is represented?

That is not grievance.

It is a governance question.

And perhaps an AGM question.

If standing committees are the voice mechanism… where are they?

Football’s constitutional architecture appears to envisage channels for voice, including standing committees.

If those channels are weak, absent or largely dormant…

where exactly is grassroots voice meant to land?

That question matters.

Because if formal channels are unclear, people fall back on informal ones.

Private frustration.

Car park conversations.

Sideline complaints.

Which are often dismissed as negativity.

Sometimes they are simply feedback with nowhere formal to go.

That is a structural issue.

Not a personality issue.

What does affiliation provide?

To be clear, this is not aimed at staff doing day-to-day work.

And it is not an argument against affiliation.

It is a question about whether the relationship between grassroots and the governing structure could be richer.

Because CRJFA, which I represent, is largely self-sufficient.

Our own accounts tell a story of that.

We invest heavily in equipment.

We provide balls to clubs and schools.

We fund ground rebates.

We contribute to ground hire.

We pay for grounds to be set up and packed down.

We carry significant volunteer and administrative load.

We run football.

That is not complaint.

It is simply fact.

Which raises a reasonable question.

Beyond affiliation, what support exists for junior associations?

What advocacy?

What development support?

What practical assistance?

That should be discussable.

And to be fair, junior associations perhaps have not always clearly articulated what support they might want beyond existing arrangements.

That too may be part of the issue.

But that does not make the question any less valid.

Is insurance the answer?

Often when fees are questioned, insurance is raised.

Fair enough.

Insurance matters.

But in my time as President of CRJFA I have never signed an insurance claim for a junior player.

Not one.

I dealt with claims in senior and youth club football.

Never in juniors.

That does not make insurance irrelevant.

It simply means insurance should not end the conversation.

Affiliation cannot be reduced to “you get insurance”.

That feels too thin.

Services we purchase, or support we receive?

Other examples are often cited.

Dribl.

PlayFootball.

Necessary systems.

Important systems.

But are these examples of support provided?

Or services associations effectively pay to use?

That is not the same thing.

Software is infrastructure.

But infrastructure is not, by itself, a relationship.

Using systems we fund is not necessarily the same as being supported.

And perhaps those ideas are too often blurred.

If the answer to what affiliation provides is insurance, software and registration systems, some may reasonably ask whether that answer is enough.

That is not hostile.

It is a question about reciprocity.

Constituency, or statistic?

This may be the real issue.

Are junior associations constituents.

Or statistics?

Partners in governance.

Or registration categories?

Junior associations are often spoken of as pathways, feeders or participation bases.

Less often as political actors within the game.

That language itself may reveal something.

Because at times grassroots can feel heavily referenced…

but lightly represented.

There is a difference.

And it matters.

A game built on grassroots should not treat grassroots as background.

The biggest participation base in the game should not also be its quietest voice.

The invisible engine room

Months ago I wrote that junior associations were the engine room of football.

I still believe that.

But there is a harder truth in that metaphor.

Engine rooms power ships while remaining out of sight.

Essential.

But unseen.

Perhaps that is what some in junior football recognise.

Not exclusion.

But invisibility.

And invisibility can be its own problem.

A question before the AGM

So perhaps the question before the AGM is not who occupies seats.

Or who wins votes.

But something simpler.

Does football see junior associations beyond an accounting lens?

Because if thousands of junior players help give the game scale, legitimacy and revenue…

should they not also help shape its voice?

Junior associations should be more than something trundled out when participation numbers are convenient.

Otherwise we may need to ask a harder question still.

Are junior associations represented.

Or simply referenced.

There is a difference.

And it matters.