Who pays for local soccer?

Siobhan Hannan

Our local soccer club is facing a funding crisis.

No surprises there. But I suspect our particular dilemma is symptomatic of a wider problem of the game at the grassroots.

In my suburb, the junior game is booming. I have no figures, but anecdotally it could have the highest number and proportion of participants of any sport. Junior soccer is mainly financed by local government, and parents. Local governments (or sometimes schools) provide pitches and clubrooms.

Parents pay an annual fee for registration, coaching, insurance, strip, reffing and the other operational costs of the game. Parents also contribute through the canteens – acting as voluntary staff in most cases, and then also paying for the product at a premium that goes back to the club. Parents provide most of the volunteer labour. And parents organise fundraising events where they often donate the goods and then pay to get them back again.

Sponsorship is another source of income for junior soccer. Some teams or clubs are quite successful in attracting sponsors. These tend to rely on a personal relationship between a local small business, and a team. Usually, it is the family business of one of the kids in the team. The sums involved are small, and are used to ice the cake rather than defray operating costs.

This set-up is viable, though we would all wish for a pot of money to spend on upgrading pitches, especially in our current drought.

When we get to senior teams, the situation is much more problematic. Amateur teams are fine, as players are still asked to pay the costs of their own participation. It is when clubs pay players that the problems start.

Some clubs pay their players and some do not. There does not seem to be any system or logic about it. It does not seem to relate to the level of competition. Gate takings are negligible. Theoretically, income comes mainly from sponsors. But they rarely deliver enough.

Here in the northern suburbs, most clubs started life as ethnic community hubs. These clubs played an important role in community building. They were able to parley their social role into extra government funding for better facilities. They were able to draw on ethnic community loyalties for fundraising appeal. People with little interest in the game would still contribute because it was seen as a focus for cultural maintenance. Ethno-specific businesses could be prevailed upon to support their community’s club, and could see the point of advertising to their key clientele.

But it is in the nature of migration that these communities dissipate after a while. The children of the first Australian-born generation pass through, coached in their mother-tongue by fathers and uncles. By the time the grandchildren arrive, much of the community is likely to have moved to other suburbs. The club becomes more varied, with increasing numbers of blonde players. The tight-knit community that created it is no more.

At the same time, the small businesses that mushroomed during the settlement phase mature into larger enterprises. When they sponsor, they do it on a larger scale – but they also look for bigger clubs and greater exposure. Small local clubs can’t compete with a South Melbourne, Oakleigh or Melbourne Victory in the sponsorship stakes.

The ethnic community we were part of has aged. It now only supports a handful of food shops in the local area, and their ties with the club have weakened now their own children are long grown up and moved away.

Clubs like ours are not only tied into the life-cycle of migrant communities. We are also affected by wider changes in the nature of community and identity. Local shops will contribute the occasional small raffle prize, but there is little hope in a modern inner-city community of raising much money from local business. For one thing, in the era of the box-store and franchise, few businesses have a local identity. Moreover, the sense of community nowadays seems to be too fractured and stratified for an appeal to be made to support your local sporting club, except to the people with a direct stake in it.

The other problem is that there are many clubs in the same area. As competitors for the sponsorship dollar they can end up cancelling each other out, so no-one gets any. There is no structure or logic as to where the most senior (and most expensive) team is drawn from. Resources from one small club can be sucked into the seniors, while another club half a suburb away feels no connection or loyalty to that team.

Paying players also seems to have an adverse effect on voluntarism. Paid senior players apparently feel immune from the obligation to coach juniors, act as emergency referees, organise their own fundraising, sit on the committee, mark lines or even take down the nets after their games. The work involved in keeping the seniors going is mostly done by club stalwarts and a few junior parents who get roped in.

What is the solution? Some junior clubs have split from their seniors as families tire of being the milch cow. Some senior teams don’t pay their players. The FFV keeps making noises about reform – perhaps that will lead to some rationalisation. If we had a regional senior team with ties to a group of junior clubs, we might be able to generate a wider fundraising base and even some spectators.

As a football fan, I can see the need to support a hierarchy of teams to provide a career structure for budding players. As a soccer mum, I resent the burden of fundraising for a team that seems to return nothing to the juniors I am there for.

It is clear that the current set-up is not sustainable. Meanwhile, my club has a senior team to pay for, and no idea where to turn for a realistic income stream.

Siobhan Hannan is the support crew for three keen footballers in their development phase. She is a team manager and stalwart for an inner-Melbourne grassroots club. She is a Melbourne Victory member, and is involved in the Victory Fans Stadium Action Group. She does not follow the EPL.

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