By Marcus Uhe
Outer East Football Netball League Chief Executive Brett Connell “absolutely” believes subjectivity will be eliminated when determining promotion and relegation between Premier Division and Division One in the coming years as a result of the competition’s structural review.
Officer, Berwick Springs and Emerald will be promoted to a 12-team Premier competition after they were considered to be Premier clubs based on a series of criteria.
The division grows from nine teams to 12 in order to provide stability and surety for competing clubs, should clubs choose to pursue competing in other leagues.
Narre Warren and Pakenham both had applications to join the Mornington Peninsula Football Netball League in 2024 rejected back in August.
While Emerald shaped on paper as the most appropriate fit for the top flight, having won the Division One football premiership, Berwick Springs and Officer were also chosen to make the leap, despite one falling short in the decider and one missing finals, respectively.
Connell explained that the decision to move the Titans and Kangaroos up was data-driven.
“We drew a matrix across various areas of the business, football, netball, you name it, and we arrived at what we consider to be our best 12 clubs, based on football and netball,” Connell said.
“The Premier clubs were locked away, the nine that are already there.
“We had Emerald who were promoted, and earned the right to play in Premier in 2024, then we ran the tape over every club that exists over Division One.
“Relegation and promotion, the structure for that, won’t be announced until next year before we start the season.”
Promotion and relegation will be subject to club composition, with a to-be implemented bench-marking exercise evaluating all aspects of a club’s operations to guide decision making.
In doing so, clubs will understand what is required to be considered for life in the top Division, should they aspire to reach it.
“It’s going to be a pretty big exercise but that will be (for) future years and it’s probably more giving clubs a sighter on, if they wish to be Premier clubs, here’s the average marker that they need to get to, so that they’re more prepared and they’re not going to be going up and down,” Connell said.
“We’re always looking to improve, so anything we can do to assist our clubs to say ‘What do the top four clubs spend in terms of salary cap, do they spend all up to $110,000 or do they spend $80/90,000, what’s the average player points that they use, netball, what’s the average player points they use, how many grades of netball do they have, how many junior teams do they have, do they have under 18s, under 19s, do they have both, what’s their club finances looking like and what’s their turnover for the year.
“It will be based on hard, raw data, rather than saying ‘we think they’re good.’”
The development of a new Strategic Plan is next on the administration’s agenda to cap Connell’s first 12 months in the role as Chief Executive.
