https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/football/local-soccer-sa/forced-to-change-in-carparks-poor-state-of-local-soccer-facilities-revealed-in-ffa-report/news-story/bc2c15fbd466d843b4f48abb50a6d035

Forced to change in carparks: Poor state of local soccer facilities revealed in FFA report

Decrepit facilities are forcing some South Australian female soccer players to change in carparks, offices and bars — or to stay away from the game completely.

And a 69-year-old club is threatened with closing its doors for good if it can’t get relocation funding.

Football Federation Australia yesterday released an in-depth report claiming a lack of facilities was holding the game back for its for 1.8 million participants — Australia’s largest club-participation sport.

Soccer receives tax-funded grants only up to $37.03 a participant, compared with the AFL’s $108.59, rugby union’s $122.91, rugby league’s $109.78, netball’s $86.24, cricket’s $55.03 and tennis’s $22.33.

As women and girls represent the greatest growth — now at 21 per cent of total participation — a desperate lack of funds to provide lights, drainage, change rooms, new grass and synthetic pitches is turning women away.

1 Croydon Kings junior soccer players Luca Bernardi, Danny Haracic, Jake Bernardi and Christian Brazzale at Regency Oval, Regency Park. The club has had to turn kids away because of a lack of facilities.. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

Mark Falvo, chief operating officer and head of international relations at FFA, said the report was a clearer picture of what the future of soccer faced. “This is result of the scale of our participation numbers,’’ Falvo said.

“We don’t have the same broadcast revenue that some of the codes like the AFL can generate. Our game requires special intervention from government to prioritise what is clearly the most popular sport in the country. The push towards gender equality and social inclusion — football can achieve that much faster than any other sport possibly can.”

Croydon Kings’ board member Andrew Brazzale said the club was on the verge of extinction because the South Rd upgrade might force the club to move. “It may cost up to $9 million to relocate to Regency Oval (at Regency Park),’’ Brazzale said. “We’ve got to be out of the current facility by the end of December but currently our Regency Oval facility for our 250 kids hasn’t even got proper toilets there.

“It has a shed/veranda for a change room. We lost our girls’ teams because they couldn’t change at Polonia Park — they did that in the carparks (at the current home ground).”

Soccer needs an injection of about $500 million between federal, state and local governments to bridge a facilities funding gap, according to the FFA report.

Women players from Adelaide City and Metro United were forced to change in bars at Hindmarsh Stadium during Football Federation SA’s men’s and women’s grand final day last September. And it wasn’t an isolated incident.

“Our facilities for women are a disgrace,’’ Adelaide City football committee chairman Tony Costa said.

The club boast more than 700 participants, of whom 120 are female — the most at an SA club. “There’s no dedicated change rooms and we’ve had to turn an upstairs office into a change room,” Costa said. “It doesn’t have any showers for them at Oakden. We’re losing many female players because of this.”

Adelaide Blue Eagles general secretary Paul Giordano says his club is probably the only soccer club affiliated to FFSA which has tailor-made women’s changerooms at its Marden Sports Complex.

The club along with the Croatian Sports Club — home of the Raiders — have built their impressive venues from their own fund raising with very little tax funded assistance.

Marden for the past two seasons has hosted Adelaide United’s W-League matches but is currently unable to field its own women’s teams because it has capped its juniors to about 250 players.

“We haven’t had women’s team for four or five years,’’ Giordano said.

“The problem we had is the equality factor, we have to give them the same thing as the men players we don’t want them to feel like second class citizens and we haven’t got enough pitches.”

Eastern United chairman Steven Kidd said his club’s poor Athelstone facilities were hampering its ability to attract females and juniors.

“We’ve only got two change rooms and the two pitches that we have can’t take much traffic,’’ he said. “We want more females to play ... but we just can’t deliver the facilities they need — it’s so disappointing.”