Football (Sky Sports)

Football (Sky Sports)

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Tasmania set to enter AFL after decades of campaigning

Post By World afl, hobart, licence, macquarie, point, stadium, tasmania, team

The AFL club presidents have voted unanimously to grant Tasmania the game’s 19th licence, fulfilling decades of dreams for a team from the island state.

During a video meeting this afternoon, the presidents reached a decision within 15 minutes and there were no objections.

The granting of the licence now goes to the AFL Commission for a formal ratification.

An official AFL announcement of the licence is expected as early as Wednesday.

The announcement of $240 million in federal funding towards a 23,000-seat stadium at Hobart’s Macquarie Point was the final hurdle to be cleared before presidents could vote on Tasmania’s bid.

“It’s not an Australian Football League if it leaves off the south island, and that’s what has occurred for too long,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday at the stadium funding announcement.

Under that plan, Tasmania will enter the league in 2027, first playing games at Hobart’s Bellerive Oval and Launceston’s York Park before the new stadium is finished in 2028-29.

The stadium is part of a proposed urban renewal project at Macquarie Point.(Supplied: AFL)

The island state has long eyed an entry into the league, launching its first serious bid in 1994 for a team and a 30,000-seat stadium at the Hobart Showgrounds.

The rejection and dismissal of the state continued when another bid was launched in 2008.

When AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan entered the top job in 2014 he said it could be a decade before a Tasmanian team bid would be considered by club presidents. Tasmania has secured a team in nine years.

The addition of a 19th team means the league will go back to having an uneven number of clubs, with one of the 19 sides to have a bye each round.

Stadium seals the deal for AFL

Tasmania Premier Jeremy Rockliff and outgoing AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan have overseen the successful bid.(ABC News: Luke Bowden)

Tasmania’s final, successful bid for a state team was launched by former premier Peter Gutwein and delivered by current premier Jeremy Rockliff.

An AFL stadium in central Hobart became part of the bid, with the AFL selecting Macquarie Point as its preferred location over an earlier proposal of the Regatta Grounds.

The Tasmanian government estimates the fixed-roof AFL stadium — a first for Australia — will cost $715 million.

Tasmania is set to chip in $375 million for the project, with $240 million from the Commonwealth, $15 million from the AFL and $85 million in “borrowings against land sale or lease for commercial uses”.

It’ll be a while until Hobart’s new stadium is ready and hosting AFL matches.(ABC News: Maren Preuss)

The plan to grow the team and the sport in the state includes a state government contribution of $144 million over 12 years for the team and $60 million to establish a high-performance centre in Hobart.

Design plans for the high-performance centre have been sent to the AFL but have yet to be released publicly.

The AFL bid did have tripartisan support from the Liberal government, Labor and the Greens until the stadium became a feature of the bid.

Labor supports Tasmania gaining an AFL licence but do not agree that a stadium is a requirement.

“If I was Premier and had a billion dollars to spend to benefit Tasmanians, I would spend it on real priorities like improving our health system, building more housing, and lowering the cost of living.” state Labor leader Rebecca White said at the weekend.

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‘Maybe this isn’t going to happen’

Former Woolworths chief executive officer Grant O’Brien, who was part of the taskforce which put together the business case for the bid, admitted the past 18 months had provided many ups and downs.

“Rollercoaster is a pretty good description” he said.

“We were always confident the business plan stacked up, and then to get someone like Colin Carter to endorse it gave us great heart.”

“But these things are never that simple, there’s 18 presidents that needed to be convinced, the commission itself and the government and political issues as well.

“There were times where we looked at each other and said ‘maybe this isn’t going to happen’.”

Mr O’Brien, who hails from the state’s north-west and is now the chairman of Tourism Tasmania, said the controversial Macquarie Point stadium, while divisive, was needed to ensure the long-term viability of the team.

“It’s right that high bar was set both financially and from an infrastructure point of view” he said.

“But something the AFL made clear from the early days is that these licences aren’t built for the next five, 10 or 15 years. They need to be built to last for the next 100 years.

“It’s money that generates a return whether that’s the team or the stadium. Yes, they’re big numbers, but they’re investments that provide a return.”

Speaking from London, Mr O’Brien said he would be walking tall on the other side of the world off the back of the news.

“I brought my little Tasmanian footy badge with me and I plan to walk the streets with it on today. Hopefully someone will recognise that and we will share the joy of the decision.”

Too high a price for team, say Greens

Cassy O’Connor says the stadium deal is a “betrayal” of the Tasmanian people.(ABC News: Luke Bowden )

The Tasmanian Greens, who withdrew their support for the team after establishing an anti-stadium stance, described today as “bittersweet” for Tasmanians.

“We’ve got a team, but what a price to pay,” leader Cassy O’Connor said.

“We didn’t deserve to be blackmailed by the suits in the AFL or a jelly-back premier willing to kowtow to them.”

Ms O’Connor described the stadium deal as “a betrayal of the Tasmanian people”.

Hecklers confronted the prime minister and premier at the weekend announcement of stadium funding, calling for money to be spent on housing and healthcare in the state instead.

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ICC to decide fate of Afghanistan women’s team without speaking to a single player

Post By World Afghanistan, cricket, decision, firooza aghan, future, icc, imran khwaja, Sport, sub-committee, team, women

The International Cricket Council (ICC) will decide – or delay further — the fate of the exiled Afghanistan women’s cricket team at a council meeting in Dubai on Monday, even though the all-male working group has not spoken to a single member of the team.

It is expected the sub-committee, headed by ICC deputy chair and Singaporean lawyer Imran Khwaja, will recommend that no action be taken against the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) as the situation is “very complex”, leaving the women, now based in Australia, in a prolonged limbo.

During a visit by Afghanistan officials to Australia for the men’s ICC T20 World Cup in November 2022, a member of the women’s team was given the name of the restaurant where the chairman of the Afghanistan Cricket Board, Mirwais Ashraf, was dining.

She arrived unannounced hoping to ask for some answers to the many questions they had.

“I was running very fast to meet him,” the player, whose name is being withheld for her safety, told The Ticket.

“When I was running … I was just praying that I could talk to him because it was very important for me and my teammates to have his support.

“But when I got there, he got into his car and left.

“It is very painful for me that he, and all officials of the ICC and ACB, are running away from us and they do not want to answer us, especially Mirwais Ashraf.

“He was a player like us, and no one can understand us better than him. We learned the love of cricket from people like Mirwais Ashraf.

“Players like him make us want to play cricket, but it is very painful that he runs away from what is his responsibility and ignores us.”

Firooza Afghan (left) and other Afghan women’s cricketers’ sporting future is in limbo as they wait for the ICC decision. (ABC Sport: Tracey Holmes)

The ICC working group has managed to travel twice to Doha, Qatar, in the past five months to meet with Taliban and Afghan cricket officials, yet has not been able to travel to meet the women whose future lies in their hands.

According to ESPNCricinfo, the working group has been “provided assurances that the government has not interfered in cricket affairs,” and they acknowledge that “any women’s cricket while the Taliban are in power is near impossible”.

The assurance of no Taliban-government interference is akin to the emperor’s new clothes — it simply is not true. Any recommendation based on that premise cannot be worth the paper it is written on.

Once the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, women were prevented from playing cricket and all other sport. The 25 already-contracted players had their payments stopped, and they fled the country after receiving threats and fearing for their future.

Afghanistan is one of only 12 full-members of the ICC, and is currently in breach of its obligations to support and develop women’s cricket.

The complexity of the issue referred to by the working group is also debatable.

If all the money given to Afghanistan was invested in women’s cricket only, and the men’s team suddenly found themselves banned with payments stopped, it would be hard to imagine the men who run international cricket not finding a solution — and quickly.

The ACB received more than $50 million from the ICC in the past round of funding, which was presumably to be invested in both the men’s and women’s game.

While the Taliban has banned women playing in Afghanistan, the cricketers and their supporters point out they are not in Afghanistan and they should be supported to play in Australia with the funds that should have been earmarked for their development.

Despite everything, the women still want to play for the people of Afghanistan.

“We want to put on our uniform and see our flag in the middle of the ground and play in the World Cup. [We want to] shine and make our country proud,” Firooza Afghan told The Ticket in January.

In December 2022, the women’s team wrote to the chairmen of the ICC and the ACB, asking for clarification of their situation.

“Could you please advise what the official stance is on our national playing contracts and future playing opportunities, noting that we are no longer living in Afghanistan?” they wrote.

“The funding provided by the ICC to the ACB for the women’s program – where has this money gone? And can it be redirected to an organisation in Australia to invest in our development on behalf of the ACB so we can still represent our country on the international stage?”

In a response earlier this month, the ICC told the women it was a matter for the ACB, suggesting their hands were tied.

In an editorial on the Emerging Cricket website, the ICC deferring to the Afghanistan Cricket Board in this instance was likened to the ICC’s position during the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Under the ICC’s membership criteria, a nation can only be a full member by satisfying a number of conditions, including:

“Have the appropriate status, structure, recognition, membership and competence to be recognised by the ICC (at its absolute discretion) as the primary governing body responsible for the administration, management and development of cricket (men’s and women’s) in its country.”

The founder of the Afghan women’s team, Diana Barakzai — pictured in Kabul in 2014 — now lives in Australia.(Reuters: Mohammad Ismail)

Afghanistan should not even be eligible as an associate member since even at that level a commitment to women’s cricket forms part of the criteria.

The final clause of the document does allow for the ICC to exercise an ‘exceptional circumstance’ provision:

“In its sole discretion, and where the applicant is able to demonstrate exceptional circumstances justifying its inability to satisfy one or more of the applicable membership criteria, the membership committee may recommend the acceptance of the application notwithstanding the fact that the applicant does not satisfy all of the relevant membership criteria.”

However, Afghanistan was granted full membership in 2017. At the time, women were already playing cricket, although they were not paid until 2020. The Taliban did not take over until August 2021.

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