Vote of people to name our team

“A CALL for unity” and a defined Tasmanian brand determined by the public will be one of the football findings released today.

AFL chief executive and chair of the AFL’s steering committee Gillon McLachlan will be in Hobart this morning to announce the committee’s findings into solving Tasmania’s football crisis.

The under-18s program has been known as the Mariners while Tasmania’s previous VFL club was called the Devils.

But one of the recommendations to be announced today will be for all Tasmanian teams, be it junior, youth or senior, male or female, to all be called by the same name.

What that name is — and it could be the Mariners, Devils or a new entity — will be determined by the public in a yet to be released format.

It is expected McLachlan will also announce an increase in the elite men’s and women’s under-18s program and a possible return to the VFL in 2021.

The question over the future of the TSL was announced last Thursday, with the current licence agreements to be honoured to at least 2023 but without any significant increase in funding or resources.

There is also a move for the AFL to withdraw its support for the Tasmanian Football Council, a body that looks after community football for the SFL, NTFA and NWFL.

The council’s president Paul Reynolds said the AFL was pushing for the creation of a commission in each region.

He said the move was sad because, in a state criticised for parochialism, the council had brought the three regions of together to work productively.

“I was surprised when I first found out there was going to be a withdrawal,” Reynolds said.