Footy fix gets MP as leader

LEGISLATIVE Council president Jim Wilkinson is to be announced as head of the new Government-backed football board aimed at fixing the shortcomings of the AFL steering committee.

The Mercury can reveal Mr Wilkinson will be named chairman of the Football Tasmania Board as early as tomorrow.

It is believed Mr Wilkinson will be joined on the board by Lauderdale president Julie Kay as the TSL’s representative.

The creation of the board, announced last November, comes in the wake of the AFL’s steering committee probe into the health of Tasmanian football last year that did not address the state’s alarming participation drop-off nor the push for a Tasmanian AFL team.

In July, the Mercury revealed that while male participation in other traditional football states has grown 5-20 per cent between 2006 to 2017, according to AFL Tasmania’s Junior/Youth Football Review the state’s male participation has fallen 14.7 per cent over the same time.

The most alarming statistic was a decline of 22 per cent in the male youth category, ages 13 to 18, regarded as the conduit between junior and senior football.

It is believed the board’s structure will include a representative elected from the seven TSL clubs, presidents from each of the combined three regional leagues (the SFL, NTFA and NWFL) and an AFL Tasmanian representative, as well as other board members.

Mr Wilkinson, 67, has a strong sporting background.

He played 15 VFL games for South Melbourne between 1970 and 1972, enjoyed a long playing career with the Sandy Bay Football Club and represented Tasmania in first-class cricket, before becoming a sports commentator and administrator, as chief commissioner of the Tasmanian National Football League, and as a board member of the Tasmanian Cricket Association and Swimming Tasmania.

A lawyer by profession, Mr Wilkinson was first elected to the seat of Nelson in 1995, but has announced he will not contest the next election due to be held in May.