DOUBLE AGENTS

CLUBS BLOCKING TASSIE BID, SAYS GREAT

HAWTHORN has blasted Tassie footy icon Tim Lane over his explosive comments that the Hawks and the Roos have become addicted to Tasmanian taxpayer funds and are trying to block the state’s entry into the AFL.

Mr Lane told the Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry into AFL in Tasmania yesterday that Hawthorn and North Melbourne were unhealthily dependent on the $8.5 million a year they share annually to play in Tasmania.

But Hawthorn said the comments were “ill-informed and unhelpful”.

HAWTHORN has lined up footy icon Tim Lane over his explosive comment that the Hawks and the Roos are addicted to Tasmanian taxpayer funds and are blocking the state’s entry into the AFL.

The football broadcaster and official Tasmanian Hall of Fame Icon told the Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry into AFL in Tasmania yesterday that an AFL team was the only hope for the code in the state.

He said Hawthorn and North Melbourne, but especially the Hawks, are dependent on the $8.5 million a year they share annually to play four games each in Launceston and Hobart.

Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has often raised concerns whether a Tasmanian AFL team was economically sustainable.

But Hawthorn hit back at Mr Lane’s comments, saying the club is completely committed to Tasmania and has been working with the state’s AFL Taskforce and supporting community football.

“Tim Lane’s comments are ill-informed and unhelpful in the debate around Tasmania having its own AFL team,” the Hawks statement said. “It’s easy to be controversial and confrontational in this debate, the real opportunity is in having collaborative, meaningful discussions in the best interests of Tasmanian football and the community.”

Mr Lane told the committee the Hawks and Roos were not working in Tasmania’s best interests.

“You have two clubs in particular, Hawthorn and North Melbourne, who are profiting from Tasmania and, I think it is fair to say, and happy to lead the charge to keep Tasmania held at arm’s length because it is in their interests not to have a Tasmania team because that would cost them their sponsorship,” Mr Lane said.

“Hawthorn in particular have been activists in that area of seeking to deny Tasmania its ambition while at the same time raking off lavish sums of Tasmanian money every year. Hawthorn have a vested interest in denying Tasmania its right.

“It is the AFL as the central administration which ultimately has the responsibility but there are other forces at work as well.”

A North Melbourne spokesman said the club had a record of helping Tasmanian grassroots football.

In his submission Mr Lane said it must be a stand-alone Tasmanian team to unify the state, just as football heartland states Western Australia and South Australia had start up teams, not failed

Melbourne clubs relocated to Perth or Adelaide.

He said sharing games between Hobart and Launceston would symbolise state unity, with one city hosting six roster games and the other five and the first home final if the state should qualify, then rotating each year.

Mr Lane, who was raised in Devonport and worked in Launceston before moving to Melbourne to commentate on football and cricket, said the AFL Players Association should have a say in where the team is based, but that Hobart would be preferable.

“It would be reasonable to expect that there would be infrastructure there, the social circumstances and what have you of the capital city be available to a group of 40 young men coming together to play football there,” he said. “The idea of putting it into a regional city of lesser population and infrastructure and everything else is something that could be seen to weaken the case.”

Mr Lane slapped down an anti-state AFL team submission by local sports promoter Richard Welsh who suggested Tasmanians would not switch from current allegiances, pointing out how both Western and South Australians embraced their own teams after years of following then VFL clubs.

Mr Lane said aside from the economic and social benefits of a Tasmanian AFL team, the AFL had a moral obligation to introduce a stand-alone side.

“Tasmania is inconvenient to it,” he said.

“I think it feels increasingly uncomfortable and I think that is something that provides some comfort to us that fight this battle that inevitably the AFL is being wedged not just in Tasmania but also in Victoria in particular there are people taking an interest in this case.”