NEWS Not a sporting decision
ALICE Springs Athletics has labelled the town council “disrespectful” after they cancelled the majority of local sports because of a tiny bit of rain.
Athletics, football, soccer, netball, motocross and rugby were all shut down yesterday morning after the council made a blanket decision to shut the playing arenas after 7mm of rain fell between Friday night and yesterday after- noon. They posted a message on their Facebook page at 10am. ASA president Murray Stewart believes the decision to cancel sport was hard to understand, adding he could not believe the council would make a blanket decision across all sports.
“Firstly, (Alice Springs Athletics) would like to think we have an excellent relationship with the council, but everything we do with council needs to be based on merit,” he said.
“If this scenario has been based on merit then in my view there appears to be a total lack of policy, a total lack of system and a total lack of respect towards sporting administrators to make judgment calls when it comes to weather events such as this.
“It appears to be that one person is in charge of making these sorts of judgment call, but soccer is different to athletics, rugby is different to AFL and one field is different to an- other, so to make these sweeping judgments across all sports, it’s ridiculous, to be frank.”
Alice Springs town councillor Steve Brown supported Mr Stewart’s pleas for sports administrators to be more involved, saying he would be pushing hard for policy change. “The general consensus across the town is that it was not a popular decision and I have to say I’m in sympathy with that point of view,” he said. Alice Springs council works manager Scott Allen said he empathised with angry sporting codes, but said the decision was made with the town’s best interest at heart.
“With the amount of rain that is around and it’s obviously coming into winter, which is a slow-growing season, any damage that gets done, there’s a chance that the grounds may not recover for the upcoming winter,” he said. “That would mean the fields aren’t as good a quality as we want them in.”