Casterton Sandford has voted with its feet expressing a strong desire to leave the Western Border football and netball leagues and join the Mid South Eastern.
But Mid South Eastern Football League President Peter Mitchell said there were still a series of steps required before any final decision was made.
“It’s still a bit of a process for us … we do not need to do anything straight away, I think we have got 60 days,” Mitchell said.
“We need to talk to SANFL to work through what we need to do and how and to make sure consideration is given to all parties.
“We had a delegates meeting a couple of weeks ago and I did flag they (Casterton Sandford) were looking to make application to MSE, they had not at that stage, but have now done it in writing.
“They have still got to get approval from WBFL, who have said that publicly but not formally.”
Mitchell said the “critical” first step was that Casterton Sandford had voted they wanted to leave as a club.
“We need to look at all the for and against, making sure we look at the benefits of a club coming into our league and what are the things that do not benefit us,” he said.
“As part of that I want all of the clubs to consider that, it’s about every club.
“From that what we would need to do is come back as a league and all clubs considering and saying yes or no.
“If it’s a no, then Casterton has a right to appeal to SANFL and the SANFL commission would then hear that appeal, all of our thoughts about that … why we have decided it’s not a good fit.
“The consideration we have to have, we need to make sure and we are not against change, but we do not want to lose our clubs.
“They are small communities, if we lost a club or a couple of clubs, that community dies and that’s what we do not want.
“I’d hate to think one of the smaller clubs … would be in a position because of a change which made it so they could not survive, be sustainable or be able to compete.
“We need to make sure it will not mean the demise or be to the detriment of any of our existing clubs, any consideration needs to be that our clubs are comfortable with it, not just survive but thrive.
“If we were to do nothing, our clubs would still survive, they have proven that.”
Mitchell said, with one week left of the minor round season, followed by four weeks of finals, no date had yet been set for all MSE clubs to come together to discuss the application.
“We will do it within the time frame that we need to, we do not want to rush into it, we have got finals coming up, we have got presentations happening, it’s a busy time of year for netball and footy, we need to convene a meeting. I think we have got roughly 60 days,” he said.
“Western Border still have got to approve that Casterton can leave, while they have said that publicly, that process needs to happen, from that SANFL will convene and go through the detail of it and then as a league we need to have our meeting after that.”
