WA Football

I mean, this is the contract for all of football, of course, not just the waffle.

And, you know, the WA football really is the last kind of big contract, I guess, for Burley because they lost the SANFL contract back in 2024.

You know, WA football is seriously looking at the Sherin and there's obviously some financial reasons for that as well.

And, you know, there is a risk that, of course, that they go with Sherin and we start seeing Sherin pop up in the PFL, the WAFL and country footy.

So where is the push to replace the Burleys with the Sherin coming from?

Well, it's the end of the three-year contract, so they're running on currently a three-year football supply contract, which is with Burley, so they're the incumbent.

That's coming to an end, and WA Football is, as you would expect any organisation to do, exploring... their options in terms of, you know, the best commercial outcome for WA football for the next contract, however long that may be.

But there is certainly some discussion at WA football, especially now that there are obviously a lot of people in at WA football who aren't necessarily rusted on West Aussies with a passion for Burley, such as a WA footy Nuffie like I am would have, to align with the AFL.

That's another challenge that's in front of us.

But we've got some thoughts around that and need to test that with our partners in Claremont and with WA Footy to how we can, as an example with the Kimberley, make that happen.

We've got the alignment in the Midwest with East Fremantle Wheatbelt with West Perth and then the Peel region and Southwest with Peel.

So there's still a lot of work to be done.

Knowing that our state is so large, getting a player from Wonka Jonka to Perth is a huge step and there needs to be some really clear strategy in how we can, you know, prepare young people for that change in cultural environments, being out back at Western Australia to metropolitan Perth.

That's another challenge that's in front of us, but we've got some thoughts around that and need to test that with our partners in Claremont and with WA Footy to how we can, as an example with the Kimberley, make that happen.

We've got the alignment in the Midwest with East Fremantle Wheatbelt with West Perth and then the Peel region and Southwest with Peel.

So there's still a lot of work to be done.

This is 1991.

This subcommittee report to the WA Football Commission is handed down not long after, days after.

And, I mean, even Carlton are saying, yep, they come out straight away to say we need to have a second WA team ASAP.

So it outlines that having a game in Western Australia each week is paramount.

The chair of that subcommittee is a guy called David Hatt.

He ends up becoming the first CEO of the Dockers as well.

So the process from there is that the AFL are pretty quick to move, which would suggest that they were well aware of what was going on with the WA Football Commission.

In July, it's revealed that the AFL had produced a letter with a set of player rules and concessions in April.