Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield) discussions

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The AFL is trying to help the Brisbane Lions get funding for a new facility
Andrew Hamilton, The Courier-Mail
March 19, 2018 8:46pm
AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan will on Tuesday make a personal pitch to the State Government for desperately needed funding for the Lions’ new headquarters.

Despite the success of the Lions’ AFLW side, there has been no love from the State Government, which has stonewalled Brisbane at every attempt to secure $15 million to build a boutique stadium for the women attached to their proposed training and administration base at Springfield.

It is understood McLachlan made some progress with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in a phone call last week.

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The Government budget committee met on Monday night where the Lions hope money was earmarked for the $60m project, if not McLachlan has a meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon to make another pitch.

Brisbane finally had one win on Monday, with the start time of Saturday’s AFLW grand final against the Bulldogs pushed forward 30 minutes to 11.35am (Qld time) to avoid an overlap with the men’s season opener.

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Gillon McLachlan will speak to Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images
Pleas to move the game to Etihad Stadium as a curtain-raiser fell on deaf ears.

The original 12.05pm start time would have forced fans to make a choice between either the women or men — who play St Kilda at Etihad Stadium at 2.35pm — or miss the end or start of one of the games if they attempted to watch both.

There is no clash for the Bulldogs, whose men’s side play GWS in Canberra on Sunday.

Lions CEO Greg Swann was straight on the phone to McLachlan on Sunday night requesting a schedule change once Collingwood’s victory over Adelaide assured the Lions of back-to-back grand final appearances.

Brisbane has been the most consistent performers across the fledgling competition’s first two seasons.


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But both years it appears the grand final schedule was made with the assumption the Lions wouldn’t be in it.


Last year the Lions women’s team had to play the grand final at Metricon Stadium because the Gabba was not available.

The out-of-sight, out-of-mind situation Brisbane and the Suns often find themselves in with AFL decision-making highlights once again the need for a Queensland-based administrator looking after the interests of the state’s two clubs on the AFL executive or commission.
 
Article on HUN site that Gil is going to personally speak to the State govt. about funding for our facilities.
I thought that he had already done this last year. It really is becoming a bit of a joke and can only see the funding happening if we win on Saturday as when the firebirds got $20mil after winning a few years back. Politicians love backing a winner.
 
Last year a club registrar told me there are more girls and women playing Afl in Queensland than in any other state. That's right - more than in Victoria.

Surely that's gotta be significant bragging rights for our government and we all know politicians love a good bragging point.

The premier says " As we are THE state for women's Afl we are funding this stadium to ensure the standard of women's football across the nation continues to be underwritten by Queensland. "

Aside: does anyone know how many league players are from Queensland?
 
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So that article puts a different spin on what’s been publicly said about possible State funding.
I'm getting the impression we've been fed a lot of lip service with nothing actually committed, hence all the talk about next budget and 'after the election' type nonsense. So that must have dried up, and Swann has taken it all back to Gil for backup, and hopefully some form of a "WTF?" rocket to be fired at them.

The wording of that article is pretty negative towards the state government too, even for Hammo - "Despite the success of the Lions’ AFLW side, there has been no love from the State Government, which has stonewalled Brisbane at every attempt to secure $15 million to build a boutique stadium for the women attached to their proposed training and administration base at Springfield."
 
If reaching the GF for the second year running doesn’t provide the impetus to get the extra funding. Dare I say it nothing will
 
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I thought that he had already done this last year. It really is becoming a bit of a joke and can only see the funding happening if we win on Saturday as when the firebirds got $20mil after winning a few years back. Politicians love backing a winner.
Not sure you can compare funding for Qld Netball with more than 50,000 registered players and funding for the Lions Stadium and training centre. At the end of the day as many people will oppose funding as support it and governments won't just throw around millions of dollars unless they can see an underlying community/financial benefit.

The Lions should have been pushing that hard from day one to get the local communities onside make it impossible for the government to say no.
 
The Lions should have been pushing that hard from day one to get the local communities onside make it impossible for the government to say no.

Hehe, they have been. They really have been. It has been the core of Jake Ansen’s approach.
 
Last year a club registrar told me there are more girls and women playing Afl in Queensland than in any other state. That's right - more than in Victoria.

Surely that's gotta be significant bragging rights for our government and we all know politicians love a good bragging point.

The premier says " As we are THE state for women's Afl we are funding this stadium to ensure the standard of women's football across the nation continues to be underwritten by Queensland. "

Aside: does anyone know how many league players are from Queensland?
Well I'll be a monkeys uncle............blow me over with a feather........would love to see those stats. I think the registrar may have been somewhat confused but I hope not for the sake of our future.
 

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