Current NPLWA Champions, Floreat Athena could have a promised three million dollar grant to upgrade their ageing facilities scrapped under the current Federal Labor Government.
Four years and two federal elections, including a change of government have passed since the grant was announced by former One Nation Senator Peter Georgiou, however the Floreat Athena Football club is still waiting for it to be honoured.
Despite all pre-conditions being met, one of which included the securing of a long-term lease with the City of Vincent who became the ‘grantee’ as the proprietor of the E+D Litis Stadium site, the home of Athena since 1985.
“All the conditions have been met… we submitted back in March, together with the City of Vincent the final request for information. We believed from the admin at the Department of Infrastructure they were satisfied with the package that was provided,” Athena President, Con Poulios told Nine Radio’s Liam Bartlett on Friday morning.
“We’ve had a long standing issue with our old change rooms, they were built in 1959 for the 1962 Commonwealth games, the original change-rooms were condemned in 2015 by the City of Vincent.”
“We’re a very inclusive club with 515 players, 413 juniors and they’re all from the local area pretty much – Eighty percent of them,” Mr Poulios said.
Floreat Athena have had a huge influx of female participants, though adequate facilities for football clubs across Australia remain a long way behind demand, especially when it comes to facilities that cater specifically for females.
“We had nine girls playing at the club in 2018, now we’ve got 82. Next year we’ve got the Womens World Cup, we’re going to have a massive uptake,” Mr Poulios said.
Local member for Perth and assistant to the current Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman has refused to ‘politically intervene’ meaning the desperately needed upgrades will remain on hold or possibly scrapped under the Albanese Government following an inquiry.
“Unfortunately what we know with this grant is that it did have some odd origins, being announced not by the government of the day, it was announced by a former One Nation Senator” Mr Gorman told Liam Bartlett.
“I do believe in proper process, and I don’t want to make this situation worse by trying to find a political fix,” he said.
“In this case, I have to deal with the City of Vincent, because the arrangement for the funding is not with the club itself as was previously announced, but the former government shifted it over to the City of Vincent,” Mr Gorman said.
Mr Gorman went on to explain that the grant would become an issue to be discussed in the federal budget on 25 October 2022, leaving the club and its stakeholders in the dark.
It’s unknown whether this is just a bureaucratic blunder or another classic case of party politics, but Floreat Athena remain without adequate facilities to cater for their participants, it’s an all too familiar story when it comes to governments’ lack of provision for the most participated team-sport in the country.
The Far Post Perth contacted Mr Poulios to enquire further about the current condition and the safety of the change rooms.
“The current change rooms are used by both males and females, including juniors all the way up to the over 45’s, the current Football West NTC side who compete in the NPLWA Womens competition also use the facilities.”
“There’s one lockable toilet cubicle and two urinals which are no good to them, it’s a disgrace,” he said.
Although disappointed in the decision, Athena will look to exercise its political clout in a local show of people power as it called on “All Athena Juniors, Players, community members WA football Supporters and anyone who cares about the future of our kids.” to march through the local Mt Hawthorn shopping district in order to gain support from the local community.
In a Facebook post the club urged its players, members and local football community to show up in large numbers.
“Athena needs you to turn out in force on Saturday 17 September at the Mezz Shopping Centre in Mt Hawthorn. We will then march down through Scarborough Beach Road and along Oxford Street, asking the Mt Hawthorn community to sign our petition, “Mr Gorman – please explain why you don’t want to invest in us, we are your future?”
The march will start at at 10:30am before convening at the E+D Litis Stadium Clubrooms at 11:30am.
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