The Community Sports Program may be mired in controversy, but football overall did well even if some clubs missed out.
An analysis of the grants given under the Federal Government’s Community Sport Infrastructure program shows that Football received 12.3% of the total funds of $100.6 million – the largest share of any sport.
Only local government around Australia received more, with one-third of all grants (146 or 21.3%) at a value of $33.2 million going to local councils.
The funding was made available over three rounds of funding in December 2018, March 2019 and April 2019.
The grants have hit the headlines due to a report from the Auditor-General made public earlier this month which found that the award of grant funding “was not informed by an appropriate assessment process and sound advice.”
The Auditor-General found that the Sports Minister at that time, Senator Bridget McKenzie, had intervened to favour the award of grants in marginal electorates prior to the May 2019 Federal election, even though Sport Australia had assessed other grant applications as having more merit than some of those which received funding. It was also later revealed that Senator McKenzie was a member of one of the shooting clubs to which she gave a grant.
Also under a brief media spotlight was the awarding of $200,000 to the Lilli Pilli Football Club, which is in the Prime Minister’s electorate of Cook.
How football fared
In total, football received 67 grants from 684 grants (10% of all grants), worth $11.9 million (11.8% of total funding).
Of football’s 67 grants, NSW* (21) and Queensland (20) received the most number of grants, while the ACT and Northern Territory received no football grants. Victoria received only nine grants, including one $500,000 grant (see below) as well as another of $339,380 to Moreland City FC. South Australia received 11 grants, and Tasmania and Western Australia three each.
Four football organisations received the maximum grant available of $500,000 each – again more than any other sport – representing 8.2% of the grants of maximum grant size.
Organisation | State | Electorate | Federal MP |
St George Football Association | NSW | Banks | David Coleman (LIB) |
Grange Thistle Soccer Club | QLD | Brisbane | Luke Howarth (LNP) |
Bardon LaTrobe Football Club | QLD | Brisbane/Ryan | Luke Howarth/Julian Simmonds (LNP) |
Geelong Soccer and Sports Club | VIC | Corio | Richard Marles (ALP) |
Local government received the lion's share of the maximum grants with half of the $500,000 grants heading their way.
Football also received three grants of between $450,000 and $485,000 for:
Southern Ettalong FC (Central Coast NSW)
Wagga Wagga District Football Association (NSW), and
Peninsula and Districts Football Association (QLD).
Comparison with other sports
The next largest individual sport in receipt of grants after Football was Tennis with $7.4 million, followed by Australian Rules which received $6.5 million when combined with grants to joint Australian Rules/Netball clubs ($2.3 million). Netball received $4.6 million (including the shared $2.3 million with Australian Rules), while Bowling received $4.0 million – more than sports such as Basketball, Cricket, Rugby League, Rugby Union.
Senator McKenzie’s preferred sport of shooting received $739,219 in total including one $500,000 grant in the NT. (Cricket in the NT also received $500,000).
The smallest grant nationally was $1,850 to the Ballarat Senior Citizens Centre. The smallest football grant was $3,000 to Endeavour Sporting Club.
* Federal Government funding does not differentiate in football terms between NSW and Northern NSW