Amateur Football League ready to welcome Adelaide Football Club
Via: By James Coventry, ABC Updated August 2, 2013, 7:49 am
The South Australian Amateur Football League said it was ready and willing to accept an Adelaide Crows reserves team next season.
The Crows' plan-B is looming as a possibility, because Norwood is considered unlikely to waver in its opposition to Adelaide Football Club putting a reserves team in the SANFL.
The Crows' self-imposed task of gaining unanimous support for its SANFL bid is a long way from being fulfilled.
But the Amateur League is ready to roll out the welcome mat, said chief executive Grant Goodall.
"[It would be] a tremendous opportunity. I think it would certainly from a branding and a marketing point of view lift our profile," he said.
"It would be a good thing for football in our state generally."
The Amateur League revealed it had been in discussions with the Crows for more than a year.
If Adelaide joined, it would become the 11th team in division one and would supplement its list with players from opposing clubs.
"With 11 teams in the competition there'll be a bye and those teams that have the byes will be the ones that first do the top-ups," Goodall said.
There would be no change in the league's salary cap or promotion/relegation system, but exemptions would be granted to the Crows.
Importantly, Adelaide would play for points and compete for the premiership.
There has been a mixed reaction from the current division one clubs.
Chairman of Adelaide University Football Club Sam Bridgwood said: "For us as a team that doesn't pay its players and the guys train a couple of times a week and tend to go away for a while on uni holidays, it does feel like a strange concept."
Director of the Saint Peters club Tom Gray said it would be a big positive.
"It'll lift the whole profile of the Amateur League. But I suppose the big question mark for us is how competitive we'd be against a bunch of professional footballers?"
The Amateur League said it had no contact with Port Adelaide, which had committed to retaining the current Magpies in the SANFL next season.
