Andrew Barr: Football fuming, now we're political

Nearpost will campaign to remove ACT Sports Minister Andrew Barr at the next election.

If you think Canberra's 20,000 players and families deserve more for football please forward this story to your friends, through facebook, through twitter etc.

ACT Sports Minister Andrew Barr has stunned and upset the football community of Canberra with his generous offer of $650,000 per game to bring Greater Western Sydney Giants to play three in-season games in the Capital.

And with Brumbies and Raiders CEO's also said to be fuming, but ready to ask for more - for their Canberra teams - could the ACT Labor Government have an election backlash on it's hands...

from the Football Community. (20,000 plus parents)

Not from the Peak Body Capital Football, they think a million dollars for a community synthetic facility is great work, compared to $650,000 for a game with no strings attached, no upkeep and CPI linked.

Having talked and listened to many in the community over the last few days it's clear to me the sporting, in particular the football community is fuming.

Football deserves $1 million per year, immediately. In truth we probably deserve more. But don't give it to Capital Football for an extra pitch they should get that anyway; give it to an organisation that can run such a future fund.

$200,000 for the W-League team, $300,000 for our A-League Youth team and $500,000 to build a business resource to get money for a future A-League team. What we could do with that.

This would change Canberra football forever. We deserve it. We pay masses of taxes and we pay them in Canberra.

Mr Barr: People are fuming. Football people. Canberra people. Presidents of Clubs, Coaches, Players, Parents. The football community is stunned not particularly by the generosity of the ACT government for an AFL team from out of town but by the failure of the ACT Government to support football and our huge community.

We are a huge community. We have blogs, radio shows, community newsletters,and word of mouth. Yes we all talk, all 20,000 of us. We all support the Brumbies and the Raiders and as football fans we feel stunned.


And we will talk down the Labor Government over and over until we get what we deserve. Starting here on this blog.

The ACT Government needs to do a damn sight more than hand over dollars for community grounds, Hawker or no Hawker.

We want grounds of course, 20,000 players need and deserve that, but AFL gets that anyway.

We want something that is good for Canberra, our 20,000 players, and the future of the game, the sport, the city.

Barr out, Labor out!

We won't stop until you give us what we the community deserve. We want a million dollars every year for our Youth team, our Futsal teams, our W-League and our future A-League team.

We want it now.

Volunteers in Canberra run the 20,000 players, boys and girls, men and women, keeping them fit, getting them on the park, and all the benefits that come with that and you have the hide to give them nothing - no assistance for future teams/growth.

Time to talk Andrew and talk fast.