The AVF has just put out another newsletter explaining that unless someone else pays for it, there won’t be a national championship tournament this year.
Come on guys! How hard is it to organise a beach volleyball tournament? I’m not talking about grand stands and dancing girls… I’m talking nets, and referees for the finals. Any beach volleyball club in the country could put it on for a nominal fee.
What is needed is a little lateral thinking. For example, get each state to run a qualification tournament, or just nominate one of their existing tournaments as the “qualification” tournament. Allow a total of 16 teams, from around the country to qualify, (assigning x number of qualification places per state depending on the size of the volleyball community) and then run a small 16 team tournament… somewhere. Who cares where, do it on Hamilton Island… do it at Civic pool next to the AVF…
The lack of prize money, and sponsors is a great opportunity for some younger players to step up and compete for a National Championship. (And let’s face it, prize money levels in Australia haven’t changed for over 10 years, and don’t even cover travel costs ffor 95% of athletes anyway.)
To not have a National Championship event because “we don’t want to run a loss” is a cop out. How much government funding do the AVF get?
The AVF needs to change their attitude from, “We will do it if….” to “We will do it, now let’s work out how…”
What do you think? Am I being too harsh, or should the AVF be doing more for our sport?