AJAX allocation battle resurfaces
IN a major blow for the AJAX Football Club and the local Jewish community, Glen Eira City Council has denied the club from relocating to Princes Park, instead granting access to Old Haileybury’s Thirds and under-19 teams.
IN a major blow for the AJAX Football Club and the local Jewish community, Glen Eira City Council has denied the club from relocating to Princes Park, instead granting access to Old Haileybury’s Thirds and under-19 teams.
AJAX president Ian Fayman expressed his disappointment at the decision, pointing out that even though the club plays in a different municipality to the juniors, it deserves the right to function as one club at the same home ground.
“The argument is that the seniors and juniors are different clubs,” Fayman told The AJN.
“But they have the same jumper, the same sponsors and the same logo, and the community sees them as one club.”
Fayman accepted that the re-allocated club must be from within Glen Eira, but questioned why the opportunity to join the juniors and seniors was overlooked.
“If an allocation has to be from within the Glen Eira municipality, why is it not AJAX?” Fayman asked.
“It’s the most obvious decision that the junior club should have its senior teams at the same home ground to make a strong pathway, which is a policy of AFL Victoria, and so that the local community can follow.”
In response, council spokesman Paul Burke said that the main reason AJAX was overlooked is because it is based in the Port Phillip municipality.
“As the AJAX [senior] Football Club is not a tenant in Glen Eira, council did not contact them in relation to the coming football season, just as council did not contact other clubs that are tenanted outside of Glen Eira,” Burke told The AJN.
“[And] to ensure that sports fields can sustain the wear and tear from match play and training, existing tenant clubs are sometimes required to use grounds other than their home grounds for either training or matches.”
The other major disappointment for Fayman and the club is that no public expression of interest was undertaken, which he said the council committed to in a previous letter to an AJAX representative.
“The question is, why a public and very transparent process was not implemented,” Fayman said.
“It cannot be accepted that a decision has been made without a public process.”
He also noted the success of last year’s community day, which attracted around 1500 people, as an indication of public support.
“The key example is the community day, where the local community wanted AJAX to be there,” Fayman said.
“We have 72 per cent of our members as voters in Glen Eira, and where do Haileybury’s members reside? Yes they are an internal club in Glen Eira, but their school is based in Mentone.”
Ashley Shenker
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