Collingwood has come under fire for a video celebrating their new football training facilities – which cover up what used to be a netball training base, partially built by a $15 million government grant.
The footage sees Jeremy Howe explaining to fans about the club’s “newly, fresh laid out indoor court.
“The boys are gonna have a hell of a time in here, so looking forward to it,” he declares.
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Magpies players are then seen training on indoor turf, with a miniature footy oval painted over the top, though basketball and/or netball hoops are also visible at one end.
This may be because the area was a netball court for the club’s Super Netball side, which the Magpies folded in 2023, pointing to a reported yearly loss of $1 million. The organisation as a whole made a profit of $7.56 million in the financial year ending October 31, 2023.
Meanwhile a recent renovation of the club’s headquarters was funded, in part, by a $15 million federal government infrastructure grant intended to provide improved facilities for women’s sports teams.
While the AFLW side can indeed take advantage of this investment the netball team cannot, especially now that the court has been overlaid with turf – as seen in the video.
Some Magpies fans reacted positively to the video but the overwhelming majority of replies were on the topic of the netball team, and the fact the change had been celebrated as an “upgrade”.
“Fair to say this hasn’t gone down well in the comments and quote tweets,” News Corp’s Lachie McKirdy tweeted.
He added: “Hiding a comment about the netball team is also an interesting choice,” pointing to a tweet which read “Rip our netball team (crying face)” and was hidden by the club’s social media team, so it could not be read amongst the replies unless a user tapped on ‘Hidden Replies’.
The ABC’s Brett Sprigg, partially quoting the Monorail episode of The Simpsons, quipped: “there ain’t no netball court and there never was!”
Sport Management academic and author Hunter Fujak was more blunt: “Congratulations on using women’s sport to siphon taxpayer money into one of the wealthiest men’s football operations in Australia.”
But what truly give away the area’s previous use are the tarp-covered stands looking down onto the turf area.
This portion of the Magpies’ headquarters is heritage-listed – as are hundreds of thousands of structures in Melbourne – because it was built for the 1956 Olympic Games, hosting swimming. The heritage status is why the stands remain in place.
The pool was covered during the 1980s where it became the Melbourne Sport and Entertainment Centre, hosting basketball games, making it a fitting place for the netball team to train.
But those stands are now covered in black fabric, the area instead showcasing some celebratory flags and screens to share training information with the players.
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