David King believes footy fans deserve to know more regarding the scenarios being discussed at AFL House.
An interview with AFL football operations boss Steve Hocking in the Herald Sun indicates that there are at least 10 different plans being worked on in a bid to get football back up and running amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
The 2020 season at this point is postponed until at least May 31 and with no definitive resumption plan or date in place, former North Melbourne champion King has called for further transparency for the most important people in the game - the supporters.
“I just can’t help when I read these sort of articles,” King said on SEN’s Whateley.
“Whether the fans are going to the games, whether the fans are subscribing to Foxtel, whether they’re watching on Channel 7 where they’re watching the sponsors of the game, ultimately it comes back to the fans.
“I read today that there’s at least 10 scenarios to get this season started with different markers along the way.
“Why don’t we know these markers? Why don’t we know what the scenarios are? Why are these scenarios being kept secret from the fans?
“Shouldn’t we know that if the season doesn’t get started on May 31st that these two of 12 are off the table. Our next marker is July 1. Our next marker after that is August 1. Use whatever markers you want or whatever information checkpoints you want.
“But shouldn’t we know as fans, who have asked been to do a lot so far. They’ve been asked to leave their membership money in the coffers at both the AFL and at their associated football clubs. They’ve been asked to leave their money there and stick fat and just support that the AFL will do the right thing.
“How about they give back some information to the fans? What are the scenarios and what are the checkpoints?”
Gerard Whateley fears that setting a start date could lead to the feeding of further impatience among the supporters.
“I’m not saying we do get a start at June 1,” he added.
“I’m not worried about the medical modelling so much. I’m just saying that these are things that come off the table at these points if we can’t get started and work our way from there to give us an idea, as football fans, of what we can expect if we got started September 1 or August 1, etc.
“If we had a compressed season which we keep talking about, at what point does a compressed season becomes 13 weeks? Does it become 17 weeks? Does it become a discussion to roll into 2021 which we’re all scratching our heads about.
“I think we are entitled to know a bit more than what we know along the course.”
Listen to King on Whateley below: