By Tate Papworth
Brimbank council has expressed interest in becoming home base for the Matildas, but it won’t be allocating additional funding for the bid in its budget.
The council last month threw its hat into the ring to house the proposed $60-$80 million elite training base for the national women’s soccer side.
Because the bid came in March, it missed the council’s annual budget process.
Cr Bruce Lancashire unsuccessfully tried to add an amendment to the draft budget, allocating $300,000 towards the bid at last week’s meeting.
“Competition for this exciting opportunity will be fierce, with seven councils vying for the honour of being the home of the Matildas,” he said.
“We need to demonstrate that we are the best location. This is much more than offering a site or sites and lodging the expression of interest.
“We need to demonstrate that these sites are suitable and appropriate for the Matildas – and to achieve this a number of studies and planning investigations may be required.
“Some of this work can be done in-house, however some will require specialists. It is important that we demonstrate that we are prepared to put our money where our mouth is.”
Cr Margaret Giudice said the council wasn’t in a position to carry out the work suggested.
“I don’t believe that this council is ready to do that kind of work,” she said. “I don’t think that this council should be looking at anything like that right now.
“We need more clarity around what is required and I would expect that, with the federal election coming up and a state election just being held, perhaps the state and federal governments would like to handle the ball on this issue.”
Cr Virginia Tachos also spoke against the motion saying: “Our commitment in this council is to the community and to our clubs,” she said.
“Our clubs, as we inherited, have been lagging behind in infrastructure. We’ve seen some of these clubs and we’ve seen the state they’re in and quite frankly they’re condemnable some of them. We’ve made a $32 million commitment to improve and bring these clubs up. That $300,000 is for our community and it belongs in our community.”
