Infrastructure crisis for coastal football

The zone will cater for 6500 players this season from juniors through to senior grades. Football Mid North Coast takes in clubs from Gloucester to South West Rocks.

As reported previously, there has been a 31 per cent increase in female registrations this year alone.

Zone general manager, Phil Beale said this was the second largest increase in the Northern NSW Federation.

However, Mr Fletcher said the zone needed more infrastructure to cover the growth.

"We're going to run out of fields very soon,'' he predicted.

"That's right throughout the zone.''

Work was expected to start on a long awaited centre of excellence in Port Macquarie this month.

"(Port Macquarie-Hastings) council has the money to give us two community fields. But I'm working with politicians to come up with some money to build the whole centre,'' Mr Fletcher said.

Mr Fletcher admitted he was frustrated to see the amount of money the NSW government had allocated to the rebuild of Blue Bet Stadium, the home ground of the Penrith Rugby League Club.

"The government is giving $309 million to one of the richest rugby league clubs in Sydney to rebuild their stadium,'' he said.

"Yet we can't get $25 million for a facility that will look after 6500 players.''

Mr Fletcher said he had spoken to Member for Lyne, David Gillespie on the matter and he hoped to have negotiations with Member for Cowper, Pat Conaghan.

"We're finding that the Port Macquarie Stadium and the Harry Elliott Oval are not on our radar as far as being able to use them.

"That's a shame because both were built as multi-purpose centres, but rugby league gets priority, even though we probably have three times the amount of players.''

He added the zone can't attract A-League clubs to spend time training in the zone and to run coaching clinics, as the Newcastle Jets have done during the pre-season in the past, due to the lack of infrastructure.

"Until we get facilities A-League clubs just can't train here,'' he said.

"Under the licence agreement with the A-League we would have to meet strict criteria with lighting, a fenced pitch and other details. There's a lot more to it than just inviting a club to come here.''

Mr Fletcher described the licensing requirements the zone had to meet for its high performance teams as 'huge.'

"We have to have fencing for the fields, scaffolding for cameras, scoreboards, dugouts that hold 11 players, player races, a medical room, defibs... the list goes on and on,'' he said.