THE WA Country Football League (WACFL) is on the hunt for a new general manager after Joe Georgiades finished up with the organisation last week.
Mr Georgiades had been with the WACFL for seven years and said it was time to move on and give someone else a go in the role.
“I thought the time was right to look at the next chapter of my life,” Mr Georgiades said.
“Seven years is a reasonable amount of time and hopefully I have been able to come in and have an impact and can leave things in a good place for the next person.”
Mr Georgiades has been involved with several key changes to country football during his tenure, including the introduction of a salary cap, player point system and changes to the Landmark Country Football Championships.
He said country football would always face change but hopefully some of the initiatives he had implemented had been better for the game.
“There has been a number of changes in the past seven years and some of that has been driven at our level and some at a commission level,” Mr Georgiades said.
“It is a critical time for country football, particularly in places such as the Wheatbelt.
“I am proud of the work we did in the Wheatbelt Review and hopefully that will shape football in the Wheatbelt for the next 10 years.”
Mr Georgiades said he took the view that country football had to roll with the times or it wouldn’t be around for long.
“I think as an organisation you had to look at how we did things and always try to do it better,” he said.
“The aim was to mix it up as much as we could and while change is hard and some people don’t agree with it all the time, it was always done with the right intent.”
Country Week was one part of country football that underwent changes during Mr Georgiades’ time.
“We did try a few different things with Country Week and I think the model we settled on last year had a lot of merit and was something we really liked,” he said.
“The four shortened games seemed to work well and we had positive feedback from leagues and players.
“I think the Country Week concept is on the way up, we had a bit of a lull four or five years ago but it has certainly picked up in recent years.”
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Mr Georgiades said communication was a key to everything.
“All the way along and with whatever changes we made the key was to communicate clearly,”he said.
“If you had the communication right and people were clear on what we were trying to achieve, the process was a lot smoother.”
Mr Georgiades said from a personal point of view he had come in contact with a large number of country people involved in football.
“It has been fantastic to develop a strong network out there and I will miss the people I dealt with from the 150 clubs around the State,” he said.
“I realised pretty early that country footy will only be as strong as the people running the clubs and leagues and if the right people are in place, things tend to run well.
“We have also fostered some great relationships with companies such as Landmark, CBH Group and Regional Men’s Health and these companies’ support of country football is greatly appreciated.”
