NO senior football or netball will be played in Ballarat this weekend.
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The Central Highlands football and netball league decided to scrap its planned round after crowd caps of just 150 at games were approved by the state government.
Despite a green light to have senior football resume in regional areas, the lack of crowd numbers has forced the league to hold off one more week in a hope crowd caps will be extended soon.
Earlier on Thursday, there looked to be some hope of a resumption when the state government announced a return to senior sport across regional Victoria
But late on Wednesday, CHFL president Doug Hobson confirmed the league would not be able to operate this week, as capping crowds to just 150 would be "unmanageable".
"There are no gimme's in this job," Hobson said. "You can't have 36 people out on a football field and have just 150 people spread all the way across the field.
"We would get ourselves into massive trouble trying to police it.
"With us being the only football allowed to play in the district, we would have had a of people coming to see out games, which would have only exacerbated the situation further.
"We also have to think of our clubs, we need to give those clubs a chance to make an income and with crowd numbers capped, it would have been extremely difficult for them."
The Ballarat Football Netball League had already decided not to play a "catch up" round this weekend due to the inability of clubs and supporters to travel from Melbourne into regional areas.
Other sports including basketball, soccer and hockey will also sit out the long weekend in a hope of getting back to action next week.
Hobson said the league hoped the state government would be able to lift the crowd cap in coming weeks to enable clubs to make some sort of money from their home games.
He confirmed that juniors would proceed as they did last weekend.
"We go forward, we're looking at numbers being extended everything going well," he said.
"But if it doesn't we will need to talk to clubs about what is happening in that area. There's a lot to work through, such as paid players earning a certain percentage of their contracts and things like that.
"Hopefully in coming weeks we'll open up, we would have loved to do it this weekend, but it would be unmanageable."
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