New guidelines for membership

Greetings to all our rugby league family and welcome to our 30th edition of Fulltime Reserve, a weekly column to discuss all matters rugby league in our favourite newspaper The National.
The Papua New Guinea Rugby Football League’s (PNGRFL) football and financial year begins on Nov 1 each year and ends on Oct 31 of the following year.
As such, this week marked the end of the 2019-2020 rugby league season and the beginning of the 2020-2021 season.
The end of the year heralds the close of the season and PNGRFL’s responsibilities around the closure includes undertaking the financial audits and finalising operational reports.
These documents include PNGRFL’s annual report and the audited financials which are presented to our members and stakeholders at the annual general meeting and to our programme partners.
The beginning of the new season requires PNGRFL to develop and finalise the domestic and international plans and programmes for the new year and these are captured in the 2020-2021 calendar.
In planning for the future, PNGRFL this year undertook extensive work to restructure the governance and the management of the sport at all levels. The pilot model will be launched later this month in New Ireland and has been called the “New Ireland Model”.
The new structure will come into effect this season and all members and affiliates of PNGRFL will be required to comply with the new requirements.
All rugby league associations across PNG that manage schools or affiliate league competitions will be required to comply with the new governance requirements if they want their associations and competitions to be recognised by PNGRFL.
Existing and new member associations that want to be an affiliate of PNGRFL must contact us by Dec 31 to get the new membership guidelines.
This is important as the new requirements require all associations to adopt the new constitutions that have been developed and be registered with the Investment Promotion Authority as an incorporated association to have legal capacity to be a member of PNGRFL.
Affiliation for compliant member associations will close on Feb 26.
Associations that do not meet the minimum requirements will not be allowed to be members of PNGRFL and their competitions will not be sanctioned.
Only member associations that fully comply will be entitled to participate in PNGRFL’s development and pathway programmes under the 2020-2021 calendar and going forward.
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Until next week, may the grace, love and care of our Good Lord be with you.

Cheers,
Sandis