Work to start on football centre of excellence

Planning for the project goes back to 2017, when it was first announced.

"We should be kicking off next week,'' Football Mid North Coast chairman Lance Fletcher said.

"The developer will level the ground, put the road in along with water and sewerage infrastructure.

"Council has the money then 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 admits that he is frustrated to see the amount of money the NSW government has allocated to the rebuild 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 has spoken to Member for Lyne, Dr David Gillespie on the matter and he hopes to have negotiations with Member for Cowper, Pat Conaghan.

"I also want to speak to the state representatives,'' he said.

Mr Fletcher said the zone just doesn't have enough fields to cope with the growth of the code on the Mid North Coast. He said there has been a 31 per cent increase in the number of female players alone in the zone this year.

"We desperately need some more infrastructure for our game,'' he said. "And that's right across the zone. That's why we're working to set up a centre of excellence.

"We're finding that the Port Macquarie Stadium and the Harry Elliott Oval (at Tuncurry) 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.''

Meanwhile, the majority of junior and senior competitions are due to kickoff this week, although weekend matches could be in doubt due to the forecast heavy rain.