The Alice Springs Town Council has defended a controversial motion which will prevent AFL Northern Territory from using council-run sporting grounds for community football finals for the next two years.
The move comes after an alleged spike in anti-social incidents after the Central Australian Football League Community grand final between Papunya and Ntaria on August 25.
Alice Springs Deputy Mayor Mark Coffey said that the influx of people coming into to attend these games from surrounding communities was having too much of an impact on the town.
"It really impacts everything," Coffey said on SEN's Fridays in the Top End.
"It impacts school attendance for kids that should be going to school, it impacts the town of Alice Springs, it impacts the amenities and it impacts other social issues in town.
"We know that some of those people who came in (for the CAFL Community grand final) stayed in town for the whole two weeks, that impacts Alice Springs.
"We already struggle for accommodation and we know that the rough sleepers increased over the past couple of weeks."
Coffey has proposed a solution by calling for more games to be held in community locations.
"We've been talking to the AFL for a while about the Community competition being played out in community," Coffey said on SEN's Fridays in the Top End.
"In an ideal world, we would have great facilities out in community and teams wouldn't have to travel hundreds of kilometres across dirt roads.
"You could play out there, people would visit there for the games, then go home to their own communities, rather than coming into town."
A fortnight ago, Papunya claimed back-to-back premiership triumphs after defeating Ntaria by 62 points at Traeger Park in Alice Springs.
The Eagles kicked away with a dominant 11 goal to three second half to eventually win 19.8 (122) to 9.6 (60).
Star forward Shane Inkamala claimed the Patrick Nandy Medal for being judged best afield after a terrific four-quarter performance.
But Coffey said that it was a series of incidents post-match that detracted from the quality of football.
"The game itself was great, but afterwards there was violence at the football," Coffey said.
"Over that weekend we had significant reports of crime and damage around town and there were people arrested who were armed with weapons, it was not great."
Coffey said that ultimately he did not want football to suffer and that the Council would be happy to review the motion after a period of two years.
"Two years is a good amount of time for us to work through the issues to make sure that whatever happens post that, we can manage it," he said.
"(We need to) minimise the impact in Alice so that people can enjoy the football.
"We don't want football to suffer, but at the same time, the community of Alice Springs has probably had enough, the impacts are just too great we feel."
