Cricket Victoria is "staring down a threat from a dissident club delegate to take legal action to thwart its long-coveted redevelopment of Junction Oval," according to Jesse Hogan of THE AGE. Footscray Edgewater Cricket Club President Geoff Collinson last week issued the demand in a letter to CV, "and copied to other voting delegates, which alleged serious impropriety by CV's directors over their support of the Junction Oval redevelopment" in St. Kilda instead of a "rival plan he had raised to build it in Footscray, on vacant land abutting his club's headquarters." The letter suggested the CV delegates had been "misled by the board," and that there was "systematic breakdown in the process, governance, diligence, fairness and independence" in regards to the eventual support for the Junction Oval proposal. Collinson also sought "an independent investigation" into the process which culminated in the recently elected Labor state government committing A$25M ($19.4M) to a major refurbishment of the Junction Oval. After Collinson distributed the letter on Wednesday, CV Chair Geoff Tamblyn, who had been "personally accused of improper behaviour," replied in writing. He said all the issues raised by Collinson had been "fully discussed" and raised the prospect of "legal action against Collinson and his club in response to the slurs, especially if they stifled the Junction Oval redevelopment." The central tenet of Collinson's complaint was the CV did not "adequately consider" a proposal for the state cricket center to be based in Footscray, "which he raised with CV in May last year, when it came to funding requests of both Labor and the Coalition ahead of the November state election" (THE AGE, 2/8).
