Essendon Royals Soccer Club is disappointed with the outcome of last night’s meeting of Moonee Valley City Council, which confirmed the club would lose its second pitch at Ormond Park, as well as the reduction of our primary pitch to a junior-sized pitch.

Ormond Park has been the club’s home for 60 years and to see a process that started in 2019 with the best intentions of collaboration for an outcome that would suit all winter tenants of Ormond Park result in a reduction of ground space for the Royals is bitterly disappointing.

However, we welcome the amendment moved by Cr Jacob Bettio and passed by Councillors that will see the Council consider a proposal made by the Essendon Royals for greater access to Cross Keys and the development of the Cross Keys facility into a soccer hub that will benefit all soccer clubs and the development of the sport in the Moonee Valley.

The Royals look forward to an open, transparent and thorough consultation process with Council and all other stakeholders in this endeavour.

We thank Councillor Narelle Sharpe for her continued, public support of our club and for bringing to light the club’s ongoing difficulty with respect to ground allocations that support our 700+ members and participants.

We look forward to the delivery of a Municipal Soccer Strategy.

With the Royals having to turn away 150 potential players for the 2021 season and with over 60 players already on the waiting list for 2022, this remains an urgent issue not just for Essendon Royals and for soccer, but for the wider Moonee Valley community and its access to participation in Australia’s most popular sport.

We thank Mayor Cam Nation, Councillors John Sipek, Ava Adams, Samantha Byrne and Pierce Tyson for joining Councillor Sharpe in supporting Councillor Bettio’s amendment.

The Club must also address inferences made by Councillor Rose Iser at last night’s Moonee Valley City Council meeting that she had received threats from Essendon Royals President Richard Di Sauro.

At last night’s meeting, Councillor Iser inferred that she had received a threat from Mr Di Sauro and proceeded to read out an excerpt of a text message she had received from the Royals Club President.

Mr Di Sauro’s text message was in response to a text message he received from Councillor Iser to turn on the lights at what is now a Junior AFL Oval at Ormond Park.

Mr Di Sauro had communicated with his counterpart at the Moonee Valley Football Club and had agreed for the lights to be turned on.

The full, unedited text message Mr Di Sauro sent to Cr Iser in response to her request was as follows:

“Hi Rose Iv had a chat to Brett and I'm happy for these lights to go on tonight ... but please keep in mind this is a one off until our needs at Royals are met. We start our season off next week and are still one full size ground short to Feild our teams. I'll leave this in your hands to please sort out ASAP. One hand helps the other.”

Mr Di Sauro has sought legal advice with respect to the inference made by Cr Iser.

The Royals await a solution from Council to the current issue with respect to the lights which cover what is now the junior AFL oval at Ormond Park, which was previously Essendon Royals Pitch 2.

The lights which currently cover that oval were paid for by Essendon Royals Soccer Club and the club continues to pay for the electricity costs associated with those lights.

The funds used to pay for the use of those lights are Essendon Royals member's funds, and we look forward to working with Moonee Valley City Council on how these lights will be managed and paid for moving forward.

This statement is available on the club's website: https://bit.ly/3dgC6gt

It has also been posted on our club's Facebook page. We encourage all members to share it: