08/05/2026
***Dispute that ended the club***
This dispute was between the Perth Broncos American Football club and Gridiron West. GW was only comprised of 3 members at this time, two who has since left the Gridiron West Board.
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Analysis of the Dispute:
This section sets out the substance of the dispute between the Perth Broncos American Football Club (PBAFC) and Gridiron West (GW) in plain language, with reference to the governing documents in force at the relevant time: the Gridiron West Rules of Association (July 2023) and the Gridiron West By-Laws (October 2023).
The aim of this section is to record the legal and procedural arguments made on both sides, and to explain where the rules supported each position, so that a future reader can understand the dispute without reconstructing it from the email correspondence.
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The Central Question
The dispute turned on a single question: Did the Perth Broncos lose their status as an Ordinary Member of Gridiron West, and if so, by what mechanism?
Everything else — eligibility to enter a team, the four-month membership rule, the refusal of mediation — flowed from the answer to this question. If the Broncos were still an Ordinary Member at the time of the May 2025 outreach, then the four-month rule in By-Law 3.5 was not in play, because the four months had already long since passed. If the Broncos had ceased to be an Ordinary Member, then By-Law 3.5 applied and the club was ineligible to enter a team for 2025/26.
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How a Member Can Cease to Be a Member
Rule 12 of the Rules of Association sets out, exhaustively, the circumstances in which a member ceases to be a member. There are five, and only five:
• The member is an individual who dies.
• The member is a body corporate that is wound up.
• The member resigns under Rule 13 (which requires written notice to the secretary).
• The member is expelled under Rule 18 (which requires a formal process: 28 days' written notice, a committee meeting, opportunity to be heard, and a recorded decision).
• The member ceases under Rule 15(4), which applies when an annual membership fee determined under Rule 15(1) has not been paid within three months of the due date set under Rule 15(3).
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These are the only pathways. The Rules of Association do not contain a general "inactivity" or "lack of engagement" ground for cessation of membership.
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What Gridiron West Argued
Gridiron West's position evolved over the course of the correspondence. The arguments made, in summary, were:
• That By-Law 3.5 made the club ineligible. By-Law 3.5 states that "to be considered for team entry, the ordinary member must have maintained their status as a member for a minimum of four months preceding the start of the season." GW argued this applied to all members regardless of history or founding status, and that the Broncos did not meet it.
• That the Broncos had "ceased to hold Ordinary Member status through inactivity and non-compliance with entry procedures." This wording appears in GW's email of 5 August 2025 refusing mediation. GW expressly stated in the same email that the Broncos "were not removed or expelled under Rule 12 or 18" and that "no disciplinary action was taken."
• That the absence of fee payment, team entry, and league communication "collectively constitute a failure to maintain active membership engagement, a reasonable expectation for all ordinary members." This argument appears in the GW email of 11 July 2025.
• That "the By-Laws and Rules do not exist in a vacuum and must be interpreted in the context of operational participation and transparent intent." Same email, 11 July 2025.
• That allowing a single-team entry would contradict the strategic direction of the league, which (per a draft strategic plan circulated to clubs) required new or returning clubs to field a full complement of teams.
• That no genuine dispute existed for the purposes of Rule 26, because the matter was "not a dispute about how rules were applied — it is a disagreement with the consequences of non-compliance" (5 August 2025 email).
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What the Perth Broncos Argued
The Broncos' position, summarised across the correspondence:
• That the club had not ceased to be a member under any of the five Rule 12 pathways. The club had not died, been wound up, resigned, or been expelled. The only remaining pathway was Rule 15(4) — non-payment of an annual membership fee.
• That Rule 15(4) had not been triggered. GW had not determined an annual membership fee under Rule 15(1), had not set a due date under Rule 15(3), and had not issued an invoice. GW itself confirmed in the 11 July 2025 email that "no direct invoice was issued to PBAFC in 2024/2025." The Broncos' position was that the team entry fee of $250 (set by By-Law 3.6) was a separate fee from the annual membership fee referred to in Rule 15, and that GW had conflated the two.
That, in the alternative, if the membership had lapsed, Rule 15(5) permitted reinstatement on payment of the annual membership fee, and the Broncos had offered to make this payment. GW declined this offer.
• That By-Law 3.5 did not apply because the Broncos had never lost ordinary member status, and the four-month clock had therefore never been reset.
• That GW had not followed its own procedures, in that no formal notification of any change in membership status had ever been issued to the Broncos, despite a Broncos member serving as GW Registrar during the relevant period and the Broncos Chair having direct contact with the GW Chair on 5 November 2024 regarding ground marking at Lightning Park.
• That the dispute was a valid matter for mediation under Rule 26, and that GW's refusal to participate was itself a breach of the Rules of Association.
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What the Rules Actually Say
Reading the Rules of Association and the By-Laws as plain text, several observations can be made:
• Rule 12 is exhaustive in its list of cessation pathways. The rule begins "A member ceases to be a member when any of the following takes place" and lists five circumstances. There is no residual category and no general discretion. The phrase "ceased to hold Ordinary Member status through inactivity" used by GW does not correspond to any of the five pathways.
• Rule 15 distinguishes between an "entrance fee" and an "annual membership fee." Rule 15(1) provides: "The committee must determine the entrance fee (if any) and the annual membership fee (if any) to be paid for membership of the Association." The phrase "if any" indicates that a fee in either category exists only if the committee has determined it. Rule 15(3) requires that members pay the annual membership fee "by the date (the due date) determined by the committee." Rule 15(4) operates from that due date.
• By-Law 3.6 establishes a separate "non-refundable entry fee of $250 per team." This is a per-team fee, payable as part of the team entry process, and is structurally distinct from the annual membership fee in Rule 15.
The Rules of Association do not contain an "active engagement" requirement. No rule requires ordinary members to enter teams, communicate with the league, or otherwise participate operationally in order to retain membership. Such a requirement may be desirable as a matter of policy, but it is not in the governing documents.
• Rule 26 mediation is a member-initiated right, not a committee-controlled process. Rule 25(1) provides that the mediation Division "applies if written notice has been given to the secretary requesting the appointment of a mediator." Rule 26 then sets out how the mediator is chosen. The committee does not have a power to determine that "no genuine dispute exists" and decline mediation on that basis. Rule 27(1) requires that "the parties to the mediation must attempt in good faith to settle the matter."
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Where the Two Positions Met (and Where They Did Not)
The two positions can be reconciled on a small number of points and not on the larger ones.
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Common ground:
• Both parties agreed that the Broncos did not enter a team in the 2023/24 season;
• that the Broncos did not communicate formally with GW for approximately twelve months;
• that no invoice for any membership fee was issued;
• and that no formal Rule 18 expulsion process had taken place.
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Disputed ground:
• The parties disagreed on whether ordinary membership could lapse outside the five Rule 12 pathways;
• on whether the team entry fee under By-Law 3.6 satisfied the "annual membership fee" referred to in Rule 15;
• on whether a club's silence over a season was sufficient to terminate membership in the absence of any formal process;
• on whether By-Law 3.5 applied to a club whose membership status was itself in dispute;
• and on whether the dispute was within the scope of Rule 26 mediation.
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Procedural Observations
Setting aside the substantive question of membership, several procedural points are visible in the correspondence:
• GW did not at any point issue a written notice that the Broncos' ordinary membership had ended, the date on which it ended, or the rule under which it ended. Rule 12(2) requires the secretary to keep a record, for at least one year after a person ceases to be a member, of the date and reason for cessation. Whether such a record exists for the Perth Broncos is not visible from the correspondence.
• GW did not at any point in the period between the end of the 2023/24 season and the Broncos' 9 May 2025 outreach contact the club to enquire about its intentions or to advise of any change in its status. This occurred despite a Broncos member (Scott Smith) serving as GW Registrar and the Broncos Chair (Jesse Radovic) communicating with the GW Chair on 5 November 2024 regarding ground marking.
• GW initially indicated in its 5 August 2025 email (10:38) a willingness to participate in mediation, requesting only that the Broncos cover the costs. Approximately ninety minutes later, in a second email (12:04), GW reversed this position and refused mediation on the basis that no genuine dispute existed.
• The strategic plan circulated by GW to member clubs shortly after the Broncos' re-entry request stated that new or returning clubs would only be admitted "once all existing clubs have full complement of teams or new club can field all teams." In the 2025/26 season, this would have required a returning club to field men's, women's, and junior teams; in the 2026/27 season, two junior teams in addition. This standard, if applied to the Broncos' suggested 2026 return, would have made compliance practically impossible. GW's encouragement to the Broncos to "use 2025/2026 to rebuild and plan for a fully compliant return in 2026" sat in tension with this strategic direction.
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Outcome
The dispute was not formally adjudicated. GW's final position, communicated on 5 August 2025, was that mediation would not proceed. The Broncos did not formally pursue escalation to the Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport, or to the State Administrative Tribunal under the Associations Incorporation Act 2015, although both options were reserved in correspondence.
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The Perth Broncos American Football Club did not field a team in the 2025/26 Gridiron West season and announced the closure of the club to other member clubs by email on 20 July 2025. The closure brought to an end approximately 37 years of continuous participation in organised gridiron in Western Australia by the state's oldest American football club.
