AFL must better support SANFL clubs, Sturt chief warns Sturt CEO Matt Benson says the club wants to stay at Unley Oval, but might be forced to move because of financial pressures. Picture: Helen Orr Source: AdelaideNow THE AFL must do more to support ailing SANFL clubs, Sturt CEO Matt Benson has warned. Mr Benson told the Eastern Courier Messenger unless the national competition paid SANFL clubs more for developing AFL players, clubs such as Sturt could be lost. "The AFL should be throwing the kitchen sink at the SANFL and the WAFL ... because our two leagues represent the most pure and proven pathway to the top outside of Victoria," Mr Benson said in Sturt's annual report, which showed a potentially crippling loss of $447,000 in 2012. If Sturt folded, the AFL would lose a club that had produced a host of AFL draftees in recent seasons, including Melbourne co-captain Jack Trengove, Port Adelaide's Chad Wingard and All-Australian under-18 ruckman Brodie Grundy. "Sturt have made their fair share of bad calls in the past and have to stand up and be accountable for those decisions, but if football does not find an equitable way of transferring some funds from the top to the grassroots, then the price it will pay will be the loss of clubs like Sturt," Mr Benson said. Sturt's massive loss followed a $412,000 deficit in 2011. Its annual report writes the 2012 loss down to $215,000 because of changes to poker machine valuations. In its audit, accountants BDO wrote of a "material uncertainty that may cast significant doubt about the association's ability to continue as a going concern." The annual report, tabled at last week's AGM, also revealed: THE club had cut staff numbers in half since 2008; > It will spend significantly under the salary cap in 2013; THE club's debt demolition campaign, launched in May 2012, has raised $218,000, and; STURT'S pokies venue/restaurant BarZaar made a profit of $86,000. Mr Benson said Sturt was doing all it could to improve its position. "We are as lean and mean as we can possibly be, but we still have to find ways to run the club even more efficiently and at the same time try not to diminish our ability to service our members and sponsors," he wrote.