AFL Wimmera-Mallee football development manager Jason Muldoon said AFL Victoria regulations stated senior players should gain a working with children check in order to play with or against under-age players. 

Netball Victoria also introduced the rule last season and enforced it from July. 

A working with children check aims to protect children from sexual or physical harm by ensuring that people who work with, or care for, them are subject to a screening process.

Mr Muldoon said just who required the working with children checks was “a bit of grey area”.

“The easiest solution is for any coaches, any support staff, any committee members and anyone else dealing with children to have a clearance,” he said.

“For senior footballers playing with juniors, the safest option is also to get a clearance.

“We’re telling clubs that everyone in the club should get a working with children’s clearance so you don’t leave yourself open.”

Edenhope-Apsley president Carolyn Middleton said the change had initially caused extra work but it had been a smoother transition this season.

“When we had to get a whole heap of people cleared all at once, we would have liked some sort of suggestion of how to get it done,” she said.

“Everyone is really on board with it now though.

“Really, it’s just another thing we have to do.

“This season it was just a matter of clearing any new members we had welcomed into the club.”

She said the transient nature of some members meant the clearances could allow clubs to be more welcoming.

“Historically we mostly had members and families that had been in our communities a long time,” she said.

“It meant that families were known a little bit more.

“Now that we have members coming and going more often, those clearances provide some comfort to parents that the people helping out have gone through that process.”

Muldoon agreed that clubs embracing the changes would be more attractive to new recruits.

“It’s really something that we don’t have a choice in,” he said.