AN Albury junior rugby league official has told a Senate inquiry into the sports rorts affair he was "furious" when he realised his club had missed the chance to seek funding from the scheme.
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Albury Thunder Junior Rugby League Club treasurer Keith Martine testified on Thursday to a hearing probing the handling of grants administered by Wodonga senator Bridget McKenzie when she was sport minister.
The club has plans for a new $1.3 million pavilion at its Sarvaas Park hub which would let female players change without having a hoop with material attached pulled over them while they kitted up.
Mr Martine said the club would have sought funding from the grants program for the work and he was upset when he learned of the kitty as a result of the outcry over its handling.
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"For me to read in the paper that there were all these grants and there was a bit of a hullabaloo about them, and look it's all going on, to be honest I was quite furious," Mr Martine said.
"We were struggling to work out what we were going to do with ourselves.
"You've got no idea what it's like trying to work in an area where all the grounds are oval and we are rectangular football."
Mr Martine said after considering other sites the club had agreed to stay at its North Albury ground and pursue its new rooms which would include changing areas, referees' space and canteen.
"Had we known (about these grants) we would have been in there with boots and all going hard," he said.
The junior club wants a better system to alert sporting organisations to funding programs.
Mr Martine said he believed existing measures for the scheme's operation need to be followed.
"I'm not in favour of say putting more rules in place or more sheriffs if you like," he said.
"There are rules and regulations to make things work, clearly in this case they didn't get followed, who gets a slap on the wrist for that I don't know, but it's made a lot of people unhappy and that's the sad part because it reduces our feeling for our government, our own country."
Mr Martine shared his session with Newcastle Olympic soccer club director Kosta Patsan who saw his organisation's bid for a new grandstand rejected despite being scored favourably.
He labelled the handling of the grants "graft and corruption" and the type of activity associated with a banana republic.
NSW Labor senator Tim Ayres, who praised Mr Martine for promoting league in the "southern outpost" of Albury, said he believed both projects were worthy of immediate support.
"These two applications ought to be funded tomorrow," Senator Ayres said.