KWFC Application - Full Story

The Riddell District Football Netball League (RDFNL) is publicly addressing the ongoing situation playing out in the media relating to the Kyneton Women’s Football Club (KWFC). To ensure that the facts are captured in totality, it is important to address the timeline of events.

In October 2022, the Kyneton Football Netball Club (KFNC) transferred their junior football and netball teams and their Senior Women’s team from AFL Central Victoria to the Riddell District Football Netball League. The KFNC fielded a Senior Women’s team in the inaugural season of the RDFNL Senior Women’s competition in 2023 and went on to win the premiership. In September 2023, the KFNC Senior Men’s and netball teams also transferred into the RDFNL ahead of the 2024 season. In 2024, the KFNC fielded a Senior Women’s team again and they again enjoyed a successful season making the Grand Final and suffering a loss to Macedon.

In the week of the Grand Final, in August 2024, tensions between the Senior Women’s team and the Club’s committee escalated. The dispute at the time was around the Club’s annual major fundraiser falling on the same day at the Women’s Grand Final. The annual major fundraiser was a raffle and a significant raffle at that which needed VCGLR approval and was locked in, in January 2024. The Senior Women’s Grand Final date was not confirmed until the season dates were finalised in late February / early March 2024. The Women’s team at the Club was justifiably disappointed that they wouldn’t have the full support of the Club at the Grand Final. Once the Women’s team were aware that the fundraiser was going ahead and they wouldn’t have the full support of the Club at their Grand Final, the Kyneton Football Netball Club sponsors were contacted and suggested that they remove their financial support of the Club because the Club was not one that supported women. This justifiably upset the committee of the KFNC who had worked hard for a long period of time. From this point onwards, the Women’s team and the Club further drifted apart.

During the period of August – December 2024, there were numerous outcomes workshopped between the Women’s team from KFNC, the KFNC and the RDFNL. It has been reported that the RDFNL CEO Jordan Doyle didn’t assist or meet with either party to facilitate any mediation between the two parties. Jordan and Natalie Korinfsky were in constant dialogue during this period and had a meeting on Wednesday, November 20th at 12:45pm at the 8 Oaks Café in Sunbury. Jordan also had a meeting with Guy Nelson the President of the Kyneton Football Netball Club on Monday, November 18th at 3pm. The RDFNL tried to foster an outcome with both parties that would resolve the dispute, but it was to no avail. During December 2024 when it was clear that the Women’s team would not return to the KFNC, alternative solutions were discussed including the prospect of the team moving to other RDFNL Clubs, Woodend-Hesket FNC or Gisborne Giants FNC. Both Clubs were canvassed during this time. The Women’s team decided to not take up either of those offers and later Natalie Korinfsky went on radio and stated that the Woodend-Hesket FNC had a ‘’poor culture’’ when they were only trying to assist in finding the Women’s team a new home. Later in December 2024, another option was floated that the Women’s team join the Mt Alexander Falcons and affiliate under their Club as a second Women’s team. On December 17th, 2024, representatives from the RDFNL and Mt Alexander Falcons met with Natalie Korinfsky, Charlie Bracey and Nicole Rowan from the now KWFC. At this meeting, all parties were working towards the Women’s team joining the Mt Alexander Falcons and playing as the Mt Alexander Wedge-Tailed Eagles in the RDFNL in 2025. Further correspondence was discussed on December 18th, 2024, and at this time, both the RDFNL and Mt Alexander Falcons were under the impression that the former Kyneton FNC Women’s team would be playing out of their facility under the Mt Alexander Falcons Club banner in 2025. The Mt Alexander Falcons’ committee worked hard during this time on MoU’s, on liaising and lobbying their local Council and they had made arrangements for home games around double header fixtures to accommodate their new participants. However, in late January 2025, the RDFNL was contacted to say that the Kyneton Women’s Football Club had been formed and that an application to play for the 2025 season would be sent in under that new Club banner. This application could not proceed as a new Club has to be accepted before December 1st of the year previous, so this application was close to two months too late.

Conversations continued that the Women’s team could still participate in 2025 under the Mt Alexander Falcons umbrella, but they were ignored. Following the RDFNL saying that the December 1st deadline was missed, the KWFC then applied to join both the Ballarat Football Netball League and Central Victorian Football League for 2025 and were rejected from both under the same guidelines. After the RDFNL Board wrote to the KWFC to explain that they would not be able to participate in the 2025 season, the smear campaign across media channels began. The media campaign against the Kyneton Football Netball Club was also continuing. The Kyneton Football Netball Club who are run by volunteers and at the time was made up of 50% females on their committee were doing wonderful things as a Club and continue to do so to this day. The Club was an early pioneer in Women’s football and first affiliated a team in 2015. The Club is one of the few in our league who affiliates a team in the Football Integration Development Association which is a league for Victorians with intellectual disabilities to play football. The Club also had Junior female football teams as well as Senior and Junior netball teams. The KFNC was also awarded the AFL Victoria Inclusive Club of the Year in 2021 and continues to be a safe and inclusive space for hundreds of females each and every weekend. During this period of February to April 2025, the RDFNL as a whole was targeted. Staff were contacted from private numbers leaving harassing voicemails and receiving threats. A business partner of the RDFNL was contacted via their business line and given that the business was 80% female were questioned over how they could possibly support a league (the RDFNL) that excluded females.

In April 2025, the KWFC made a decision to align with the Gisborne Football Netball Club to play under their Club in the Essendon District Football League. Ironically, the decision to play in Gisborne was offered five months earlier by the RDFNL but ignored. In July 2025, the KWFC contacted the RDFNL regarding another application for the 2026 season. RDFNL representatives met with KWFC Secretary Charlie Bracey and Vice President Mark McEwan on Thursday, July 24th at 5:00pm. In this meeting, Charlie and Mark from the KWFC were made aware that the RDFNL were disappointed with the actions and fallout of our decision but would work with them for a 2026 application. In this meeting it was explicitly outlined to both Charlie and Mark that if the application was made under the Kyneton Women’s Football Club that it would be rejected by the RDFNL. It was outlined that the Kyneton Football Netball Club had a Youth Girls team participating in the RDFNL in 2025 with many players ageing out and eligible for Senior Women’s football in 2026 and the KFNC would be aiming to re-affiliate a team in 2026 and therefore if they wanted to participate in the RDFNL it needed to be under another name. In this meeting Charlie was unfortunately moved to tears as the Kyneton name meant a lot to the team but again it was reiterated that an application under KWFC would be rejected. It was suggested that the Club rebadge as the Wedge-Tailed Eagles Football Club and put in an application for Woodend Racecourse Reserve as their home ground. We had spoken with the Macedon Ranges Shire Council regarding this facility, and it was seen as a suitable facility. This suggestion was completely ignored and a short time later, the RDFNL received an application from the Kyneton Women’s Football Club for the 2026 season and as outlined to Charlie and Mark in that meeting, it was rejected by the RDFNL Board. Shortly after the RDFNL decision, the RDFNL held a Women in Sport function to celebrate the wonderful contributions that women and girls make to the RDFNL on an annual basis. It was an event for celebration, and we had an esteemed panel of media personalities as well as current and former AFLW players. Supporters of the KWFC made contact with our guests suggesting that they were supporting an organisation that didn't support women and not to attend our celebration event.

Following the RDFNL’s decision, AFL Victoria called a meeting with the RDFNL, the EDFL, the Ballarat Football Netball League and with AFL Central Victoria (who govern CVFL). All leagues were in attendance at this meeting except AFL Central Victoria who were an apology. At this meeting AFL Victoria posed the question to the RDFNL surrounding the possibility of KWFC applying in neighbouring leagues and working collaboratively as an industry to see what the RDFNL would or wouldn’t object to. In this meeting the RDFNL again explicitly outlined that if the KWFC applied under the KWFC name to any neighbouring league that under AFL Victoria Rules that the RDFNL would appeal. If the team chose to apply under a name that didn’t include Kyneton in it, the RDFNL wouldn’t object as it wasn’t impacting the sustainability of a member club of the RDFNL. Following this meeting, the KWFC applied to the EDFL (denied), the Ballarat Football Netball League (denied) and CVFL (approved). After the CVFL approved the application, AFL Victoria wrote to all neighbouring leagues and as outlined at the earlier meeting the RDFNL appealed. As part of the appeal, the league was required to write to AFL Victoria and submit the reasons why and the reasoning behind the appeal was the impact to the Kyneton Football Netball Club and their ability to field a Senior Women’s team into the future. AFL Victoria upheld the appeal, and the reasons can be found in the accompanying letter of Head of AFL Victoria, Greg Madigan. On October 24th, RDFNL representatives met with local MP Mary-Anne Thomas. The Office for Mary-Anne Thomas was concerned that the RDFNL had not been transparent and was concerned that we had not met with the KWFC regarding their application. Once we met and outlined that the RDFNL did meet with the KWFC and also outlined explicitly what would and wouldn’t be accepted, the outcome was deemed satisfactory and the local MP even asked for advice on how to tackle the ongoing communication her Office was receiving. All parties were informed of the AFL Victoria appeal decision on Wednesday, December 10th at 4:33pm. At 6:30pm the same night, the RDFNL held its Annual General Meeting. An uninvited and unauthorised person attended the meeting who was a supporter of the KWFC and begun reading a script that was pre-prepared to publicly shame the RDFNL for our actions. This man was asked to leave immediately by RDFNL and RDFNL Club representatives.

On December 19th, the RDFNL received further communication from the Office of Mary-Anne Thomas. The next day, on Saturday, December 20th the KWFC shared the letter on their Facebook page. A private communication between two parties in which they were not included, it was disappointing to see that shared publicly. What followed was a falsified, photoshopped and doctored image of an alleged Facebook message in reply to a comment on this KWFC post allegedly sent by RDFNL President Brenton Knott. The ‘’member of the public’’ that received this alleged message which uses terms such as ‘’grooming’’ and ‘’gender weirdness’’ has then shared the alleged message with the Instagram Page NotAllClubs. NotAllClubs posted it on their Instagram story and later put up an Instagram post. This ‘’member of the public’’ has also lodged a complaint with AFL Integrity. Brenton has subsequently been defamed and slandered publicly since December 21st. He has received threatening and abusive communication and messages with blackmail threats. He has had family members abused and threatened and blackmailed. He has denied ever sending these messages and has fully cooperated with the AFL Integrity complaint. The RDFNL and Brenton were not able to come out and deny these claims publicly during this time but can now confirm that these claims to be completely false and fake and both parties, Brenton and the RDFNL can now begin the legal process of proceeding with defamation cases against those parties responsible for publishing these doctored images including and not limited to; NotAllClubs, the KWFC and the Midland Express. This has been a distressing time for Brenton and his network and the RDFNL wishes to acknowledge that during his period as President since December 2019, the league has experienced unprecedented growth in female participation and the Senior Women’s competition has been introduced. In addition, the RDFNL has developed a Gender Equity and Inclusion Action Plan and RDFNL Board (Brenton included), staff and Clubs attended Gender Equity and Inclusion Workshops and Training during 2025. The RDFNL are the only league in Victoria which offers our Senior Women’s competition a full Premier Data subscription and films every game of the season whilst having extremely low fees to offer our Senior Women’s teams. This has all occurred under the Presidency reign of Brenton and during that time we have also added five extra grades of netball across our Senior and Junior competitions and experienced tremendous growth. Brenton has championed the participation of women and girls and leads a Board that includes 40% representation of four extremely hardworking, passionate and highly qualified females as well as a General Manager – Operations in Grace Bibby. Moving forward, we urge the Kyneton Women’s Football Club to continue to advocate their plight in a respectful manner and to cease the misinformation spread against the RDFNL and the Kyneton Football Netball Club. The decision to uphold the appeal was made by AFL Victoria, they are the body that decides these outcomes and should be communicated with. The RDFNL is pleased to finally be able to come out and share the full story and shed some light on what has been a very difficult period. The RDFNL wishes to thank our wonderful 26 member Clubs for their ongoing support and our 32 league partners who have stuck by us during this difficult times and we look forward to a successful 2026 season.