Football Wagga President Mark Sayer challenged by former Wagga mayor Kerry Pascoe

CURRENT Football Wagga president Mark Sayer was yesterday surprised to hear of a possible challenge to his leadership from former Wagga mayor Kerry Pascoe.Pascoe has a long association with soccer in the city and said on Tuesday he was considering an approach to take on the association's top role.While Sayer welcomed Pascoe's interest in developing the sport in the district, he said he would be unlikely to relinquish his position unless the decision was taken at a vote."I've enjoyed it," Sayer said of his two years in the post."I feel that we've made big inroads, I've always said it's a three-year role and I'm committed to that."I thought Kerry had been approached to take on another role on the committee so I'm not sure if that's been miscommunicated or what's happened."Certainly I think things are moving in the right direction and we've put things in place to ensure that continues."Of the improvements Sayer regards as the biggest made in the last 12 months, ground development and the new structure bedded down for the referees were at the top of the list.In regards to the referees Sayer said a visit from soccer's governing body in Australia - Football Federation Australia - was confirmation enough that improvements were being made."Up until this year the referees branch was a different entity," he said. "It is now a sub-committee of Football Wagga and that's helped to open up the lines of communication and made it much easier to allocate resources."Although an extraordinarily wet winter caused some ground scheduling issues, Sayer said they had been managed well and expected the money being ploughed in would continue to facilitate improvements."The fields held up fairly well and I think the next step is to start to improve the ground facilities," Sayer said.Sayer also pointed out that soccer was one of the few football codes in the area to be increasing numbers year on year and said that the fact that all coaches at both junior and senior level now had to be accredited would improve the quality of the competition.