dibo
Well-Known Member
These posts are obviously contradictory, but an earlier post...
...gives the outline.
The dugouts were bought for the Asian Cup venues in early 2015. They split all the dugouts among the Australian AL clubs to have at games instead of the old plastic chairs, so everyone's sitting in the nice leather seats. It's a much more professional look.
They've been used at every game since at least the start of the 2015/16 season, perhaps even for some games at the end of 2014/15, given the Asian Cup finished at the end of January and the season ran through to May.
The covers are removable, but to prevent situations where coaches and subs are sitting under umbrellas in the rain the clubs have to put the covers on when it looks like it might rain.
As Timmah says, it's not the clubs' call, it's FFA's (and I understand it because it looks bush league to have people sitting on nice comfy chairs but needing umbrellas to not be soaked).
Nothing has changed this year. The policy and practice are the same. When it's dry, there won't be covers up. When it's wet, there will be. That's a given. If you want to talk to the club about changing seats, knock yourself out, but that's the landscape.
For what it's worth, I think Wellington has the opposite issue - IIRC they were being threatened with fines for having their benches covered when it wasn't rainy (presumably because it blocks the cameras' view of the bench rather than spectator issues, because the camera side is generally empty), but the club wanted the subs and staff to be sheltered from the Wellington weather, which isn't nice even when it's not raining...
