A gymnastics club for children in Melbourne’s south-east has shut down following a child safety complaint to Gymnastics Australia (GA).<\/p>\n
The closure, effective from today, follows a public statement from Gymnastics Australia on Friday evening saying that private club Funtastic Gymnastics in Berwick would be closing on Saturday due to allegations made last week about a part-owner of the gym.<\/p>\n
“The complaint related to concerns about child safety and whether the part-owner was a fit and proper person to be involved in a gymnastics club,” the GA statement said.<\/p>\n
When the ABC visited the Berwick club on Saturday morning, there was a sign on the door that read: “Sorry we are closed and not reopening.”<\/p>\n
Gymnastics Australia said it was taking steps to terminate Funtastic’s membership and the Gymnastics Australia National Integrity Unit had initiated an investigation.<\/p>\n
It said it had received information this week that suggested Funtastic Gymnastics was not compliant with strict requirements for all people working or volunteering at a club to hold a current and valid Working With Children Check.<\/p>\n
Gymnastics Australia said Funtastic was given the opportunity to show cause by 5pm Friday as to why its membership should not be terminated.<\/p>\n
“Instead of responding to the show cause notice, Funtastic Gymnastics this afternoon informed Gymnastics Australia that it would close tomorrow, Saturday 22 November,” Gymnastics Australia’s statement on Friday read.<\/p>\n
“Gymnastics Australia is taking steps to terminate the membership of Funtastic Gymnastics, effective immediately.”<\/p>\n
Gymnastics Australia said anyone with information about the ownership of Funtastic was encouraged to come forward by emailing integrity@gymnastics.com.au.<\/p>\n
In response to ABC enquiries about the matter, Victoria Police said officers had arrested a man in Olinda on November 6 “following breach of a court order”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“A 48-year-old Olinda man was charged with [failing] to comply with reporting obligations,” police said on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He was bailed to appear at Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on 22 January, 2026.”<\/p>\n
Gymnastics Australia said it had “consulted closely” with Gymnastics Victoria, Sport Integrity Australia and Victoria Police.<\/p>\n
The ABC understands Funtastic Gymnastics has between 200 to 300 families on its books.<\/p>\n
The ABC has contacted Funtastic Gymnastics for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A gymnastics club for children in Melbourne’s south-east has shut down following a child safety complaint to Gymnastics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,171803,81177,171804,44,81178,24340],"class_list":["post-300422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-funtastic-gymnastics","tag-gymnastics-australia","tag-gymnastics-victoria","tag-news","tag-sport-integrity-australia","tag-working-with-children-check"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}