Senator Bridget McKenzie, previously the Federal Minister for Sport, is facing calls to resign after the auditor-general found that a program to distribute $100 million of community sports grants was misused for potential political gain.
Nine of the 10 electorates awarded the most money through the program were either marginal seats or ones the Coalition was hoping to win at the May election.
“Applications from projects located in those electorates were more successful in being awarded funding than if funding was allocated on the basis of merit assessed,” the auditor-general's report said.
The report found 41 percent of the approved projects were not on the list recommended by Sports Australia.
By round three of the program, the auditor-general found "73 percent of the approved projects had not been recommended by Sport Australia".
One of the applications that was rejected was submitted by the Coledale Waves Soccer Club in regional New South Wales.
The club is based in a safe Labor seat in Illawarra.
10 volunteers from the club spent 200 hours preparing the application that, if successful, would help improve safety standards and attract more women to the club.
"I can't see how she can't resign," she said. "It's not acceptable.
"It shows complete disrespect for all the volunteers across Australia who put in huge amounts of time [applying for grants].
"Your effort is not always rewarded, I understand that, but [it should be] duly considered and not just used for political self-interest purposes - it's not OK."
Ms Miller explained that Coledale Waves was one of the largest junior clubs in the region and wanted to expand their women's program.
"Because the ground is so uneven and so hard, compacted and so poorly irrigated we have 30 major injuries a week at this oval in the soccer season," Miller said.
"My club alone has had about 14 major injuries in the last two years. The women will not register for soccer because the injury rate is too high."
Senator McKenzie denied that she, or her office, did anything wrong.
"The Auditor-General's report is really, really clear. No rules were broken, every single one of those projects that was funded was eligible," Senator McKenzie told reporters in Canberra.
"My intervention actually increased the number of projects being delivered to local sporting clubs in Labor Party electorates."
Applicants who missed out on funding were sometimes not given feedback as to why by Sport Australia because, according to the report, the decisions were not clearly documented.
"Sport Australia was unable to communicate the full and actual reasons for the rejection of their application, or otherwise provide those applicants with advice on the reasons for their application being unsuccessful," the report said.
Another football club that has been caught up in the controversy is Sunnybank Saints Soccer Club based in south Brisbane.
Sunnybank was successful in their application and received $135,000 for a clubhouse upgrade,
However Labor MP Graham Perrett, who helped support the application by writing a letter of support, complained about the 'politicisation' of the process after he found out that the application had been successful "when the club was contacted for a photo opportunity with his opponent, the councillor Angela Owen."
