Junior sport should be allowed to return to training this week, NSW shadow minister for sport Lynda Voltz says.
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"If the kids can go back to school, why aren't they back on the sports fields training?" Ms Voltz said.
Ms Voltz said community sport organisers and participants were waiting for the NSW government to release a framework for sport's return.
Northern NSW Football chief executive David Eland said "we are all waiting on the framework which will underpin our own guidelines for a return to training".
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"We can't release our guidelines until we get the framework from the NSW Office of Sport. Obviously we need to check we are compliant," Mr Eland said.
"Councils have made it clear they're not going to reopen facilities until the framework is received from the Office of Sport."
A NSW Office of Sport spokesperson said "NSW residents can exercise in maximum groups of ten in public, complying with physical distancing measures".
The Office of Sport is thought to be finalising its framework.
The Victorian government has announced a framework for community sport's return, in which participants can gather outdoors in groups of no more than 10, plus a coach and support staff.
"All activity and training must be non-contact and no competitions are to take place," it said.
Ms Voltz said winter sports were "getting to a critical time where decisions need to be made about the viability of their seasons".
She said community sport needed "some kind of timeline".
"They can't start overnight. It takes about a month to get a competition up and going," she said.
While NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro had "stitched up a deal for the NRL to return to play, community sport in our cities and regions have been left out in the cold".
The NSW government has been considering the staged return of community sport, amid concern about the possibility of a second wave of COVID-19 cases in winter.
Mr Eland said it was great that people were "so keen to get on the training paddock again, but the safety of our participants and the community remains our number one priority".
National Cabinet has established a three-step framework for the staged return of sport, with children's sport given priority.
However, states can set their own plans. The Victorian government's plan made no distinction between juniors and seniors.
Ms Voltz said junior sporting teams in NSW "should be back at least training in groups of 10".
"I think you've got to limit it to kids [at first] because you don't want to have fields at capacity," she said.
But she said senior sport should return at some stage.
"As people get older, if they take a year out that could be the thing that stops them coming back. You want people playing as long as possible and being part of a team."
