$1.5 million in fee relief provided to Football NSW Associations and Clubs

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To help consolidate losses related to the premature cancellation of the 2021 Winter Football season due to COVID-19, Football NSW has announced $1.5 million in fee relief for its Associations and Clubs.

The Football NSW Board identified the need to provide support to its Associations and Clubs to ensure their ongoing solvency and assist them through these challenging times.

And in spite of the difficult circumstances for all stakeholders involved in the game, Football NSW CEO Stuart Hodge credited the strength of football in coming through previous Covid-enforced lockdowns.

“As we have stated previously, our player numbers can only continue to grow, and football can only remain the most popular participant sport in NSW, if there is sustained financial viability at each tier of the game,” Hodge said.

“The sustainability of a healthy Association and Club framework is fundamental to our continued development and maintaining our capacity to progress and achieve our lofty ambitions.

“With this in mind, and on the recommendation of management, the Board resolved to provide a discount on the Football NSW Capitation Fee for the 2021 Winter season.

Hodge acknowledged the hardworking efforts of each of the Associations and Clubs who have been resilient in the face of the COVID-affected season.

“I want to acknowledge the dedication of our volunteers, administrators, players, referees and coaches that enabled us to still deliver part of a football season,” he said.

“Once again, the Football NSW community has come together to support each other and keep our participants and their families safe, something I feel that’s been truly inspiring.

“Football is a vital part of the lives of our players and other participants, but also vital to our communities.

“Thank you all for your work to keep things going through this period of disruption.”

Football in NSW played a leading role in ensuring the community, and sport as a whole, did their bit in fast tracking a return to sport via the recent NSW Health initiative, ‘Super Sport Sunday’.

“Our collective commitment to a safer community was evident in our recent initiative to offer our facilities as vaccination hubs to the NSW Government,” Hodge said.

“What started as an offer of facilities quickly evolved into a request from NSW Health for football to mobilise its community in certain regions where vaccination rates were desperately needed to be increased.

“Answering the call, we led a campaign for football participants in those regions to get vaccinated and engaged other sports to join as we created a ‘Super Sport Sunday’ for vaccinations at Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA).

“We have since been briefed that the campaign helped set a new single day record of vaccinations at SOPA, with many people wearing the jerseys of their favourite football clubs.

“This is another good example of how, as a code and a football family, we are leaders in our communities and, when we work together, we can achieve great things.”

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South Canberra FC Breaks the Mold: Equity-Driven Model Earns ‘Club Changer’ Honour

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Image Credit: SCFC

South Canberra Football Club has been named Club Changer of the Month for April, in a recognition that reflects a broader shift across Australian football toward rewarding clubs that are actively dismantling the structural barriers limiting women’s access to the game.

The AFC Women’s Asian Cup has just delivered record crowds and unprecedented visibility for women’s football in Australia, and the Club Changer program is now asking what comes next. Its decision to name South Canberra Football Club as Club Changer of the Month for April signals a clear shift in how the program defines contribution: away from participation numbers alone, and toward the equity frameworks that determine whether women stay in the game once they arrive.

South Canberra FC built that framework from the ground up. Established in 2021, the club set out to give women and female-identifying players a safe, inclusive environment to play football at any level. It runs entirely on volunteers, operates as a not-for-profit, and is governed by an all-female committee with 13 of its 14 coaches identifying as female.

 

Building the infrastructure of inclusion

In 2026, the club secured grant funding and put it to work immediately. Two coaches are completing their C Licence qualification, and ten coaches, players and community members have undertaken the Foundations of Football course, which directly tackles the cost and accessibility barriers that exclude women out of coaching pathways.

The club also commissioned a female-specific strength and conditioning program with sports physiotherapists ahead of the 2026 season, targeting injury prevention and explicitly supporting players returning after childbirth.

SCFC’s leadership team draws from LGBTIQ+ individuals, First Nations people and veterans, strengthening the club’s connection to the communities it was built to represent.

The Club Changer program is backing clubs that do this work- clubs that treat equity as infrastructure rather than aspiration. At a moment when Australian football is under pressure to turn its biggest-ever surge of women’s interest into something lasting, SCFC’s model offers a clear answer to the question of how.

Football NSW announces 2026 First Nations Scholarships as pathway access program enters new phase

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Image Credit: Football NSW

Football NSW has announced the recipients of its 2026 First Nations Scholarships, with ten emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players from metropolitan and regional NSW receiving support designed to reduce the financial and structural barriers that have historically limited First Nations participation across the football pathway.

The scholarship program, developed and assessed in collaboration with the Football NSW Indigenous Advisory Group, targets players across both elite and development environments – recognising that talent identification alone is insufficient without the resources to support progression once players are identified.

Co-Chair of the Indigenous Advisory Group Bianca Dufty said the calibre of this year’s recipients reflected the depth of First Nations football talent across the state, and the importance of structured support in converting that talent into long-term participation.

“Their dedication to football and the desire to be role models for younger Aboriginal footballers in their communities is to be celebrated,” Dufty said. “I’m confident we will see some of these talented footballers in the A-League and national teams in the future.”

 

Beyond the pitch and into the pipeline

The 2026 cohort spans both metropolitan clubs and regional associations, an intentional distribution that acknowledges the particular barriers facing First Nations players outside major population centres, where access to development programs, qualified coaching and pathway competitions is more limited and the cost of participation more prohibitive.

The next phase of the program will introduce First Nations coaching scholarships, extending the initiative’s reach beyond playing pathways and into the coaching and administration pipeline – areas where Indigenous representation remains among the lowest in the game.

The structural logic is clear. Scholarships that reduce financial barriers at the entry point of elite pathways matter most when they are part of a sustained ecosystem of support rather than isolated gestures. Football NSW’s collaboration with the Indigenous Advisory Group provides that continuity, ensuring the program is shaped by the communities it is designed to serve.

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