Professional Footballers Australia unveil 2021/22 A-League Men’s Report

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Professional Footballers Australia (PFA), the body that represents professional male, female and elite junior soccer players, has officially released its annual A-League Men Report for the 2021/22 season.

The report revealed that the A-Leagues men’s competition has rebounded from the financial impact of COVID-19 due to an increase in investment from clubs, improved player contract stability and a sustained focus on youth development.

These are among the key findings in the PFA’s annual A-League Men Report, which provides an overview of the 2021/22 campaign and assesses the employment framework and workplace conditions for Australia’s professional footballers.

With the 2022/23 season beginning next week, the Report indicates that the A-League Men competition has solid foundations to build and capitalise upon.

The report identifies that the A-League Men leads all rival Asian Football Confederation (AFC) domestic competitions for fielding players aged 21 or under and sits eighth on a list of 60 leagues from around the world. The League’s average age has been the lowest in competition history during the past three seasons, dropping from an average of 27 to 25. Across the season, 42% of match minutes available were occupied by players under 25.

In addition, the A-League Men is the most competitively balanced league in the Asian Football Confederation. The A-League Men has the closest level of quality among its 12 teams and the tightest points spread recorded in the past decade, delivering more competitive tension within matches and across the season than any other top Asian league.

Clubs invested $52m in A-League Men player payments in the 2021/22 season, demonstrating a rebound in investment following the financial impact of COVID-19 on clubs, up from $38.1m (2020/21).

Moreover, the percentage of players coming off contract at the start of the 2021/22 season was the lowest recorded in eight seasons, decreasing from 68% last season to 48%. The current contract length of Australian players in the A-League Men is among the highest in comparator leagues from Africa, South America, North America and Asia, and the highest in the AFC region.

PFA Co-Chief Executive Beau Busch explained the report underlined the positive impact of the five-year CBA and underlined the resilience of a competition that was severely impacted by COVID-19.

“The objective of agreeing to a five-year CBA was to provide both a genuine partnership between the players and the clubs and crucially to provide the professional game with a stable platform to rebuild the industry,” Busch said in a statement.

“Encouragingly, we continue to see a range of positive trends in relation to increased investment in players, the emergence of a host of talented players and improved contractual stability.

“Whilst these are welcomed signs, there remains much to do to establish the professional game in this country and this report provides the evidential basis to assess our progress as a football nation and benchmark ourselves against our international rivals.”

Click here to download and view the Report.

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

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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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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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