Northern Suburbs and Manly Warringah Football Association representatives discuss NSW’s highest registration numbers

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Football NSW has recently disclosed that the 2024 season is recording the highest number of registrations in community grassroots football.

Football NSW reported that registration numbers are up by 10% on the 2023 season with over 230,000 and counting registered members.

An important part of this increase in registration is the overall success and popularity of the Matildas and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia & New Zealand. This has helped spark an 18% increase in female registration, especially within the younger age groups pushing over 23% from 2023.

The Northern Suburbs Football Association (NSFA) CEO Kevin Johnson has supported the impact of the Women’s World Cup.

Johnson has explained that recent Female membership in the 2024 NSFA season is expanding with an 11.6% growth in female player registrations and an 11.4% increase in female team registrations.

The NSFA is one of the few associations with a Female Football Manager in Kristi Murphy.

“Kirsti has been able to coordinate enthusiasm and feedback of all the clubs into key strategies to increase the female game at an association level,” Johnson told Soccerscene.

“This structure and dedication to female development has had a huge impact on the increase of female players.”

These strategies include junior girls under 6 & 7s hubs.

“These have very important in bringing in new young players and retaining old ones, with Female Junior players increasing by 14.5% and Girls MiniRoos by 22.5%,” Johnson said.

The NSFA has focused on the association’s work in building strong connections and investment in grassroots football. The NSFA also had in 2023 an increase of 30% in sponsorship deals.

“Last year NSFA with local councils Ku-ring-gai, Willoughby and North Sydney held Live Site events for people to watch the Matildas World Cup matches with football activations alongside the matches. This project led to an increasing engagement between the community and the NSFA,” Johnson added.

“This has allowed for the development of facilities and football that is helping the 2024 season’s all-round experience.”

Kevin Johnson believes these initiatives have cemented the NSFA well on track with Football Australia’s pillar 1 in the Legacy 23 plan. which is to reach a 50/50 player gender equity in Football for 2027.

The ‘23 plan works in unison with NSFA’s objectives in making the association a successful and progressive representative of the Northern Suburbs community and Football in NSW.

Neighbouring The NSFA in The Manly Warringah Football Association (MWFA) is Karen Parsons – President of Pittwater RSL FC, who has overseen the development on the ground. The club has seen an increase of 175 registrations in 2024 to an overall 1,473 players.

In addition, the diversity of the club’s players has changed positively with females now making 43% of registrations compared to last season’s 36%.

“We knew the Matilda’s popularity would increase interest in football, therefore the club needed new strategies to encourage club engagement,” she told Soccerscene.

“The MWFA has opened up an under-7s girls league where 5 Pittwater teams now play. We also had a successful MiniRoos and MiniTillies program in February.

“Feedback from members also included the request for equal-skill-based teams in juniors. Therefore we included optional grading into the under-8s mixed comp, which on grading day had a 70% turn-out rate and positive reviews from parents.

“An academy program run by our women’s premier league coach has supported coaching and training techniques for the younger years and increased their progress in the game – also allowing promising kids extra training at lower costs.”

“Usually in before seasons there is a drop of teenagers from the 13-18 age group. However this year there has been a complete retention of 13-18-year-old participants, especially in the girl’s divisions.”

There is a solid ethos of supporting the social importance of sport in the community and approaches from all the clubs have been to maintain the engagement and encourage all to play football.

Karen spoke of the cooperation between the clubs at youth levels, making sure if the kids don’t make a team they can go to other clubs. This has retained more kids both girls and boys playing football.

“Keeping people playing football no matter what club, is always the major focus of presidents,” Parsons added.

“Outside the junior levels, the adult divisions also have had an overall jump with more All Age mixed and women’s teams created, showing this increase is not just concentrated in youth.”

The MWFA has had an overall jump of 752 more registrations from the 2023 season, currently at 19,821.

These case studies are prime examples of how all levels in community football associations are actively maintaining and developing engagement in NSW Football.

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JH Allan Reserve in Keilor East to undergo lighting upgrades

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After strong backing from the community and Football Victoria, Moonee Valley City Council confirmed the green light for upgrades to proceed later this year.

Resounding support

Ahead of the council meeting on Tuesday 24 March, Football Victoria and five Moonee Valley Council clubs created a petition backing lighting improvements at JH Allan Reserve.

What followed was an astounding 624 signatures – a demonstration of the power of united, community support. As a result, main tenants Moonee Ponds United SC and four addition clubs (including Essendon Royals FC, Avondale FC, FC Strathmore and the Moonee Valley Knights) will all benefit from the developments.

“As one of the only facilities within Moonee Valley not shared with other codes, ensuring that JH Allan Reserve meets the needs of our participants is crucial for Football Victoria,” said FV Head of Government Relations and Strategy, Lachlan Cole.

“It was fantastic to see participants and officials from those five clubs come together, support this project, and unite to speak on behalf of their needs. And it was even more heartening to see the wider football community throw their support behind the development by signing the petition.”

 

A long-awaited verdict

The decision comes as a huge step forward for the local football community, arriving after an extended process of consultations and surveys.

In September 2022, Moonee Valley City Council endorsed the Moonee Valley Soccer Strategy, which sought to identify potential upgrades at JH Allan Reserve.

Furthermore, during the community consulation between March and April 2023, 365 people participated in a survey regarding the developments. In the end, 65% of responses supported or strongly supported the installation of sports lighting at the ground.

It is therefore clear that, for much of the community, this was a cause worth fighting for. Over three years since the initial endorsement from Moonee Valley City Council, JH Allan Reserve is now set for a vital upgrade.

Final thoughts

More importantly, however, are the current and future athletes who will feel the benefit from these developments.

Football participation is growing and will continue to do so, in Moonee Valley, Victoria and Australia as a whole. That is why developments like this are so vital.

They are not merely nice to have, but are fundamental to supporting future footballers in the community by providing them with the facilities and environment to play.

Football SA Commits $100,000 to Referee Fuel Subsidy as Cost-of-Living pressure Mounts

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Football South Australia has announced a fuel subsidy scheme for match officials across its semi-professional competitions, allocating up to $100,000 for the remainder of the 2026 season in response to rising fuel costs that the governing body says are threatening the delivery of fixtures across the state.

The subsidy, effective immediately, covers referees officiating across the RAA National Premier League, Apex Steel Women’s National Premier League, Apex Steel Women’s State League, HPG Homes State League 1 and State League 2. The subsidy spans senior, reserves and under-18 competitions across both men’s and women’s football.

Under the metro scheme, reimbursements will be tiered against the average Adelaide unleaded petrol price recorded each Friday, applying to all matches played in the following seven-day period. Officials will receive $30 per match day when the average price sits at $3.25 or above, $25 between $2.75 and $3.24, and $20 between $2.35 and $2.74. No subsidy applies below $2.34. For regional matches, referees travelling to Port Pirie, Barossa and Whyalla will see their per-kilometre reimbursement rise from 88 cents to $1.26 when petrol prices exceed $2.35.

All subsidy payments will be funded directly by Football SA, with no cost passed to competing clubs.

The Economics behind the Whistle

Fuel prices in South Australia, as across much of Australia, have been running at elevated levels against the backdrop of an ongoing imperialist war on Iran that has sent shockwaves through global oil markets. Iran’s targeting of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant proportion of the world’s oil supply passes, has disrupted shipping and contributed to price surges that are being felt at service stations in Adelaide as acutely as anywhere.

For match officials, who are overwhelmingly volunteers or low-paid part-time workers travelling to multiple venues across a season, those price surges are not an abstraction. They are a direct financial disincentive to take on appointments, particularly in outer metropolitan and regional areas where travel distances are significant and the cost of attending a game can approach, or exceed the payment for officiating it.

The consequences are cancelled fixtures, forfeited points, disrupted seasons and players who stop turning up to clubs that cannot guarantee them a game.

“This initiative recognises the critical role match officials play in delivering competitions,” CEO Michael Carter said in the announcement, “and aims to reduce the impact of travel costs across the 2026 season.”

A Structural Problem, a Seasonal Solution

The subsidy applies only to the 2026 season. Football SA has been careful to frame it as a response to current conditions rather than a permanent structural change. The $100,000 allocation is described as subject to fuel prices remaining at current levels, with the final amount invested likely to vary as the weekly threshold calculations play out across the season.

That framing is honest about what the scheme is and isn’t. It does not resolve the underlying question of whether referee payments in community and semi-professional football are adequate relative to the demands placed on officials. It remains a question that transcends the current fuel price environment and will outlast it. What it does is buy time and goodwill in a moment when both are in short supply.

Sport, and football in particular, depends on a volunteer and semi-volunteer workforce that is increasingly being squeezed by the same cost-of-living pressures affecting every other part of Australian life. When the price of petrol rises, the people who feel it first are not the players or the clubs, it’s the officials, the committee members and the volunteers who make the infrastructure of community sport function.

Football SA’s decision to absorb that cost rather than pass it to clubs is a recognition that the referee pipeline is fragile in ways that are not always visible until it breaks. The SAPA review into South Australian football, released earlier this month, identified referee development and retention as one of the most pressing structural challenges facing the game in the state, recommending greater investment in recruitment and suggesting affiliation fee subsidies for clubs that bring new officials into the system.

Friday’s announcement does not go that far. But in a season already defined by uncertain economic and geopolitical circumstance, the levy sends a clear enough signal about where Football SA’s priorities lie.

The fuel levy will be calculated each Friday using average Adelaide prices listed on Fuel Price Australia, with payments made to officials on the regular weekly schedule.

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