Football NSW 2024 coaching conference sold out early

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Image credit: Football NSW website

The Football NSW 2024 Coaches Conference has a star-studded line-up that has attracted record numbers to the weekend event on the 23rd and 24th of November.

This annual event run by Football NSW allows local coaches to go to a 2-day conference with talks and meets with prominent coaches in a selection of important parts of football coaching and development.

Football NSW has organised key areas for the coaching conference to highlight, which include:

  • Youth Development
  • Goalkeeping
  • Junior Development
  • Leadership & Culture
  • Women & Girls Development
  • Player Welfare

Football NSW have invested massively in this conference, and this investment has undoubtedly paid off with 800 coaches signed up to attend the event already.

Selling out the tickets 3 months before the event even takes place, smashing the record attendance for this annual event since its start in 2019.

To add to this, a huge amount of coaches have signed up for the waiting list for a chance to attend as well, there are still spots on the waiting list available for any more keen coaches.

This massive increase in popularity can be largely due to the top brass organised by Football NSW.

Gathering to speak are coaching leaders from both our local pool and international associations and clubs.

Some of the speakers attending are:

  • 3-time A league coach of the year and current Socceroos coach Graham Arnold.
  • Gabriel Bussinger is the current Director of football for Brazilian giant Vasco de Gama and has been a football coach for over two decades.
  • Peter Sturgess is the former English FA Technical Lead for the 5–11s age group. He spent 17 years in the FA youth development system at the forefront of youth football.
  • Thanks to the success of the Matildas there has been massive growth in female participation in Australia. Therefore, Football NSW has got Leah Blayney head of the Young Matildas and Future Matildas program coming to chat about this exciting development.
  • Included with her are young Matilda assistant coaches Helen Winterburn and Victoria Guzman.

These are just some of the 18 speakers for the 2-day conference at Valentine Park, the home of football in NSW.

This conference shows the massive investment and ambition that Football NSW has in giving football coaches in the state the opportunity to gain invaluable information from some of the highest achievers in the coaching world.

For coaches of any type in NSW this is an event one needs to attend.

If you wish to learn more about the conference click here for the link to the Conference page.

If you wish to sign up for the waitlist for a chance to attend, click here.

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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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