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Strong Federal Government support welcomed by Football Australia
Football Australia have welcomed the Federal Government’s pledge to provide $12 million of support to elite women’s football in Australia over the next two years.
The Federal Government announced that it would be providing a grant to Football Australia in support of their High-Performance objectives for the Westfield Matildas, Young Matildas and Junior Matildas which will include:
The scheduling of eight additional Westfield Matildas international matches in preparation for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023
Bolstering of crucial High-Performance resources providing additional support for the Westfield Matildas, Young Matildas, and Junior Matildas
International tours and domestic camps for existing national youth teams to support the pipeline of talent and competitive depth for the Westfield Matildas with a world class program for the Young and Junior Matildas
The funding ties into Football Australia’s Legacy ’23 plan by supporting Australia’s pipeline of talent and competitive depth with a world class program in the lead in to the home tournament (co-hosted with New Zealand). It will also allow for increased community engagement of Australia’s vast footballing family, including those from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Football Australia Chief Executive Officer James Johnson acknowledged and thanked the Federal Government for their support of Australia’s Women’s High-Performance Programs over the next two years.
“Last year we completed a Women’s Performance Gap Report, which offered an objective lens into the current landscape facing Australia’s most talented female footballers, benchmarking Australia against eleven other leading female football nations,” he said.
“This deep-dive helped to provide us with a strong understanding of where we sit globally, with the overwhelming takeaway that we must collectively do more to provide opportunities to elite, and prospectively elite, female footballers.
“We are thrilled that the Australian Government have listened to our research, and have opted to support the Matildas, women’s football, and football broadly as our senior team gears up to compete on home soil in 2023 – an event that will be the biggest on Australian shores since Sydney 2000.
“This funding will also provide the next generation of talent the opportunity to play and develop against the world’s best, ensuring that they can perform and act locally, nationally, and internationally as role models”.
Senior Westfield Matildas star Sam Kerr welcomed the High-Performance Funding as well, acknowledging its timeliness at a crucial time in the women’s football cycle.
“I think it’s massive. The funding will help us to build the game and have a stronger national team to compete at major international tournaments such as the Olympics, the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, and FIFA Women’s World Cup,” she said.
“As we grow stronger, both at youth and senior level, Australians will be inspired to engage with football, get active, and gain a broader awareness of the truly global nature of our sport, which helps people to understand and respect different cultures.”
In addition to the High-Performance component, part of the Australian Government’s Funding announcement includes support for Football Australia’s Club Development Program.
“This funding will enable Football Australia, in partnership with its Member Federations and other stakeholders, to deliver enhanced services and engagement to football Clubs, participants, coaches, and administrators across the nation,” Johnson added.
“Through education and support, we will be able to help grassroots and community Clubs improve their capacities, which will boost the experience and environment our diverse, multicultural, and large football family feel when they engage with the game in a variety of formats.
“Overall, this announcement is a great launching pad for our Legacy ‘23 plan and we look forward to continuing to work with the Federal, State, and Territory Governments, as well as our nine Member Federations, to fully realise our Legacy ‘23 plan across participation, community facilities, leadership and development, as well as tourism and international engagement.
“There is so much to come, and a stronger partnership between Governments at all levels and football will unlock the true potential of our sport for everyone in our country, especially leading into the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.”
South Melbourne versus Melbourne Victory is more than a long-awaited rivalry. It is an opportunity to unite Australian football around its history – and its future.
On 10 October, South Melbourne FC and Melbourne Victory will walk onto AAMI Park for an Australia Cup Final that represents far more than a trophy.
It brings together two proud clubs from different chapters of Australian football’s history.
One is among the most successful clubs of the former National Soccer League era. The other has become one of the defining clubs of the A-League era.
The atmosphere will be extraordinary. The rivalry will be genuine. The football will be fiercely contested.
Such is the anticipation surrounding the match that it also has genuine potential to break the modern Australia Cup Final attendance record of 18,751, set at the same venue in 2016.
That would represent much more than a number on a crowd sheet. A record attendance would send a powerful message about the public appetite for meaningful fixtures, authentic rivalries and competitions that connect every level of Australian football.
But this final can – and should – mean even more.
It presents Australian football with an opportunity to bring its past, present and future together.
It is an opportunity to dismantle the tired and damaging distinction between “old soccer” and “new football”.
Most importantly, it can demonstrate what becomes possible when the entire game is connected.
We Cannot Build the Future by Discarding the Past
Australian football needed reform at the beginning of this century.
The game required stronger governance, greater professionalism, better commercial structures and a national competition capable of reaching new audiences.
The establishment of the A-League in 2005 opened an important new chapter. It created clubs, rivalries and major occasions that have contributed enormously to the development of the professional game.
But somewhere during that transformation, the idea took hold that Australian football could only move forward by separating itself from much of what had come before it.
The labels “old soccer” and “new football” became a fault line.
Too many clubs, supporters, volunteers and communities that had carried the game for decades were made to feel that their history was no longer welcome at the top table.
In creating something new, the game sometimes appeared determined to dispense with everything associated with its past.
That included the clubs and development pathways that identified, nurtured and produced many members of Australia’s Golden Generation.
Australian football should never be embarrassed by that history.
It is one of our game’s greatest competitive advantages.
Traditional clubs were built by migrant communities that brought their passion, culture and football knowledge to Australia.
They established clubs, built grounds, developed players, created lifelong supporters and sustained the game when it received little mainstream attention or investment.
These communities did not merely support Australian football.
They built it.
Recognising that contribution does not require us to reject the progress made during the A-League era. Both can be true.
The game needed to evolve, but it did not need to marginalise its foundations to do so.
This Is Not “Old” Against “New”
It would be easy to promote South Melbourne against Melbourne Victory as “old soccer” meeting “new football”.
It might create a convenient headline, but it would miss the greater significance of the occasion – and perpetuate a division the game must leave behind.
South Melbourne is not a relic from Australian football’s past.
It is a living and ambitious club with generations of supporters, a distinguished record of national success and an enduring role in developing players and representing its community.
Melbourne Victory is not separate from Australian football’s history.
It is another important chapter in it – a club that has built an enormous following, delivered some of the country’s most memorable sporting occasions and demonstrated the scale that professional football can achieve in Australia.
These clubs were created in different eras, but they belong to the same game.
The future of Australian football is neither “old” nor “new”.
It is one football.
Supporters Want a Connected Game
This final arrives at a time when the appetite for a properly connected football pyramid is becoming impossible to ignore.
Supporters want clubs to have something meaningful to aspire to.
They want success on the field to create opportunity.
They want to see a genuine connection between grassroots football, state competitions, traditional clubs, national competitions and the professional game.
A connected pyramid is about more than promotion and relegation.
It is about unlocking aspiration, investment, relevance and growth throughout the sport.
When clubs can see a pathway forward, they invest in facilities, coaching, academies, commercial capability and community engagement.
When supporters believe their club’s journey can lead somewhere, they become more deeply invested.
When local rivalries carry national consequences, new audiences, media attention and commercial partners follow.
That energy already exists throughout Australian football.
Our opportunity is to harness it.
The Platforms Are Demonstrating What Is Possible
The Australia Cup has repeatedly shown what can happen when clubs from every level are given the opportunity to compete on a national stage.
It connects the grassroots and professional game. It creates genuine jeopardy. It brings national attention to clubs, grounds and communities that rarely receive that level of exposure.
It also produces compelling stories that cannot be manufactured through marketing alone.
The Australian Championship represents another important step. It gives some of the country’s most historic and ambitious clubs a new national platform and creates a stronger bridge between state-based football and the professional game.
Neither competition should be viewed in isolation.
Together, the Australia Cup and Australian Championship can help reconnect the game, restore national relevance to important clubs and build momentum towards a more integrated competition structure.
They also demonstrate something commercially significant.
These communities are not simply part of football’s history. They are active audiences with passion, identity, purchasing power and an enduring commitment to their clubs.
When those communities are respected and properly engaged, they respond.
That creates value for broadcasters, commercial partners, governments and the wider professional game.
A Perspective Spanning Different Eras
My perspective has been shaped by experiencing Australian football across different clubs, competitions and eras.
I served as CEO of South Melbourne Soccer Club during one of the most successful periods in its history.
After leaving in 1997, I returned 12 months later for the 1998/99 season, when South secured its second consecutive national championship under Ange Postecoglou.
Nearly two decades later, in 2015, I returned to the professional game as CEO of Perth Glory in the A-League.
I subsequently joined Football Australia as a senior executive, where I played a key role in strengthening the Australia Cup as a national platform and developing the Australian Championship.
That journey has reinforced my belief that Australian football’s future will not be secured by choosing one part of its history over another. It will be secured by bringing the best of every era together.
The game will fulfil its potential when it connects its professional clubs, traditional clubs, grassroots participants, diverse communities and national teams within a coherent and ambitious system.
This is not about returning to the past.
It is about carrying the best of our history into a stronger future.
South Melbourne Soccer Club newsletter, 1997. After stepping down as CEO, Peter Filopoulos returned 12 months later for the club’s 1998/99 national championship season.
More Than a Final
On 10 October, AAMI Park – the spiritual home of football in Melbourne—should become the stage for more than an Australia Cup Final.
It should be a celebration of the people and communities that built the game, the progress achieved during the professional era and the possibilities presented by a connected future.
South Melbourne supporters should be proud of what their club has contributed to Australian football and excited about what may lie ahead.
Melbourne Victory supporters should celebrate what their club has built and the role it continues to play in growing the professional game.
Every Australian football supporter should be able to look at this occasion and see something bigger than a contest between two clubs or two eras.
This final is not “old soccer” against “new football”.
It is Australian football – proud of its entire history, united around its future and ready to unlock its true potential.
THE ASSOCIATION of Australian Football Clubs has reconvened to re-engage Football Australia on the long-term future of the Australian Championship, which returns next month for its second season. The AAFC is preparing a formal approach to head office in the aim of establishing the next steps for the tournament’s development. Little has been said from FA about its long-term prospects since South Melbourne won the inaugural title last summer. Operated last season as an end-of-year tournament for clubs pulled from NPL competitions around the country, under the (former) model of the UEFA Champions League, it was generally lauded by those who partook as a success. This year, the same format returns. But there remains a lack of certainty across constituent clubs as to where the Championship is headed. Those spoken to by Soccerscene, both within and outside the ‘foundation’ ranks, retain a firm desire to see it become a full-blown national second division – as was the competition’s working title for much of its development process. “We’re now in the process of pushing that timeframe [for future discussion] because the clubs’ concern is if you just wait another twelve months, and do nothing towards establishing the home and away competition, then another year will pass,’ said AAFC chairman Nick Galatas. ‘We’re keen on re-establishing the impetus for what we say the clubs and the fans actually want, and that is a proper competition that will be the bridge for what we all want. “We need to link our game from bottom to top and give more opportunities to our promising young players.” It is the general view of a number of foundation clubs that discussions with FA have always been due to re-open following this upcoming second season; however, actual specifics have proved harder to find. “As an aspiring club, we were under the understanding that after two years there’d be a review for the potential of promotion and relegation [to the A-League],’ said one club president from within the eight foundation clubs. “Or, to discuss expansion into the A-League. We’re not asking to get rid of A-League teams; we’re asking for a connection via expansion. For example: ‘keep playing this competition, keep performing strongly, and then if you meet the criteria, you can apply for A-League expansion.’” It is nearing three years since Football Australia selected its eight foundation clubs, from a pool of 32 that were invited to enter its Request For Proposal phase. At the time, it was stated that a refined process – to commence early-2024 – would seek to find an additional two-to-four clubs to join them. That this has not happened means the eight sides still fail to represent any state outside New South Wales and Victoria, a criticism levelled at the competition from its first day. From the outside, this continued inactivity could be construed as a lack of progress – although that’s not to say inactivity is the case. “We’ve explored it a few times, and FA have been really open about where they’re up to, and really what the trajectory is,” said the president of another club, who were part of the Request For Proposal phase, but were not selected as a foundation club. “I would describe their current position as ‘we’re doing it, we’ll review what we’re doing, and then we’ll plan to either keep doing it, or expand it.’ Does that mean expansion will happen? Not necessarily. ‘Maybe they’ll do that review and there’s a sense the timing’s not right, there are too many challenges… but I’m not getting any indication that that’s the case.’ Football Australia signed its Championship broadcast deal with SBS in September 2025 for two seasons with an option for a third. Last week, the partnership announced an increase in linear broadcasting for 2026 with an additional match per round to be broadcast on Thursday nights. The entire competition is available via SBS On Demand. Football Australia has also added a Penalty Shootout Bonus Point Model, where drawn matches in the group stage will see sides awarded a standard one point each, before heading to the penalty spot to contest an additional point. The competition also remains without a naming rights partner, while participant clubs have this season been charged an entry fee, which was not the case last season. Football Australia continues to foot the travel bill for parties up to a certain number for away fixtures. Football Australia was contacted for comment.
