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APL launches unified rebranding of Australian Football
The Australian Professional Leagues (APL) have revealed a new identity for Australian football, launching a new logo and revamping the naming structure of the tiers within the game.
All of the existing properties under the APL (the A-League, W-League and Y-League) will be rebranded collectively under the ‘A-Leagues’ moniker, with the A-League to now be named ‘A-League Men’, the W-League to be called ‘A-League Women’ and the Y-League to be titled ‘A-League Youth’.
As a part of the rebranding, the A-Leagues will move towards a unified social media channel for men’s and women’s football, across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok in the coming months, with the A-League website also set to be re-launched.
A world-class digital football platform is also on the APL’s agenda, which will become the home of football in Australia.
Danny Townsend, Managing Director of the APL, touched on the rebranding of the leagues.
“It’s not men’s football, or women’s football, it’s just football,” he said.
“We’re committed to growing the game in Australia – for everyone. That means delivering a world-class experience on and off the pitch and inspiring the next-generation of A-Leagues superstars to fulfil their highest potential. This is just the beginning of our ambitious, long-term vision for the growth of football in Australia.”
Ant Hearne, Chief Commercial Officer of the APL, said: “We know our fans live and breathe football so we want to create the best possible experience in the stadium, at home, on the move, through gaming or fashion or food – however fans want to connect with football, we will deliver.”
The new A-Leagues 2021-22 season will kick off on November 19 for A-League Men and December 3 for A-League Women.
Philip Panas is a sports journalist with Soccerscene.
He reports widely on football policy and industry matters, drawing on his knowledge and passion of the game.
The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is partnering with FIFA’s football streaming platform, FIFA+, to broadcast its international and club competitions for two years.
The deal signifies a major win for the commercialisation and promotion of Oceanian football globally.
FIFA+ is a mobile and desktop application that provides subscribers with live streaming of various FIFA competitions, magazine shows, documentary films, and archived matches from previous tournaments.
The application will televise all major OFC competitions, such as the OFC Champions League (Men’s, women’s and youth), futsal and beach soccer competitions, and the men’s 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign.
The World Cup qualifying campaign takes on greater importance this year, as for the first time ever, OFC nations will battle for one automatic spot at the 2026 Men’s FIFA World Cup.
It represents an important moment for Oceanian football, and while there is global scepticism about FIFA’s move to a 48-team men’s World Cup, it is the smaller nations like those in Oceania who will benefit greatly.
Adding OFC’s collaboration with FIFA+ to the mix only incentivises players and coaches further, providing them a platform to build their careers and future pathways.
“This partnership with FIFA+ marks a new era for Oceania football. It’s a monumental step towards realising our dreams and showcasing the talents of our region to a global audience,” OFC General Secretary Franck Castillo said via press release.
“We are excited about the opportunities this collaboration unlocks and the new horizons it opens for our players, teams, and fans.”
The increased coverage will be crucial to OFC’s commercial endeavours and future sustainability as an organisation. General Secretary Castillo paid tribute to the efforts of OFC members to secure this deal.
“In the last five years, OFC has gone to great lengths to grow football coverage across the Pacific and provide quality broadcast production standards to all fans,” he added via media release.
“As a testament to these efforts, our social media following has increased by 110% and live streaming views by 200% since 2019. We have rallied media rights in the broadcast space and expanded our distribution from four regional TV broadcasters to 26.”
“We have also expanded commercially through selling our live streaming, media and data rights for the next two years – 2024 and 2025; this is a major step forward for us in the commercial space.”
Below is thefull list of competitions to be shown live and free on FIFA+ in 2024:
OFC Women’s Champions League – Solomon Islands | 10-23 March
OFC Men’s Nations Cup – Qualifying – Tonga | 20-26 March
OFC U-19 Men’s Championship – Qualifying – Vanuatu | 9-15 April
OFC U-16 Men’s Championship – Qualifying – Tonga | 13-19 April
OFC Futsal Men’s Champions League – New Caledonia | 23-28 April
OFC Men’s Champions League – Tahiti | 11-24 May
OFC U-16 Women’s Championship – Qualifying – New Zealand | 14-20 June
OFC Men’s Nations Cup – Vanuatu | 15-30 June
OFC U-19 Men’s Championship – Samoa | 7-20 July
OFC U-16 Men’s Championship – Tahiti | 28 July-10 August
OFC Futsal Women’s Nations Cup – Solomon Islands | 18-24 August
FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 1 & 2 – Samoa | 2-10 September
OFC U-16 Women’s Championship – Fiji | 8-21 September
FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 3 – New Zealand & Vanuatu | 7-15 October
OFC Beach Soccer Men’s Nations Cup – Solomon Islands | 20-26 October
FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 4 & 5 – New Zealand & Papua New Guinea | 11-19 November
The Premier League has implemented stricter regulations aimed at preventing clubs from inflating sponsorship and transfer deals with entities linked to their owners.
These revised rules were approved by a ‘very narrow’ majority in a club vote last month and aim to address concerns about Profit and Sustainability Rules and maintaining a level playing field within the league.
The process will now work where the clubs must demonstrate the legitimacy of these transactions. They must provide a declaration from an associated party director confirming their belief in the deal’s fair market value.
Then an independent commission will review each of these deals, make a decision and impose a range of sanctions for any breaches they find. The severity of the offence will determine the penalty.
It is understood that the vote was not unanimous, with the league scraping through their ‘two-thirds majority’ rule with 14 of the 20 clubs agreeing to this policy.
Manchester City and Newcastle were reportedly part of the few clubs that staunchly opposed this policy and both clubs are in the spotlight having entered multiple commercial deals with brands from the same countries as their owners over recent years.
This has become an obvious integrity issue with the way clubs have inflated deals with affiliated entities in order to meet the stricter FFP thresholds that have seen clubs like Everton and Nottingham Forest punished, the former with a six-point deduction.
It became an interesting discussion after big clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Tottenham voted in favour of these new strict rules after recently being passed by Newcastle and Manchester City in commercial revenue.
Out of the 115 FFP charges that Manchester City face, the ones that could impose the biggest sanction are directly related to this topic, with the club earning over 13 times more in 2022/23 than they did in 2008 when the takeover first occurred, indicating a potential exaggeration of revenue from their Middle Eastern sponsors.
The Premier League claims that these revisions will ensure long-term financial sustainability while promoting fairness amongst clubs as they try to prevent other clubs from gaining an unfair advantage through non-market practices.
With Leicester City, Everton and Nottingham Forest charged in the last month, there is a clear crackdown on clubs breaking the Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).
It is certainly a step in the right direction for the Premier League who are seeing more clubs spend seemingly above their means without any harsh regulatory or legal checks that could potentially damage the integrity of the competition.