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Energy crisis hits UK football – how does Australia prepare?
Can we afford to turn the lights on? That is the question many football clubs across the UK are asking themselves this winter, in the midst of an energy crisis.
Energy prices have skyrocketed throughout 2022 due to a shortage in supply, and renewable energy sources are producing less energy to power homes. The current war between Russia and Ukraine has also increased energy prices, with most nations halting all business with Russia, known for being a large fossil fuels exporter to the world. Football teams are now in the firing line, feeling the pinch of the energy costs required to operate a football club on a daily basis.
Conversations are being had at the highest levels of England’s League One and Two divisions, with many clubs feeling the squeeze of rising costs. The hike in electricity prices has clubs across the competition concerned that they may not be able to afford to run floodlights at their grounds.
The uncertainty around energy prices has already forced some clubs to make changes in the way they operate. League Two club Mansfield Town has informed the English Football League (EFL) and their fans that kick-off times will change in a bid to save money. The club’s home match in October against Walsall will be brought forward from 3pm to 1pm in order for the club to leave the floodlights off.
Up a division, League One side Shrewsbury Town shared insight on some of the astronomical figures clubs were facing. The Shrews’ CEO Brian Caldwell voiced his concerns stating that the club’s annual energy bills are expected to rise from £80,000 – £100,000 (approx $139,000 – $174,000) last season, to £160,000 – £200,000 (approx $278,000 – $348,000) this season.
Changing kick-off times to earlier time slots may just be a band-aid solution for the short term. Clubs may be able to save on the costs of running floodlights, but run the risk of damaging other streams of revenue, such as ticket sales and concessions. Nigel Clibbens, the CEO of League Two side Carlisle United, admitted that the club’s energy bills have doubled, but that his club would not seek to change kick-off times.
“The lost income in moving kick-off would make us worse off financially – reduced fan numbers attending earlier games and match day concession sales from early starts would be bigger than what we save,” he stated.
Turning off the lights and playing day matches may sound like a simple solution, but with winter approaching in the UK, clubs may not have a choice but to turn them on. Inclement weather could force clubs to use the lighting and possibly consume more energy with heating if it happens to snow. Most EFL clubs have undersoil heating which is used in snowy conditions to prevent the playing surface from freezing, whilst keeping all pitch markings visible in order for the match to be played.
Continued rises in club’s operating costs have called for emergency meetings among EFL Executives. Multiple meetings have taken place to date with the latest being on September 29 – and the discussions are still ongoing. Reports from the BBC suggest that parachute payments may be removed in order to make more funds available to clubs in the lower divisions of English football.
Parachute payments act as a pressure release valve for clubs who have been relegated from the English Premier League. These payments help mitigate the costs relegated clubs face when going down a division. The funds help with player wages and loss of revenue from Premier League TV deals. If implemented, this move will upset newly relegated clubs but may provide a more sustainable and level playing field for all clubs across the divisions.
Closer to home, the energy crisis is no stranger to Australia, with costs involved in running sporting clubs being debated once again. In recent times, Australian sporting organisations have raised concerns over energy prices and how they may affect clubs at the grassroots level. VIC Sport, which is the peak body for sport and active recreation in Victoria, highlighted some of the challenges that clubs face. The point was made that most clubs train in the evenings after children have finished school and adults have finished work. They have urged the government that more needs to be done to safeguard community sports from increasing costs.
With football clubs in the UK already feeling the pinch, all eyes will be on the EFL and how they handle the energy crisis heading into the winter months. The challenges that lie ahead are unprecedented for football clubs in the country, but many around the world, including the A-Leagues and National Premier League, will be watching with keen interest to see how one of football’s biggest nations handles this crisis.
The A-League has just lost a Victorian club. The death of Western United and the suspension of its license by the Australian Professional Leagues (APL) on August 10th was inevitable. The club says it wants to rebuild and eventually return to the competition. That is unlikely to happen considering the search for new owners has to begin.
But one day after the announcement from Western United, South Melbourne stepped forward. The four-time NSL winners announced their intention to begin formal discussions with the APL about joining the A-Leagues. They believe the timing is right. Their argument is understandable. Their football credentials and history are stronger than most A-League teams.
But there is a problem. South Melbourne may have the history. It may have the supporters. It may even have one of the most attractive potential derbies in Australian football. But that does not mean it will get an A-League licence.
In fact, the more realistic prediction from my perspective is that South Melbourne will once again be told no.
South Melbourne has never been better placed
There is plenty to like about South Melbourne’s position. The club is not simply relying on its history. South Melbourne returned to national competition through the inaugural Australian Championship in 2025. It did not merely participate. South Melbourne won it. The club defeated Marconi Stallions 2-0 in the final to become the competition’s first champion.
That achievement matters. The Australian Championship was created to bridge state-based football and the professional game. Whilst it is seen as a second tier, there is no promotion and relegation with the A-League. But it has also continued to perform on the national stage. In the 2026 Australia Cup, which South Melbourne qualified for, they reached the final rounds and then produced one of the biggest results of the tournament.
Adelaide United came to Lakeside Stadium. South Melbourne won 2-1. Adelaide had won the Australia Cup three times. South knocked them out in front of its own supporters. They’re now into the quarter-finals of the 2026 Australia Cup.
South Melbourne celebrating the Australian Championship Image Credits: South Melbourne FC
The club also has a much bigger story to tell than its recent results. Alongside its four NSL victories, the club also won the 1999 Oceania Club Championship and represented Oceania at the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship. The club has a dedicated supporter base and the history to deserve a place.
The club says its Oceania Professional League participation has helped make it Australia’s 13th professional football club. It has more than 150 businesses supporting it in 2026 and a long-term arrangement at Lakeside Stadium, in the heart of South Melbourne.
On paper, it is difficult to argue that South Melbourne is not ready. The problem is that readiness and admission are two different things.
Third time’s the charm?
South Melbourne’s current push is not new. It has been here before. The club was pursuing an A-League return almost immediately after the NSL disappeared. In 2007, South announced its interest in becoming the second Victorian A-League club.
Then came the 2008-09 process. South Melbourne backed the Southern Cross bid for the second Victorian licence. The club proposed a new team based around the redevelopment of Bob Jane Stadium and involvement from the broader Victorian football community.
It lost. The Melbourne Heart bid won the race and eventually became Melbourne City. That was South Melbourne’s first major warning. Its football heritage was not enough. Its second major attempt came almost a decade later.
The 2017-18 expansion process produced the most serious South Melbourne bid yet. South made the shortlist for an expanded A-League licence. It ultimately lost to Western United. Bill Papastergiadis has since explained that he did not genuinely expect South Melbourne to win in 2018, despite believing strongly that the club belonged in the A-League. He also reflected on the barriers facing a traditional club trying to enter the existing Victorian professional football ecosystem.
That is important context for today’s bid. South Melbourne is not entering negotiations without understanding how difficult the politics and economics of the Victorian football market can be. The club has tried the direct route twice. Neither time worked.
The Western United lesson
This is where the current situation becomes complicated. In isolation, adding South Melbourne would be fantastic for the A-League. Imagine South Melbourne against Melbourne Victory. The atmosphere would be enormous.
There is a genuine football rivalry waiting to happen. South itself points to the potential for ready-made derbies and commercial interest. But the argument that Melbourne should simply have three A-League clubs because Melbourne is a huge city ignores what has just happened to Western United.
Western United was supposed to represent Melbourne’s rapidly growing west. Its original vision centred on a major project in Geelong. The club eventually moved into Ironbark Fields in Tarneit in 2024.
Yet the geographic separation never became as clear as the original concept suggested. Western United was not a Geelong club. It was not a regional Victorian club in the traditional sense. It was a western Melbourne club based and that matters.
The A-League already has Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory. Adding South Melbourne would give the competition three clubs operating within the same metropolitan football market. It is not necessarily brilliant for the business model, which has already lost a club operating on the outskirts of Melbourne.
The NSL offers an interesting historical comparison. The Falcons provide an even more striking Victorian example. They became the first and only regional Victorian club to play in the NSL, reaching the finals in 1996. The distinction is important.
A national competition can expand its footprint by adding genuinely new markets. That is different from adding another club inside an existing Melbourne metropolitan market. That was what was envisioned for Western United, and it failed quickly.
Will the APL see South Melbourne as a safe investment? Despite the fact they’re a well-established club, I’d argue the answer is no.
Promotion and relegation is the only realistic route
There is one scenario where South Melbourne could eventually force its way into the A-League, and that’s the great missing piece of Australian football. Promotion and relegation. South Melbourne would not need somebody to decide that Melbourne suddenly has room for another licence. It would simply need to earn it.
They would have done just that in 2025, winning the Australian Championship if the football pyramid was open. Football Australia originally designed the National Second Tier with the possibility of promotion and relegation being considered once the competition matured.
The format connects NPL clubs and established foundation clubs with national competition. It does not provide a sporting pathway into the A-League. South Melbourne can win the Australian Championship, NSL and Australia Cup but none of those achievements automatically produce an A-League licence.
South Melbourne in the Oceania Championship Image Credits: Oceania Championship
Opening the pyramid is far more complicated than simply announcing promotion and relegation. Australia’s football calendar is fragmented. The A-League operates primarily through the summer months. The NPL operates through the winter and early spring. For the 2026-27 season, the A-League Men runs from October to June, while the NPL begins in February and finishes in September.
That creates an enormous structural problem for a fully connected pyramid. The clubs below the A-League would need to operate at a level capable of supporting professional football. If the A-League aligned with the NPL and the lower pyramid, it would compete in a football calendar that already has to coexist with Australia’s other major winter sports. That is a difficult feat against bigger leagues such as the AFL and NRL.
Beyond that, clubs lower down would need travel budgets and to survive commercially would take real sacrifice from all parties to make that work. The A-League’s existing clubs also have something to lose. They have invested heavily in their licences and their businesses.
Historically, A-League licences were extended through to 2034, while those licence arrangements have included provisions allowing promotion and relegation to be introduced. But the existing clubs will do everything in their power to block it. Promotion and relegation removes certainty. An A-League club can finish last in the current system with no threat to their place. Under relegation, its place is no longer guaranteed.
That is a major commercial change for clubs that have invested in securing their position in the competition. It is therefore difficult to imagine the A-League opening the door. The A-League’s licensing system gives the competition enormous control over who enters, and for South Melbourne historically they’ve been left out in the cold.
South Melbourne deserves the conversation.
The frustrating part is South Melbourne has probably never had a stronger argument. It has history, supporters, infrastructure, commercial support and most importantly, ambition. Beating A-League clubs in national competition proves the capability is there.
It deserves to be in the conversation. But being in the conversation is not the same as being selected. The Western United experience should be a warning. If the A-League could not make the Western United project work, it is difficult to see why it would suddenly decide that another Melbourne club is the answer.
South Melbourne may be the better football story. It may even be the better football club. But the A-League is not simply selecting the best football story.
It is selecting a professional competition, and until Australia embraces a genuine promotion and relegation system, South Melbourne’s path back to the top flight will remain dependent on someone handing it a licence.
That is the part of the dream that looks unrealistic. South Melbourne can keep knocking and it should. They always say third time’s the charm. But unless the pyramid is opened, I expect the door to remain closed.
Bentleigh Greens has launched a fundraising campaign to support former president and long-serving volunteer Meno Menelaou following his recent diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis.
A highly respected figure at the NPL club, Menelaou has spent decades serving the Bentleigh Greens community in a range of volunteer and leadership roles, helping shape the club both on and off the field.
The fundraiser will assist Menelaou and his family with the costs of undergoing Autologous Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation treatment overseas.
The treatment is aimed at halting the progression of the disease but involves significant medical and travel expenses.
In announcing the initiative, Bentleigh Greens said the campaign was an opportunity for the football community to support someone who has dedicated years of service to the club.
“Meno has given so much to our club over many years. Now it’s our turn to give back,” the club said.
The club has encouraged supporters and members of the wider football community to contribute to the fundraiser or share the campaign to help raise awareness.
Bentleigh Greens said the support would help ease the financial burden on Menelaou and his family, allowing him to focus on his treatment and recovery.
Donations can be made through the club’s official fundraising campaign, found at the link below:
