English FA and Leeds Beckett University announce innovative project with Playermaker

Staff Writer

After a successful two years working on a project that explores the demands of the women’s game, a partnership between Leeds Beckett University and the English FA has been extended for a third year. This will see further development and even more in-depth insights into the locomotor and technical demands of the game.

Playermaker, a world-leader in football performance tracking technology, is providing support for the initiative.

The research aims to better understand the demands on players within the women’s game, and what learnings can be taken from the insights obtained to drive the game forward.

The research programme instigated by the English FA includes a collaboration with Leeds Beckett University to appoint a PhD student and a Post-doctoral researcher. They are using insights gathered from the data to answer performance questions the FA gave, whilst offering data insights directly back to clubs involved in the project to inform their training strategies.

“Understanding the demands and developments within the women’s game is crucial to offering the relevant support to players as they seek to fulfil their full potential,” Project Lead Ryan King said.

“Our pioneering project looks to answer a key performance problem; How physically demanding is the game and how can we best develop and prepare players? Using the innovative Playermaker technology and the brilliant minds at Leeds Beckett we will be able to provide performance solutions that help maximise player potential and avoid load related injury issues – it is phenomenally exciting.”

As part of the project, players have been granted the opportunity to access and use the innovative Playermaker wearable technology in matches through the FIFA Innovation Programme. It will enable a wealth of data and insight to be captured on match characteristics and leveraged to better understand the demands of the women’s game and to inform training prescription.

Football boots with the Playermaker technology attached.

For the first year of the project, a number of Barclays FA Women’s Super League Senior teams, Academies and FA Women’s Championship clubs wore the Playermaker technology in training, offering world-first insight into how clubs train and prepare teams.

Following acceptance into the FIFA Innovation Programme, the second year of the project allowed clubs to use it in games, giving a unique perspective of the demands of elite women’s football and how we prepare and develop players to maximise their potential.

“This is a really exciting project to be working on with the FA and Playermaker. The acceptance of Playermaker into the FIFA Innovation Programme is a big milestone in the project as this allows us to better understand the physical demands of the game,” Dr Stacey Emmonds, a Reader in Sports Performance at Leeds Beckett University’s Carnegie School of Sport, said.

“As part of the research project, Leeds Beckett have developed interactive live training and match dashboards for each club in the project and an overall dashboard for the FA. These provide clubs with live analysis of their training and match data, and it also allows them to make comparisons to anonymised league averages.

“This enables the clubs to directly integrate the project research findings into daily training practices at the club and further develop evidence informed practice in women’s football.”

The project aims to better inform coaching staff, multi-disciplinary practitioners and athletes, who as a result will be able to make educated decisions about training priorities and managing injuries, and to better understand training load and match intensity.

This is coupled with the ongoing club-specific live data visualisation and feedback tools developed by Leeds Beckett on a raft of performance metrics against league averages. These provide live training insights which clubs can use to enhance physical development strategies.

Thanks to the work being conducted by the organisations, the resulting research programme and the participation of clubs; the data will help to innovate, support, and invest in the already phenomenal talent within the women’s game.

“We are thrilled that professional female footballers will now be able to use Playermaker technology in both game and training environments, as a result of the support and efforts of The FA, Leeds Beckett University and FIFA’s Innovation Programme,” Playermaker CEO and Co-Founder Guy Aharon said.

“The research that is being carried out is crucial to driving forward the women’s game, and we are proud to play a part in investing in and raising the bar for female football athletes overall.

“Beyond this, having the Playermaker wearable device approved for the first-time in professional matches is a huge milestone as our vision is for our technology to be available at all levels of the game, providing the ability for anyone who is passionate about the game to improve using our insights and data.”

Leeds Beckett University will be hosting a Football Exchange Research Conference on Saturday May 21, 2022 – where further insights from this research and similar projects in other professional football organisations will be shared.

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Arncliffe Aurora’s Riverine Park investment creates a platform for growth

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Image Credits: Arncliffe Aurora

Arncliffe Aurora Football Club has started a new chapter with the launch of Riverine Park, creating a larger platform for football, community engagement and long-term growth in Sydney’s St George region. More than 2,500 people attended the community opening on 8 August, marking the club’s first matches at its new home and showcasing a significant upgrade in its operating capacity.

Riverine Park provides two full-size natural turf football fields, modern player and community amenities, and a new clubhouse. The additional capacity responds to strong growth in Arncliffe Aurora’s football programs, particularly at junior level. The club has also highlighted a $2.5 million investment in facility upgrades. Together with its existing Arncliffe Park base, Riverine Park gives Aurora two homes and a stronger physical platform for its football operations.

More capacity allows the club to accommodate more teams, players and programs, while updated facilities can support stronger member retention and recruitment. They create more opportunities for coaching, development programs, events and community activities. The new site can also strengthen the club’s commercial proposition; a modern facility gives sponsors greater visibility and provides more opportunities to activate partnerships around football and community events. It can also help the club build relationships with schools, community organisations and football bodies. That matters as grassroots clubs increasingly operate as community hubs rather than simply sporting organisations.

Riverine Park also creates opportunities for the wider football ecosystem. Football St George has identified the facility as a platform to grow participation and provide opportunities for players of different ages, abilities and backgrounds. Bayside Council’s project includes upgraded change rooms, toilets, canteen facilities, lighting, seating and solar panels, adding further functionality to the precinct.

For Arncliffe Aurora, the investment is therefore about more than adding fields. It creates infrastructure that can support participation, player development, community programs and commercial activity over the long term. The challenge now shifts from construction to utilisation. The club must maximise the new capacity, maintain the assets and convert greater participation into a sustainable operating model to benefit the community long-term.

The Young Socceroos exposed one of Australian football’s biggest problems

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Image Credit: AFC

Australian football has spent years trying to create a clearer structure for the game.

But one question keeps resurfacing: who is actually responsible when the interests of Australian football collide?

The Young Socceroos failing to qualify for the 2027 AFC U20 Asian Cup is the latest example.

Australia finished third in its qualification group after a 2-0 defeat to Indonesia, failing to qualify for a tournament it won in 2025.

The result itself was disappointing. But the circumstances around the squad selection were arguably more so.

Several A-League players were unavailable because their clubs did not release them for the qualification campaign. Melbourne City’s Lawrence Wong and Medin Memeti and Adelaide United’s Amlani Tatu were among those affected.

The reason is straightforward. The U20 qualification tournament fell outside a FIFA international window, meaning clubs were not obliged to release players. A previous agreement between Football Australia and A-League clubs had allowed national teams to select domestic players outside those windows, but that arrangement expired.

That leaves a much bigger question than whether three players should have been available.

Why was there not a structure in place that could resolve this conflict before it became a problem?

One game, multiple priorities

The answer is partly structural.

Football Australia is responsible for the national teams and the broader national framework. The APL operates and commercialises the A-Leagues. State federations oversee their own competitions and development structures, while clubs have their own commercial, sporting and player-development priorities. Meanwhile, the PFA represents the players.

Football Australia’s own governance outline acknowledges the unbundling of Football Australia and the APL was completed at the end of 2020, while noting the two organisations still need to collaborate across areas including pathways, community football and national teams.

On paper, that separation makes sense.

In practice, difficulties emerge when the model is tested and conflicts of interest emerge.

A club has an obligation to its competition and its squad. Football Australia has an obligation to its national teams. Players have career considerations, while the APL has commercial and scheduling interests. State bodies have their own competitions and pathways.

None of those interests in isolation are necessarily unreasonable.

The problem comes when they point in different directions.

The cost of fragmentation

This is not the first time the club-versus-country question has reared its head.

The same issue has affected Australia’s youth pathways before. In 2012, then-national technical director Han Berger acknowledged the particular difficulty Australia faces because many young players are overseas and youth international tournaments are often held outside FIFA windows, meaning clubs are not obligated to release their players.

And there is a broader irony here.

Australian football is producing young players good enough to attract serious international interest. A-League clubs are increasingly important development environments, with 15 A-League players included in Australia’s 2025 U20 World Cup squad.

Yet the system seems to struggle coordinating those same players when the national team needs them.

That is not necessarily a club problem.

It is a system problem.

Who gets the final say?

The answer cannot simply be that Football Australia should have more power.

Nor should clubs be expected to sacrifice their own interests whenever national teams come calling.

The real issue is whether Australian football has clearly defined the points at which the interests of the national team, professional clubs and players intersect and importantly, where they take priority.

If it has, those rules need to be understood and consistently applied.

If it hasn’t, this should be the catalyst to fix them.

Because the consequences extend beyond one U20 tournament.

Australia’s youth national teams are part of the country’s player-development pathway. International tournaments provide players with experience, exposure and opportunities to progress. The U20 Asian Cup also serves as a pathway towards the FIFA U20 World Cup.

Missing that pathway matters.

At the same time, A-League clubs are investing in academies, recruiting young players and trying to build sustainable professional businesses. They cannot simply operate as talent suppliers for national teams without considering their own competitive and commercial interests.

That tension is natural, and not going away.

Australian football needs alignment, not another power struggle

The answer may therefore be less about deciding who is in charge and more about establishing who is responsible for what.

Football Australia, the APL, clubs, state federations and the PFA do not need identical objectives.

But they do need a common framework for the moments when those objectives collide.

That could mean clearer player-release agreements, longer-term scheduling coordination and defined mechanisms for resolving disputes before squads are announced.

The alternative is a cycle of arguments.

Clubs blame national team scheduling. National teams point to player availability. Players find themselves caught between employers and country. Fans are left wondering why a supposedly connected football system cannot agree on something as fundamental as making Australia’s best young players available for an international tournament.

That is why the Young Socceroos’ failure to qualify should prompt a bigger conversation than whether three A-League players were released.

Australian football has spent years building separate professional, national and community structures.

The next challenge is making those structures work as one.

Because when nobody has the authority or responsibility to resolve the competing interests, everyone can have a legitimate position and Australian football can still lose.

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