Football Coaches Australia presents ‘The Football Coaching Life Podcast’ S2 Ep 9 with Gary Cole interviewing Phil Moss

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Phil Moss FCA

Phil Moss is currently the Head of Coaching & Distinctive Leadership at the National Australia Bank and President of Football Coaches Australia. He is also an analyst with Big Sports Breakfast in Sydney.

‘Mossy’ played his junior football in Manly Warringah and progressed as a senior player on the Central Coast and Eastern Suburbs before getting a professional contract with Northern Spirit in the National Soccer League, where he played with Graham Arnold, Robbie Slater and Ian Crook.

His coaching career began at Dee Why with a Championship win. He worked as an assistant with Graham Arnold at Central Coast Mariners, the Olyroos and Sydney FC in addition to enjoying two seasons as Head Coach at the Mariners. Phil has been a part of the successes at all of these clubs and helped the Olyroos qualify for the Olympic Games.

President of FCA since its inception, he describes the importance of FCA in ‘wrapping a collective arm around coaches’ in what can be a very lonely experience. He discusses the importance of ‘collaboration’ with Member Federations and Football Australia in achieving successful outcomes for football in Australia.

Phil also explains why he is proud of what FCA has achieved through a tough couple of years during Covid lockdowns and what the focus is for the organisation in both the short and long term.

This is a conversation filled with wisdom, as Mossy provides wonderful insight into moving from sports coaching into the corporate world. He also delves into the differences between coaching, leadership and developing resilience.

Please join me in sharing Phil Moss’ Football Coaching Life.

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Central Coast Mariners welcome TSG as new owners

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Image credit: Central Coast Mariners

The Australian Professional Leagues (APL) revealed yesterday the start of a new era for the Central Coast Mariners under the leadership of Total Soccer Growth Holdings (TSG).

 

New beginnings

The news of TSG being at the helm of the next chapter in the Mariners’ history marks an important new era for the club, just a few months on from entering into liquidation. The APL subsequently took over management of the club on a temporary basis while seeking the right buyer.

TSG enter into the frame with a wealth of experience in football club investments, from London to Los Angeles. The privately-owned business is a majority shareholder of Queens Park Rangers (EFL Championship) in addition to holding a stake in MLS outfit, Los Angeles FC.

Under the leadership of majority shareholder, Ruben Gnanalingam, the Mariners will be hoping for a season which moves beyond recent worrying times.

“We appreciate how turbulent and uncertain the last season has been for the Club and we intend to do our utmost to restore energy and enthusiasm for this special football club,” Gnanalingam outlined via media release.

“We were drawn to the Mariners because of its strong community spirit, a characteristic that mirrors other sporting organisations that we have the great privilege of being a part of around the world,”

APL CEO Steve Rosich further addressed the importance of community connection for the club’s future.

“We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the club’s dedicated fans, partners and staff and players, who have once again shown their loyalty and dedication to the Mariners.”

 

Mariners’ Women’s team remains in limbo

However, while TSG’s acquisition includes the men’s A-League team and club Academy teams, the A-League Women’s team does not feature in the deal.

As a result, the APL is continuing its search for investors to secure the future of the women’s team – who were victorious last year against Melbourne Victory in their first Grand Final appearance.

“Through the extensive due diligence process it became clear that the operation of the women’s team was not able to be included within the new operation with TSG,” Rosich continued.

“Seperately, we’ve begun working with parties to seek specific investment in the women’s team – and we’re working to ideally arrive at an outcome on this on or before 31 July to enable the team to operate in the 2026/27 season.”

 

Final thoughts

Fans, players and staff throughout the club will be hoping TSG is the leader they deserve in a new era for the A-League Men’s team and Academy teams.

Yet for the A-League Women’s team, uncertainty will persist throughout the coming weeks. It is vital, of course, that not just any investor comes in, but the right one to join TSG in supporting the club in its short and long-term future.

Football Australia Expands Mental Skills Program for Match Officials Amid Sustained Focus on Referee Retention

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Image Credit: Football NSW

Football Australia has confirmed a second national webinar for match officials, led by sports psychologist Dr Liam Slack, extending a referee development series introduced after strong engagement with an initial session on managing match-day pressure.

The upcoming session, themed “parking with purpose,” will focus on decision-making strategies designed to help referees process on-field calls and reset attention quickly across a match that can present hundreds of individual decisions. Dr Slack, who also consults with The Football Association and the AFC Referee Academy and previously spent over a decade as a performance psychologist with the Professional Game Match Officials Limited in England, brings substantial elite-level experience to a program open to officials at every level, from grassroots to professional.

The theme builds on work Dr Slack has already delivered within Australian officiating. He recently led a session with Football Australia’s National Referee Academy on the same concept, framing the ability to consciously park a decision and refocus on the next phase of play as a trainable skill rather than an innate trait, one that separates officials who reset quickly under pressure from those who don’t. He has also addressed more than 100 Football Australia elite match officials and staff on developing a stronger match-day mentality, an indication of how embedded this psychological framework has become across the officiating pathway rather than remaining a one-off intervention.

The expansion of the webinar series reflects a broader shift in how football administrators are approaching referee attrition. Rather than treating retention purely as a recruitment or pay problem, the program signals an institutional acknowledgment that the psychological demands of officiating, particularly the compounding pressure of split-second decisions under public scrutiny, are a material factor in whether officials remain in the game.

It rests alongside other measures adopted across Australian football in recent years, including visible identification programs for junior referees and structural reviews of referee departments at state federation level, all aimed at the same underlying issue: a shrinking pool of match officials relative to demand.

Football Australia has not detailed metrics for assessing the program’s impact on referee numbers, though the recurring engagement of an internationally credentialed specialist across multiple tiers of the officiating pathway suggests sustained institutional investment in the approach.

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