Football Queensland release 2024-2026 Women & Girls Strategy

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Football Queensland has released its ambitious new 2024-2026 Women & Girls Strategy, focusing on achieving the wider Football Australia (FA) objective of 50/50 gender parity in participants, referees, committees, and club officials by 2027.

To maintain and enhance the 44% increase in women’s participation in the sport, Football Queensland has organised its program into 3 Strategic Pillars, presenting the certain initiatives they wish to undertake and key performance indicators (KPIs) they wish to achieve.

Pillar 1: Participation and Clubs

This Pillar is based on creating a culture of inclusivity and diversity in the sport for women to feel valued and empowered to play, coach, administer and referee football at every level.

Their plans include:

  • Conducting a deep analysis of club data to identify key clubs and areas for women’s participation and share their practices at a state level.
  • Expand certain initiatives and develop partnerships that will enhance all facets of the women’s game. Including the Girls United program and higher education girl-tailored scholarships.
  • Taking a stronger focus on women and girls refereeing with tailored training programs, recruitment campaigns and courses.
  • Developing their promotional strategy and pathways to better represent and retain girls’ and women’s participation.

The targets include:

62,000 women and girl players, 1,800 female referees and 5,700 Girls United participants by 2026. Also, they want 100% of Queensland club boards, committees and FQ members meeting the 40/40/20 gender representation by 2027.

Pillar 2: Advanced Pathways is split into two sections.

Section 1: Player development

To work with shareholders to maintain their high standards of providing adequate high-performance facilities and developing educational and technology-backed programs with access to further the careers of the most talented athletes.

Their plan includes:

  • To co-fund and enhance the FQ Academy QAS program with diversified Talent Identification (TID) and Long-Term Talent Development (LATD) goals and action plans. This includes upgrades to the Home of Football facility.
  • To enhance pathways with strengthened rural and statewide FQ academy clubs with more events, interstate competitions and Queensland A league teams. Especially with single age groups in academy leagues.

The targets include:

The FQ Academy QAS program remains the leading talent development academy with state-of-the-art facilities hosting extensive high-level interstate-wide competitions. With state-wide gold rate academies, an athlete management program, and clear career paths to professional leagues from NPL, A-League to the Matildas.

Pillar 2 Section 2: Coaching Development

Creating more opportunities including female-only courses for technical experts, analysts, academy directors, development, and high-performance coaches.

Developing female-only advanced courses such as a Coach Education Tutors workforce to train CETs for C and B Diplomas and the first Technical Director course with scholarships and clear pathways to permanent full-time coaching, analysts and support staff programs through diversifying roles in FQ and clubs and a digital platform for enhanced education accessibility.

Also, a recognition system to increase female technical staff numbers and increase storytelling awareness and representation of achievements in promotions.

The targets include:

9,400 female coaches with 25 Advanced Female Technical Directors with advanced scholarships and female coaches in full-time roles within the clubs, member federations, and 20% Queensland player and coach representation national team programs.

Pillar 3: Infrastructure

To break down the lack of facilities for the women’s game with Queensland Infrastructure Strategy by providing appropriate facilities for players to have the resources to play and represent the state at the very highest level.

This includes working closely with the Queensland Government to get infrastructure investment for the next 3 to help provide more unisex change rooms and female-friendly facilities. While upgrading fields, clubhouse and spectator seating across strategic spots over the state.

Key endeavours include a combined Home of Women’s Football and Women’s Centre of Excellence and securing a second Regional High-Performance Centre in Central Queensland.

The KPI is to attain the Queensland Government’s $60m infrastructure investment over the next three years and Queensland’s Home of Football as a high-performance facility.

This announcement of the Strategy plan presents a convincing and well-planned out mission by FQ to enhance the growing women’s and girls’ game in the state and be on track to delivering the Football Australia 50/50 equality strategy.

You can read the 2024-2026 Women & Girls Strategy in full here.

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JH Allan Reserve in Keilor East to undergo lighting upgrades

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Image credit: Football Victoria

After strong backing from the community and Football Victoria, Moonee Valley City Council confirmed the green light for upgrades to proceed later this year.

Resounding support

Ahead of the council meeting on Tuesday 24 March, Football Victoria and five Moonee Valley Council clubs created a petition backing lighting improvements at JH Allan Reserve.

What followed was an astounding 624 signatures – a demonstration of the power of united, community support. As a result, main tenants Moonee Ponds United SC and four addition clubs (including Essendon Royals FC, Avondale FC, FC Strathmore and the Moonee Valley Knights) will all benefit from the developments.

“As one of the only facilities within Moonee Valley not shared with other codes, ensuring that JH Allan Reserve meets the needs of our participants is crucial for Football Victoria,” said FV Head of Government Relations and Strategy, Lachlan Cole.

“It was fantastic to see participants and officials from those five clubs come together, support this project, and unite to speak on behalf of their needs. And it was even more heartening to see the wider football community throw their support behind the development by signing the petition.”

 

A long-awaited verdict

The decision comes as a huge step forward for the local football community, arriving after an extended process of consultations and surveys.

In September 2022, Moonee Valley City Council endorsed the Moonee Valley Soccer Strategy, which sought to identify potential upgrades at JH Allan Reserve.

Furthermore, during the community consulation between March and April 2023, 365 people participated in a survey regarding the developments. In the end, 65% of responses supported or strongly supported the installation of sports lighting at the ground.

It is therefore clear that, for much of the community, this was a cause worth fighting for. Over three years since the initial endorsement from Moonee Valley City Council, JH Allan Reserve is now set for a vital upgrade.

Final thoughts

More importantly, however, are the current and future athletes who will feel the benefit from these developments.

Football participation is growing and will continue to do so, in Moonee Valley, Victoria and Australia as a whole. That is why developments like this are so vital.

They are not merely nice to have, but are fundamental to supporting future footballers in the community by providing them with the facilities and environment to play.

Football SA Commits $100,000 to Referee Fuel Subsidy as Cost-of-Living pressure Mounts

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Football South Australia has announced a fuel subsidy scheme for match officials across its semi-professional competitions, allocating up to $100,000 for the remainder of the 2026 season in response to rising fuel costs that the governing body says are threatening the delivery of fixtures across the state.

The subsidy, effective immediately, covers referees officiating across the RAA National Premier League, Apex Steel Women’s National Premier League, Apex Steel Women’s State League, HPG Homes State League 1 and State League 2. The subsidy spans senior, reserves and under-18 competitions across both men’s and women’s football.

Under the metro scheme, reimbursements will be tiered against the average Adelaide unleaded petrol price recorded each Friday, applying to all matches played in the following seven-day period. Officials will receive $30 per match day when the average price sits at $3.25 or above, $25 between $2.75 and $3.24, and $20 between $2.35 and $2.74. No subsidy applies below $2.34. For regional matches, referees travelling to Port Pirie, Barossa and Whyalla will see their per-kilometre reimbursement rise from 88 cents to $1.26 when petrol prices exceed $2.35.

All subsidy payments will be funded directly by Football SA, with no cost passed to competing clubs.

The Economics behind the Whistle

Fuel prices in South Australia, as across much of Australia, have been running at elevated levels against the backdrop of an ongoing imperialist war on Iran that has sent shockwaves through global oil markets. Iran’s targeting of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant proportion of the world’s oil supply passes, has disrupted shipping and contributed to price surges that are being felt at service stations in Adelaide as acutely as anywhere.

For match officials, who are overwhelmingly volunteers or low-paid part-time workers travelling to multiple venues across a season, those price surges are not an abstraction. They are a direct financial disincentive to take on appointments, particularly in outer metropolitan and regional areas where travel distances are significant and the cost of attending a game can approach, or exceed the payment for officiating it.

The consequences are cancelled fixtures, forfeited points, disrupted seasons and players who stop turning up to clubs that cannot guarantee them a game.

“This initiative recognises the critical role match officials play in delivering competitions,” CEO Michael Carter said in the announcement, “and aims to reduce the impact of travel costs across the 2026 season.”

A Structural Problem, a Seasonal Solution

The subsidy applies only to the 2026 season. Football SA has been careful to frame it as a response to current conditions rather than a permanent structural change. The $100,000 allocation is described as subject to fuel prices remaining at current levels, with the final amount invested likely to vary as the weekly threshold calculations play out across the season.

That framing is honest about what the scheme is and isn’t. It does not resolve the underlying question of whether referee payments in community and semi-professional football are adequate relative to the demands placed on officials. It remains a question that transcends the current fuel price environment and will outlast it. What it does is buy time and goodwill in a moment when both are in short supply.

Sport, and football in particular, depends on a volunteer and semi-volunteer workforce that is increasingly being squeezed by the same cost-of-living pressures affecting every other part of Australian life. When the price of petrol rises, the people who feel it first are not the players or the clubs, it’s the officials, the committee members and the volunteers who make the infrastructure of community sport function.

Football SA’s decision to absorb that cost rather than pass it to clubs is a recognition that the referee pipeline is fragile in ways that are not always visible until it breaks. The SAPA review into South Australian football, released earlier this month, identified referee development and retention as one of the most pressing structural challenges facing the game in the state, recommending greater investment in recruitment and suggesting affiliation fee subsidies for clubs that bring new officials into the system.

Friday’s announcement does not go that far. But in a season already defined by uncertain economic and geopolitical circumstance, the levy sends a clear enough signal about where Football SA’s priorities lie.

The fuel levy will be calculated each Friday using average Adelaide prices listed on Fuel Price Australia, with payments made to officials on the regular weekly schedule.

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