Oakleigh Cannons well-placed to build on its competitive foundations

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The Oakleigh Cannons are a club who are a staple of the top tier of Victorian football.

The Cannons have competed in the Victorian National Premier League consecutively for the past 17 years, gaining promotion when they lifted the State League One Championship in 2003.

Since then, the senior men’s team have won one minor premiership in 2006, however have fallen to three grand final defeats in 2011, 2012 and 2016.

After eight games this season, the club currently sits in fifth place in NPL Victoria and are well placed to once again be up there at season’s end.

General Manager at Oakleigh, Aki Ionnas, believes the club can finally break their grand final hoodoo this year.

“I do believe that we can win it,” he told Soccerscene.

“Chris Taylor has put a very good squad together; all the boys are fantastic. We’re confident these boys can take us all the way.”

If it eventuates it will be a great reward for the club, based on the events of the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Like any other club, it was obviously hard,” Ionnas said.

“For players, kids, juniors, the committee…it was a hard season with no football.

“Kids are used to going to training and playing soccer, your supporters, your sponsors, your members are used to going down to the club, and before you know it, you’re at home in a lockdown.

“So, it was very hard mentally for a lot of people.”

The club was established in 1972 and currently plays its home games at Jack Edwards Reserve, a facility which seems like a perfect setup for a club who plays in the top level in Victoria.

The venue has a capacity of 4,000-5,000 people with upgrades over the years continuing to lift the overall standard of the facility.

“About six years ago our facilities got upgraded with a brand-new synthetic ground as well as a junior pavilion. That was done all through hard work from our chairman Kon Kavalakis, who was responsible in liaising with council and other key parties to get these facilities.

“We’ve recently had a state-of-the art scoreboard that’s gone up last year and started using it this year.

“There’s always work going into the improvement of facilities. Even though the synthetic ground was done six years, we’ve resurfaced it again only a year and a half ago to reach top FIFA standards.”

Ionnas revealed that the club was in the progress of talking to council in regards to further developing the ground, something that the AAFC partner club sees as a priority in the future.

Oakleigh’s General Manager is relatively confident that the club is ready to take the next step and enter a national second division when it eventuates.

“Look, it all depends once we see the final model that it’s financially viable,” he said.

“If it’s financially viable, then yes.

“It all depends on what the model is going to look like and what it’s going to cost. Speaking to a lot of clubs, that’s what they are all waiting for.

“We are an ambitious club, we would always like to compete at the highest level, we’ve got very good sponsors, very good backers, a very strong board who are all business minded and great infrastructure which we will eventually develop further.”

According to Ionnas, the strong affiliation the club has with the local Greek community has positively impacted the fortunes and finances of the club over their history.

“We’ve got very strong support obviously in the Greek community,” he said.

“We’ve had strong support for a long, long time. We’ve had a major supporter in Delphi Bank who has been our sponsor for 15 years I believe. It’s a massive thing for that to happen continuously.”

Ionnas hopes the club continues to be consistently competitive in the near future, across all aspects of the sport.

“Obviously, we want the club to be a strong club irrespective where it is playing, we want to be up there both on and off the park.

“Our chairman and president Stan Papayianneris have done enormous work, each in their own way, to get the club to where it is now. Oakleigh should remain a strong club because it’s got enormous support away from the field.

“We can’t thank everyone enough for supporting the club.”

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Bordeaux face uncertain future after American investor withdrawal

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Image Credits: EuropeanBestDestinations.com

Girondins de Bordeaux face their biggest crisis yet after their exclusion from France’s national competitions was upheld and proposed investor Park Bench walked away from a takeover. The club is on the brink of liquidation after poor financial management and failed ownership takeovers. The Paris Administrative Court rejected Bordeaux’s appeal in August. The court backed the decision that prevents the club from playing in national competitions for the 2026-27 season. Bordeaux will therefore this season remain in Régional 1, the sixth tier of French football.

The ruling followed a financial dispute with French football’s financial regulator, the DNCG. Bordeaux had presented additional financial guarantees after its previous hearing. The court ruled that those commitments could not be considered as part of that procedure.

The decision has now had a major impact on the club’s ownership plans. Park Bench, the US investment group working with Sparta Capital, has withdrawn from its proposed takeover. The group said its offer depended on Bordeaux remaining in the national championships. With that condition no longer possible, Park Bench decided not to proceed.

The withdrawal leaves Bordeaux in a difficult position. The club had hoped new investment would provide financial stability and help rebuild its sporting operation. Instead, the failure of the takeover leaves the future of the six-time French champions uncertain. Bordeaux has already endured several years of financial problems. The club lost its professional status in 2024 after bankruptcy proceedings and a previous administrative relegation. It then rebuilt its senior team in the second and third tiers of French football.

The latest exclusion represents another major setback. Bordeaux now needs to find a way to keep the club operating outside the national leagues. That means securing funding, meeting its financial obligations and establishing a sustainable ownership structure. The threat of judicial liquidation now hangs over the club.

In a statement issued in late August, Bordeaux said it would explore every remaining legal option after the administrative court ruling. But with Park Bench no longer backing the proposed takeover, the club has fewer options available.

The next priority will be survival. Bordeaux must find new financial backing or another solution to protect the club from liquidation. For one of France’s most historic and successful clubs, the immediate target is no longer a return to Ligue 1. It is simply making sure there is a club left to climb back.

Australia football needs to fix its football governance before it can fix its referees

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Image Credits: Football Australia

The clearest image yet of Australian football’s refereeing crisis arrived on Wednesday night as Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory met in an Australia Cup semi-final at Jubilee Stadium.

A first ever Big Blue in the competition – and towards it’s pointy end – should have been a showcase event for Australian football but instead, the referees were in the spotlight. Not because of the quality of their officiating, but because of the dire situation the game finds itself in and it’s present need to resort to international imports.

Four Singaporean referees were in charge of the fixture, which Victory won 2-0. Australian referees had refused appointments because of their ongoing dispute with Football Australia. The issue is no longer theoretical. Australian referees are not simply threatening industrial action – their absence has already changed how major matches are delivered. That is a governance failure on the part of Football Australia and the Australian Professional League.

What are the referees fighting for?

Around 90 elite Australian match officials are currently without contracts. That includes referees, assistant referees, fourth officials and video match officials working across the A-Leagues and Australia’s national competitions. The previous contracts expired last month. Some officials are also waiting for outstanding payments from A-League trial matches.

 The Professional Football Referees Association (PFRA) has set three main requirements:

  • It wants the existing contracts extended until June 30, 2027, or until a new agreement or independent refereeing structure is established. 
  • It wants all outstanding match fees and expenses paid.
  • It wants a professional refereeing structure that does not place elite officials directly under the APL, which is controlled by the clubs they officiate. A new central structure is what the referees are demanding and should get.

Evgeny Vizelman, chairman of the PFRA, believes that whilst the strike action is extreme, it is necessary to protect Australian referees.

“We do not take the decision to stop officiating matches lightly,” Vizelman told Sydney Morning Herald last week.

“Our referees are being asked to perform in one of the most scrutinised roles in Australian sport without basic certainty around their employment and, in some cases, without even being paid for work already completed. That is not acceptable.”

Football Australia and the APL have been working towards a new structure, but one in which the two organisations contract separately for Australia Cup and A-League matches. The referees believe that is the wrong model.

Their concern is simple: The APL is 67.7% owned by the A-League Club Unitholders. Essentially, the clubs are appointing their own referees. That creates a perceived conflict.

If the referees sit under Football Australia as a regulator, it ensures there is no conflict of interest and that A-League clubs have no opportunity to influence the referees they may be appointed to matches.

England shows another way

England has already built the structure Australia is struggling to create. Professional Game Referees, or Pro Ref, is the central body overseeing refereeing across the Premier League, EFL, WSL Football and FA competitions. It is funded by those aforementioned competitions.

The important distinction is those competitions do not each run their own separate professional refereeing workforce. Pro Ref manages the system. It oversees appointments, development, training and performance. For the 2026-27 season, its new Professional Referee Group will service the Premier League and EFL Championship.

Officials work within the same professional structure and can be selected across competitions. That centralisation brings consistency. It also allows referees to be treated as a professional group rather than a collection of officials contracted separately by different competitions.

Whilst it is centralised, the system is not perfect. England has also recognised the need for greater independence in assessing referee performances due to Pro Ref being owned and funded by leagues and, as a result, the clubs they represent. However, as the body is also owned in part by the English FA, the governing body can oversee practices.

Pro Ref has also implemented world-leading officiating practices. Its Key Match Incidents panel includes former players and coaches, alongside representatives from the Premier League and Pro Ref, and reviews major decisions independently each week.

Pro Ref now has dedicated development groups, specialist coaching, sports science, psychology and performance analysis. 37 Pro Ref officials are currently on the FIFA International List. That does not prove centralisation alone creates better referees. But it shows what happens when refereeing receives a professional structure, long-term investment and consistent management.

Australian football needs to collaborate

This is where the Australian dispute becomes bigger than referees. Football Australia and the APL have been unable to secure agreement over who funds the referees over a long period of time, leading to this standoff; it comes at the same time as the APL’s difficulty in negotiating a new CBA with the players’ union.

 Both organisations have a role in running their respective parts of the Australian game, but again an industrial dispute has the game appearing in shambles on the eve of another domestic season.

 The most frustrating part of this dispute is that everyone needs the same thing. Football Australia and the APL need referees; there is no doubt the refs deeply value their employment at the elite level. With due respect to Wednesday’s flow-in Singaporean officials – themselves from a valued partner member through our shared position in the AFC – nobody wants to see the circumstances under which they were required on Wednesday continue any longer.

The PFRA dispute should therefore be treated as more than an industrial disagreement. It is an opportunity to fix the structure. Australia should learn from the principle behind Pro Ref and the English system. Centralise, professionalise and protect the officials who manage the game.

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