Football Australia has announced Paddy Steinfort as the new Performance Director.
Steinfort is set to take up his role from July 1, 2021 and will arrive as a highly credentialed and experienced addition from Major League Baseball team Boston Red Sox, where he most recently held the position of Senior Performance Coach.
His impressive career features several sporting organisations and high-performance environments in Australia and the United States, with his previous roles including Philadelphia 76ers, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Eagles and Adelaide Football Club.
He was also the Managing Director of Leading Teams New Zealand, where he played a vital role developing high performance cultures, teams and leaders across a number of sports around the globe, delivering innovative and tailored programs to organisations in leadership and high performance development.
At Football Australia, Steinfort will oversee the High Performance of all national teams, including the Socceroos and Matildas. His appointment highlights Football Australia’s strategic shift from a more administratively focused role to one dedicated towards working with the organisation’s highly experienced and skilled national team staff to enhance the high-performance environments around the national teams.
Football Australia CEO James Johnson identified Steinfort as a perfect fit for the strategic direction the organisation is heading in.
“Following an extensive recruitment process, Paddy was the stand-out from a highly competitive and global set of candidates. He brings an outstanding set of skills, cutting-edge global experience and high-performance knowledge and acumen to Football Australia,” Johnson said.
“Our national teams face some very unique challenges – players are located across the globe, they only gather a handful of times during the FIFA windows, qualification for major tournaments in Asia requires significant travel, and our players compete in some of the most demanding leagues and play for some of the most high profile sporting organisations in the world.
“We believe that Paddy is the ideal person to help us meet the challenges of modern-day international football and at the same time develop and implement innovative performance strategies for our teams and players. He will work in close partnership with our very experienced coaches to play a vital role in enhancing a culture of high-performance for our teams to perform at their optimum as we enter into a crucial period for our national teams.”
Head of Technical Direction, Pathways and Coach Education, Trevor Morgan applauded the appointment – who sat alongside James Johnson and Board member Amy Duggan on the recruitment panel.
“We are genuinely excited about the appointment of Paddy. He is an excellent communicator who understands the needs of elite athletes through experience he has developed across a range of professional sports at the highest level,” Morgan said.
“His appointment is well timed for our organisation and the strategic direction we are taking with our high performance and national teams.
“Paddy’s expertise and diverse skillset will help us evolve our practices with the cutting edge initiatives to improve performance on the global stage as we embark on a busy schedule of national team activity going forward.”
