Q&A with Danny Townsend: “We are about unifying the game”

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Danny Townsend

When the Matildas crashed out of the Women’s Asian Cup and the Socceroos dropped points to China in a crucial World Cup qualifier, Australia’s football public descended into a familiar tailspin of existential angst. The following weeks have seen attention turn back to our domestic leagues, and the hand-wringing has continued. Now over three months into the Australian Professional League’s first full season in charge of the A-League Men’s and Women’s competitions, discontent regarding the game’s new broadcast era has grown to a chorus, while VAR remains a frequent point of contention as is a National Second Division and Domestic Transfer System.

APL Managing Director Danny Townsend, who is transitioning into the CEO role within the organisation, sat down with Soccerscene to discuss their position on the multitude of issues facing the game.

What’s your thoughts on behalf of the APL about Paramount+ and how they’ve fared across the first three months of your partnership?

Danny Townsend: We’re really happy about the relationship we have with ViacomCBS and Paramount+ as a collective. They’ve been really supportive from the moment we did our deal, and as with all new relationships, as you increase new production capabilities and they’re setting up new streaming platforms for live sport. It’s going to come with teething problems and we’ve seen those.Is Paramount+ a minimum viable product (MVP) like KEEPUP, given it’s rather rudimentary offerings of user functionality?Danny Townsend: I wouldn’t say MVP because Paramount+ was designed for episodic viewership of movies and other programming, not for live sport. So what they’re trying to do is land a live sports proposition within a streaming environment that wasn’t set up for that, and that’s why you’re missing some of those functional elements that you might have on a more established live sports platform like Kayo or Optus Sport. Paramount’s product roadmap is very much to have those functions in place sooner rather than later.

Can we expect the ability to pause and rewind matches, or stream them on demand while still live as increased functions on Paramount?Danny Townsend: Their communication strategy is their own. I think our commitment to our fans is to keep them informed and be transparent where possible – that’s the way we like to operate and lead an organisation. It was imperative that we got out and reacted to fan sentiment to provide some background on why we are where we are, and what we’re doing collectively to move it forward. For a lot of the streaming services around the country and across the world in their first season, it’s going to throw up some challenges. No doubt we’ll overcome them, and they’ll be a distant memory once things are rocking and rolling.

The APL have been on the front foot recently regarding your relationship with Network 10. There have been issues regarding the forced implementation of ad breaks, are we starting to see changes here?Danny Townsend: We had really productive meetings with Ten, and they’ve been great in partnership to react to things that we’ve collectively felt wasn’t sitting right. You’ll see a different process around that insertion and hopefully that’s one that is far less intrusive and maintains the flow of the game.We’re now three months into a deal that has free-to-air components. Has the APL benefited, or will this take longer to quantify?Danny Townsend: Has it been successful? Absolutely. Our collective reach that we’ve managed over the first 11 weeks has been far greater than the sum of the parts over the last three seasons on the previous broadcast platforms. As with anything, I wouldn’t say we’re ecstatic about the size of the viewership against what we planned for. But we’ve moved away from a broadcast arrangement that was in place since the inception of the competition, so when you move things to a different platform it’s going to take a bit of time for fans to adapt. That adoption will no doubt come, and we’ve just got to work with Ten to drive the exposure of the competition and the league to ensure all our fans know where to find us.

Paramount+ & ViacomCBS took over the A-Leagues broadcasting rights from the start of the 2021/22 season.

The AAFC has released their ‘final report’ into a National Second Division and have said they’re going to roll in 2023. You’ve mentioned that they are yet to engage with you on the matter, so would it be fair to say the top tier and potential second tier are existing separately at this point?Danny Townsend: They are separate, and we’ve made it clear to the AAFC that we’re here for consultation if they’d like our input. We’ve said from the beginning we are about unifying the game, not the opposite, despite some consistent rhetoric in the marketplace from some people. We want to see what’s best for football, and we want to help the NSD be successful because that’s great for football in this country. We’re here and willing, we’d love to understand the plans more and we’d love to see how that orientates around our A-League youth competition.Does the APL have a list of requirements of what you’d like if the AAFC were to come to you regarding stitching two competitions together?Danny Townsend: Not specifically. What we’d like to see is their plans in detail, and also if they have any questions around what we think we can help them with. They are the basic consultation points that you start with and from there you can really dig into specific areas and identify the logical place to start.

James Johnson said Football Australia may make ‘aggressive decisions to start implementing a Domestic Transfer System’, and also believes the transfer system and the salary cap can co-exist. Is it the case you haven’t been part of the consultation process around a Domestic Transfer System?Danny Townsend: It depends how you define consultation. We received the initial 100-odd page report that laid out some of their thinking around the DTS, but it was vague in terms of the specific mechanics that would impact the professional clubs and the players. Our request was for more detail – that hasn’t happened as yet, but we expect it to happen shortly given James’ desire to move quickly.

What is the APL’s position on the salary cap at this point?Danny Townsend: We have a five year Collective Bargaining Agreement, and out of respect and commitment to the PFA that’s only just been negotiated prior to any release of a DTS strategy. Any conversations with the FA around a DTS must be done in a tri-party fashion with the PFA, ourselves and FA. We’re always open to having those conversations.

The VAR hit a new low recently. Have we moved to a point where the clubs would consider moving on?Danny Townsend: We did see a new low and the FA came out on Wednesday and took responsibility for the situation, which was important. But long-term, or even shorter term, we have to go through an assessment process of where it’s at. It’s been around five years now, we pioneered it in many respects in Australia, and it’s never really been perfect.There are a lot of stats that support it’s retention. I think there are 40-odd decisions a year overturned correctly that have impacted outcomes in matches. If those 40 decisions had resulted in outcomes that were incorrect, I’m sure there would have been a fair degree of uproar as well, so I think sometimes those things are glossed over.Nevertheless, you always need to re-evaluate things. You need to look at ways to either move forward in a more effective manner, or move away from it entirely, and that’s the position we are in. One thing’s for sure, we’ve got to action something. We can’t just sit back and listen to the vitriol that followed that match and do nothing about it.The Sydney Morning Herald reported the APL was considering an application to Football Australia to have the A-League’s visa player quota changed to a 4+1 rule to include a designated AFC player. If that’s correct, where is the application at?Danny Townsend: We didn’t suggest we’d make an application to Football Australia. We did suggest that we were looking at an Asian player strategy that would allow us to incentivise clubs to bring Asian players into the A-Leagues, largely to connect with the migrant populations that exist all over Australia that at the moment don’t connect to the domestic competition, and probably support football in other countries. That was really the nub of it, but if we were to go down that path it would require a consultation and request from Football Australia to change that five foreigners rule. At the end of the day the rule is five foreigners – if we were to change that to 4+1 that’s really something for the APL to manage and drive.On top of engaging with communities here, could that be something that’s used to package up the competition and generate revenue through selling broadcast rights to Asian markets?Danny Townsend: That’s going to be key to the strategy. The primary reason would be to engage domestic & new Australians, but the upside you get out of your broadcast rights into those markets would definitely be a bonus. We didn’t see a huge impact on the Japanese rights when we had Keisuke Honda in the competition. To be frank, I think there are markets in South-East Asia that we would definitely benefit from having those players in the A-Leagues.

Japanese midfielder Keisuke Honda was a notable marquee for Melbourne Victory.

There have been calls from the public to professionalise the A-League Women’s competition in recent weeks, or to at least expand its length. Is this a realistic proposition, and if so where does that funding come from? Could that be through the use of the recently acquired SilverLake investment, or through raising capital from elsewhere?

Danny Townsend: It’s a range of things. The funding for it is not going to come out of one single area. The clubs have been investing in women’s football for 12 years now and have been at the forefront of the development pathway for the Matildas. The APL as a function of those 12 clubs remains committed to continuing to improve the standards and grow the competition, both from the number of teams, but importantly the number of games per season.

‘We know it comes with significant cost, and we need to find ways to drive more commercial returns out of the women’s game to make it more financially sustainable. The government needs to play a role in that. They’ve committed funds to Football Australia for women’s football that’s largely been spent on the Matildas, and none of which has really flowed down to the national women’s competition. But it’s for the APL to go out and lobby the government, much like Football Australia has done. We have to continue to invest and make sure the A-League Women’s is up there with the top three women’s competitions in the world, as we believe it should be.

You’ve recently mentioned that an A-League fantasy product was on the way, but that attention may have been turned by the NFT space?

Danny Townsend: This is an emerging proposition all sports need to engage with and develop an understanding of, especially with the pace it’s moving at. One thing we’ve noticed through the fantasy process is that NFTs, or tokenisation, of fantasy competitions is coming to the forefront. What we don’t want to do is build an analogue fantasy product knowing there is a digital one right around the corner. We were way down the road on a fantasy product to launch this year and we’re still committed to doing that, it just may be a different form to include a degree of tokenisation.Given the competitive nature of fantasy competitions and the financial aspect of tokenisation, does that then take the product towards a form of gambling?

Danny Townsend: No, it’s basically about buying a token or an NFT that relates to a certain card in that fantasy competition that gives you more benefits than a standard card unattached to a token. There’s various different ways in which it’s applied but it’s certainly not a form of gambling.

LaLiga partnered with Sorare to launch their NFTs.

What about more traditional means of peripheral media to push the game into schools and promote engagement with younger markets, such as matchday programmes or A-Leagues trading cards?Danny Townsend: It’s about picking a strategy and going hard with it. We’ve been really clear that we wanted to get into a digital first, direct-to-consumer space with our fanbase, which is why we’ve invested so heavily in KEEPUP. That’s at the MVP stages and about 20% of the utility and capacity that it will be by the end of the phase two build later this year.

Trading cards and how they play out will be more likely to be digital. Matchday programmes in a physical sense aren’t the future. To an extent, print media is something we want to dive into because there’s still a significant number of our fans that are more traditional in media consumption and we can’t ignore them. It’s finding that balance to really drive the digital strategy and still service those that may not be as engaged in digital.Finally, while KEEPUP is in the MVP stage, what can be done for the rest of this season so the game’s most engaged or casual fans can understand when games are on?

Danny Townsend: Even I’m struggling with the ever-changing fixture list! Our plan is about considering the user experience and by the time we have a second phase launch prior to the finals series, a lot of the bugs and functionality that aren’t quite working will be addressed so the functionality of the MVP is world class.

At the moment it’s far from that. We have a lot of plans to bring utility into it, such as fantasy, which a football consumer is looking for, but we’ve got to get the MVP right, and there’s a lot of work being done behind the scenes since we launched it. The back end of it is being moved around in order to facilitate the user experience change. A huge amount of work is being done and you’ll start to see gradual shifts in the way the platform is working, and by the end of the season we’ll have it in a good place. We’ll have that functionality that we know will drive more engagement and have the digital experience improved.

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Victorian Labor commits $500,000 to Thornbury Football Facility as State Election Advocacy Intensifies

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Image Credit: Kat Theophanous MP Facebook

The Victorian Labor Party has confirmed $500,000 in 2026-27 State Budget funding to upgrade facilities at Mayer Park in Thornbury, with Northcote MP Kat Theophanous joining Darebin United juniors for a training session earlier this month to mark the commitment. The funding follows a public campaign by Football Victoria highlighting the ground’s deteriorating conditions, and lands within an escalating advocacy effort by the sport ahead of the next Victorian election.

The money will go toward upgrading the playing surface and planning a new pavilion at a ground that has received no infrastructure investment in over a decade, according to Football Victoria, despite participation at Darebin United more than quadrupling in that time. The club fielded five teams in 2021. It now fields more than 20, with over 300 players including more than 130 children under 12 and over 70 female players.

That growth has collided directly with the limits of the ground itself. Mayer Park has no drainage and no synthetic surface, and Football Victoria reported that Darebin United lost 23 training sessions in 2024 alone due to unsafe, waterlogged conditions. Club President Michael Slaughter described a pitch that was uneven and at times dangerous, particularly for junior and female players.

“I have been there for six years, and the club is at a stage now that we need something new,” Slaughter said in comments to Football Victoria earlier this year. “There’s only so many training sessions you can cancel, and then there’s the cost of finding alternative grounds indoors or outdoors, which isn’t ideal.”

A campaign that found its target

Football Victoria published a dedicated article in March calling on Darebin City Council to urgently prioritise redevelopment of Mayer Park, explicitly linking the club’s case to its broader Level the Playing Field campaign. Three months later, the funding arrived, not from council, but from the state government, attached to the local member’s name and delivered with a photo opportunity on the training pitch.

A club’s need becomes visible through governing body advocacy, a local member adopts the cause, and the funding is announced as a direct response to community need rather than as a line item in a broader budget process. Theophanous’s own account of the announcement makes the local framing explicit, describing the investment alongside free public transport, school upgrades and registration discounts as part of what she has billed as “easier, safer and more affordable” support for Northcote.

“Community sporting clubs bring Northcote locals together,” Theophanous said in her budget statement. “Through our Get Active Kids voucher program, we’re making sure the cost of fees and equipment doesn’t keep kids from playing the sport they love. And we’re also investing to make local clubs even stronger.”

Earlier this year, Avondale FC secured $500,000 for lighting at Avenger Park and Hume City FC received $250,000 for upgrades at Nasiol Stadium, both delivered through the same budget cycle and both paired with local member announcements. Mayer Park follows the same pipeline, a state government commitment, a local seat, a community club whose growth has outpaced its facilities, and a governing body using the win as evidence in a larger campaign.

The equity dimension

What distinguishes the Mayer Park case is the explicit role gender and accessibility played in Football Victoria’s advocacy. The governing body noted that unsafe pitch conditions were particularly dangerous for junior and female players, and highlighted that Darebin United maintains 40% female representation on its committee with seven female coaches, alongside its status as one of Darebin’s first 2-Star Club Changer accredited clubs, a Football Victoria program recognising clubs that actively remove barriers to female participation.

A club building one of the more credible female participation pathways in the municipality was, until this announcement, doing so on a ground its own administrators described as unsafe. Infrastructure investment of this kind does not simply improve playing conditions. It determines whether programs explicitly designed to grow women’s and girls’ football can function as intended, or whether they remain constrained by the same ageing facilities that have shaped community football for a decade.

What it means for the campaign ahead

Football Victoria has framed the Mayer Park outcome as one data point within its Level the Playing Field campaign, which continues to call for more equitable government investment in football relative to other codes. The organisation has indicated further football-related announcements are expected from the 2026-27 Victorian State Budget, with the upcoming state election positioned as the decisive moment for the sport’s broader infrastructure future.

For Slaughter, the immediate outcome is more concrete. “The funding is extremely important,” he said. “It allows us to deliver our football program and to grow. This will give them a place to come, to have fun and to enjoy their soccer”.

Whether that template, governing body advocacy, local political adoption, budget announcement, repeats consistently enough to address the scale of Victoria’s grassroots facilities gap remains the open question Football Victoria’s campaign is designed to keep in front of both major parties as the election approaches.

World Cup betting boom presents billion-dollar opportunity, and a growing dilemma, for Australian football

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is expected to become the biggest betting event in sporting history, with more than US$50 billion ($76 billion AUD) expected to be wagered globally across the tournament.

Financial services firm Macquarie estimates around US$500 million will be bet on each match, eclipsing the estimated US$35 billion wagered during the Qatar 2022 World Cup. The jump is driven by the tournament’s expansion from 32 to 48 teams and from 64 to 104 matches, alongside the rapid growth of legal sports betting markets in North America.

While much of the attention has focused on the sheer scale of betting turnover, the figures also underline football’s commercial importance to Australia’s wagering industry.

The World Cup has long been one of the country’s biggest betting events, sitting alongside the Melbourne Cup, AFL Grand Final and State of Origin. With Australia qualifying once again and attracting strong national interest, bookmakers have invested heavily in marketing campaigns designed around football’s month-long global spectacle.

TAB recently launched its nationwide “The Cup at TAB” campaign, positioning venues across Australia as communal destinations to watch World Cup matches, backed by research suggesting 61% of Australians prefer experiencing the tournament with others.

Sportsbet has also rolled out a major World Cup advertising campaign built around football’s global appeal, highlighting just how commercially valuable the tournament has become for Australia’s betting operators.

What about Australian Football?

Unlike Europe’s major leagues, Australian football still relies heavily on sponsorship and broadcast revenue to grow participation, develop professional competitions and improve fan engagement. The increased commercial attention generated during a World Cup inevitably benefits broadcasters, venues, hospitality businesses and wagering companies looking to capitalise on football’s largest audience.

SBS has introduced in-game advertising during FIFA’s mandated hydration breaks for the first time at a World Cup, creating additional commercial inventory during live broadcasts while maintaining uninterrupted match coverage.

Yet football’s commercial success arrives amid mounting political pressure over gambling advertising.

The Albanese Government has proposed significant restrictions on gambling promotions, including banning betting advertisements during most live sport before 8.30pm, prohibiting gambling branding at sporting venues and preventing athletes and celebrities from promoting wagering products. While described as Australia’s biggest gambling advertising reforms to date, critics argue the measures still leave significant loopholes.

What does it mean for football?

As betting companies spend millions attaching themselves to the World Cup, gambling harm advocates argue football’s biggest event also becomes one of the industry’s most effective customer acquisition tools.

Macquarie analysts have warned bookmakers face an additional challenge beyond simply attracting World Cup punters. The industry’s long-term profitability depends on converting casual tournament bettors into year-round customers across football, racing and other sports, as well as higher-margin casino products.

That concern has been repeated by gambling reform organisations, which argue global football tournaments expose younger audiences and first-time bettors to increasingly sophisticated wagering products.

For Australian football administrators, the issue reflects a broader commercial balancing act.

The sport continues to chase greater investment to compete with the AFL and NRL for fans, sponsors and media attention. World Cups generate unprecedented engagement, creating opportunities for broadcasters, pubs, clubs, hospitality operators and betting companies alike.

However, as governments tighten gambling regulations and public scrutiny intensifies, football’s commercial ecosystem may also need to evolve. The 2026 World Cup demonstrates football’s extraordinary economic power beyond ticket sales and broadcasting rights. Billions of dollars will flow through betting markets over the next month, reinforcing football as one of the world’s most commercially valuable sports.

For Australia, the challenge is ensuring that the business generated by football strengthens the game itself, rather than simply enriching industries that surround it.

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