Football Queensland CEO Robert Cavallucci recently featured on an episode of The Subs Bench podcast to discuss multiple issues in the Queensland football space.
One of the more hotly debated topics were the allegations and rumours swirling on social media regarding Football Queensland’s involvement in the National Second Tier bidding process.
On The Sub’s Bench podcast, Cavallucci strongly defended against these claims that Football Queensland were roadblocking clubs from putting a final bid in and doubled down on the body’s support for the state’s NPL clubs who intend to join.
Cavallucci spoke specifically about how the process of selecting clubs for the National Second Tier would work.
“As the governing body that process of choosing clubs needs to be independent process of selection criteria and run by Football Australia. We’re not going to come out and publicly pick winners, or one bid over another bid or one endorsement over another,” he said on The Subs Bench podcast.
The allegations against Football Queensland online suggested the body worked against clubs that applied for the NST, but Cavallucci was quick to shut that notion down.
“Certain negative sentiments were being deliberately disseminated and that happens in these circumstances. If the clubs bid was deficient in some capacity and the likelihood of success was low, the easiest way to defer responsibility is to put it onto the third party,” he said.
“The easy victim in this case is the governing body. It’s their fault our bid didn’t stack up, it’s their fault that we’re deficient in these areas.”
Football Queensland throughout the process remained fully supportive of the new competition but understood it was likely not the right time for specific clubs in the state to be involved as soon as 2025. Cavallucci mentioned working with other bodies to try and find a solution for these NPL clubs to get involved.
“None of that is true. We absolutely supported clubs where we were asked to in certain ways. I spoke regularly to many of the presidents involved to provide support to them and they would ask us questions, proactively engage with Football Australia,” he said.
“We were enormously active in the assembly of the National Second Tier model, we were in working groups with Football Australia for two years leading up to it.”
There were six applicant clubs progressed to the National Second Tier Request for Proposal phase, however, ultimately four NPL Queensland clubs withdrew making public and private statements regarding their decisions and they demonstrated patience. The four clubs cited a preference to wait for a more mature NST final model.
NPL Queensland have clubs that certainly can garner the financial strength through amazing peer support and critical revenue streams. They have clubs with insanely rich histories in this country that deserve to be playing at the highest possible level.
There has been very little discussion as to whether Football Australia will cast the net wider and expand on the 8-team league it currently is however it gives the six Queensland clubs some time to sort out financials and launch an improved bid.
