The Football Coaching Life Podcast recap with Vicki Linton

Gary Cole Podcast

On Season 2 Episode 2 of The Football Coaching Life, Gary Cole interviews Canberra United head coach Vicki Linton.

It details her playing career where she featured in both Australia and the United States, before heading into coaching early. She was assistant coach to the Matildas during a World Cup, and the first coach to make the finals with Melbourne Victory.

She details her start in football at six-years-old, being the only girl in the entire junior club. After playing for the state leagues in Australia, she played for her country at the World University Games before moving to America to play college football. After this, she has played and worked four different times in the United States. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t playing,” Linton says.

She explains it was in Australia where she first got into coaching, completing a level 2 coaching course in 1997. She started coaching through the state league pathways for juniors, while also working for New South Wales Football.

Linton highlights the differences in the roles of being an assistant coach compared to a head coach. Linton gave 7 players their W-League debut during the most recent season. “I haven’t had a team to coach myself since 2014,” she says. She felt like she was a much better coach than the last time she was in charge.

Linton says it’s important to build upon and implement ideas that you’ve work. “There is reflection during the season, but at the end, you get the time to look back at all the things that have worked out how you wanted and the things you have achieved,” she added.

One of the things Linton has learned during her time in US soccer, after being exposed to different environments, was the ability to improve processes and thinking. She was exposed to a talented group of colleagues who have helped her improve her analysis and professional development.

Linton says her coaching philosophy is working with the players, and having them achieve their potential, grow and develop, adding you can be pragmatic and stick to your values while achieving your goals in different ways.

“We want to be successful, but we also want to solve the problem of how do you these eleven or twenty players fit together,” she said. Linton explains that is where part of her enjoyment in football comes from. With a brand new group of players, and a new coach, it took time to figure out how it all fits together.

Linton highlights the importance of mentors and learning from different environments, even outside football. Coaching has been a hard journey, but she says it is a vocation, and there is nothing else she wants to be doing.

Cole commends her ability to get the best out of Michelle Hayman as a striker after some time away from the game. Linton elaborates that it was great to see her enjoy her football and perform on the field. “As a coach, is creating a positive learning environment,” she noted. She has learned to try to find an enjoyable workplace with people around her.

Cole mentions that Canberra United’s technical department is all women, and Linton confirms that this is the first time in W-League history where a team has achieved this.

Finally, Cole asks Linton to offer one piece of advice to upcoming coaches. “Be true to yourself, that involves knowing what you are about, knowing who you are, and being confident and strong in your convictions,” Linton concluded.

All episodes of the Football Coaching Life can be found here.

FIFA+ delivering valuable exposure for Oceania football

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is partnering with FIFA’s football streaming platform, FIFA+, to broadcast its international and club competitions for two years.

The deal signifies a major win for the commercialisation and promotion of Oceanian football globally.

FIFA+ is a mobile and desktop application that provides subscribers with live streaming of various FIFA competitions, magazine shows, documentary films, and archived matches from previous tournaments.

The application will televise all major OFC competitions, such as the OFC Champions League (Men’s, women’s and youth), futsal and beach soccer competitions, and the men’s 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign.

The World Cup qualifying campaign takes on greater importance this year, as for the first time ever, OFC nations will battle for one automatic spot at the 2026 Men’s FIFA World Cup.

It represents an important moment for Oceanian football, and while there is global scepticism about FIFA’s move to a 48-team men’s World Cup, it is the smaller nations like those in Oceania who will benefit greatly.

Adding OFC’s collaboration with FIFA+ to the mix only incentivises players and coaches further, providing them a platform to build their careers and future pathways.

“This partnership with FIFA+ marks a new era for Oceania football. It’s a monumental step towards realising our dreams and showcasing the talents of our region to a global audience,” OFC General Secretary Franck Castillo said via press release.

“We are excited about the opportunities this collaboration unlocks and the new horizons it opens for our players, teams, and fans.”

The increased coverage will be crucial to OFC’s commercial endeavours and future sustainability as an organisation. General Secretary Castillo paid tribute to the efforts of OFC members to secure this deal.

“In the last five years, OFC has gone to great lengths to grow football coverage across the Pacific and provide quality broadcast production standards to all fans,” he added via media release.

“As a testament to these efforts, our social media following has increased by 110% and live streaming views by 200% since 2019. We have rallied media rights in the broadcast space and expanded our distribution from four regional TV broadcasters to 26.”

“We have also expanded commercially through selling our live streaming, media and data rights for the next two years – 2024 and 2025; this is a major step forward for us in the commercial space.”

Below is the full list of competitions to be shown live and free on FIFA+ in 2024:

OFC Women’s Champions League – Solomon Islands | 10-23 March

OFC Men’s Nations Cup – Qualifying – Tonga | 20-26 March

OFC U-19 Men’s Championship – Qualifying – Vanuatu | 9-15 April

OFC U-16 Men’s Championship – Qualifying – Tonga | 13-19 April

OFC Futsal Men’s Champions League – New Caledonia | 23-28 April

OFC Men’s Champions League – Tahiti | 11-24 May

OFC U-16 Women’s Championship – Qualifying – New Zealand | 14-20 June

OFC Men’s Nations Cup – Vanuatu | 15-30 June

OFC U-19 Men’s Championship – Samoa | 7-20 July

OFC U-16 Men’s Championship – Tahiti | 28 July-10 August

OFC Futsal Women’s Nations Cup – Solomon Islands | 18-24 August

FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 1 & 2 – Samoa | 2-10 September

OFC U-16 Women’s Championship – Fiji | 8-21 September

FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 3 – New Zealand & Vanuatu | 7-15 October

OFC Beach Soccer Men’s Nations Cup – Solomon Islands | 20-26 October

FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 4 & 5 – New Zealand & Papua New Guinea | 11-19 November

Premier League clubs vote to tighten sponsorship rules

The Premier League has implemented stricter regulations aimed at preventing clubs from inflating sponsorship and transfer deals with entities linked to their owners.

These revised rules were approved by a ‘very narrow’ majority in a club vote last month and aim to address concerns about Profit and Sustainability Rules and maintaining a level playing field within the league.

The process will now work where the clubs must demonstrate the legitimacy of these transactions. They must provide a declaration from an associated party director confirming their belief in the deal’s fair market value.

Then an independent commission will review each of these deals, make a decision and impose a range of sanctions for any breaches they find. The severity of the offence will determine the penalty.

It is understood that the vote was not unanimous, with the league scraping through their ‘two-thirds majority’ rule with 14 of the 20 clubs agreeing to this policy.

Manchester City and Newcastle were reportedly part of the few clubs that staunchly opposed this policy and both clubs are in the spotlight having entered multiple commercial deals with brands from the same countries as their owners over recent years.

This has become an obvious integrity issue with the way clubs have inflated deals with affiliated entities in order to meet the stricter FFP thresholds that have seen clubs like Everton and Nottingham Forest punished, the former with a six-point deduction.

It became an interesting discussion after big clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Tottenham voted in favour of these new strict rules after recently being passed by Newcastle and Manchester City in commercial revenue.

Out of the 115 FFP charges that Manchester City face, the ones that could impose the biggest sanction are directly related to this topic, with the club earning over 13 times more in 2022/23 than they did in 2008 when the takeover first occurred, indicating a potential exaggeration of revenue from their Middle Eastern sponsors.

The Premier League claims that these revisions will ensure long-term financial sustainability while promoting fairness amongst clubs as they try to prevent other clubs from gaining an unfair advantage through non-market practices.

With Leicester City, Everton and Nottingham Forest charged in the last month, there is a clear crackdown on clubs breaking the Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

It is certainly a step in the right direction for the Premier League who are seeing more clubs spend seemingly above their means without any harsh regulatory or legal checks that could potentially damage the integrity of the competition.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend