The future of the professional game in Australia: One-on-one with Sydney FC CEO and APL Managing Director Danny Townsend

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Sydney FC CEO Danny Townsend is one of the key central figures tasked with revitalising the A-League and the W-League.

Speaking with Soccerscene, the recently appointed Managing Director of the Australian Professional Leagues (APL) believes the professional game in this country is at a critical juncture, as the representative body looks to secure a new TV deal to underpin the future of the sport.

“It’s a crucial deal for the game,” he said.

“At the end of the day, it’s about being able to provide us with some financial security, but importantly also provide us with the right amount of reach for our game. I think we need to have all of the ‘media pipes’ on into the future, as we sort of re-invent the leagues.”

Townsend admits an agreement is set to be struck within the next 4-6 weeks and whilst a summer season for the A-League looks likely, the former Sydney United midfielder would not commit to it whilst discussions with broadcasters continue.

“We are working through that process at the moment; you’ve got to play when you are most commercially viable,” he said.

“What’s really important for this sport is having a sound financial framework around the game. That will mean we need to play when we are most valuable and the market will determine when that is. Equally, we will need to look at a lot of different factors around what it will do for other revenue streams in the game.

“It’s not just about the TV deal, it’s about attendances, memberships, sponsorships and all of those factors need to be considered when you set your calendar.”

The current on-field product of the A-League this season has been the best it has been for years, with the Sydney FC CEO outlining a few reasons why he believes that is the case.

“It’s been an amazing season so far,” Townsend said.

“The matches have a quality that we probably didn’t expect coming out of COVID.

“I think the 5-sub rule has helped, being able to change potentially a third or more of your team at any given time during a match just throws up a degree of uncertainty in games, which has just been interesting.

“I also believe the youth has been a major factor. The amount of quality young players coming into the competition this year – it’s a by-product of the COVID pandemic, which has influenced the financials of the game and meant that clubs have probably had to have a look to their own development pathways more than they might have done in other years.

“The proof is in the pudding. Players like Alou Kuol, Kusini Yengi, these guys that are being unearthed are phenomenal talents and they are great for our game.”

Sydney FC CEO and APL Managing Director Danny Townsend

The attractive product on the park this year doesn’t take away from the issues off the field. The A-League currently doesn’t have a naming rights sponsor since Hyundai exited a 15-year partnership with the league last year. It’s a problem which the APL’s new managing director believes will be addressed in due time.

“I think you’ll see more once we start to roll out the APL strategy, we are seeing a huge amount of corporate interest in what we are doing,” Townsend said.

“I think you’ll see those current vacancies filled pretty quickly.”

Crowds are down this season for a multitude of reasons, one of those being the after effects of a global pandemic, but Townsend realises the game has to do better with engaging fans of the sport.

“I think what we’ve got to do is reconnect and connect,” he said.

“What I mean by that is there are a lot of people who have been involved in football over a long period of time, who don’t support the A-League or W-League. We need to reconnect with those people.

“We need to embrace our multicultural heritage; the sport was built on immigration and those cultures that come together to play the world game. Ultimately, the beautiful thing about our code is that we are the number one sport in the world. We need to be the number one sport in Australia as well. I think that’s going to come with unity, bringing people back into the game and connecting with those already in the game.”

The APL will focus their energy on a digital first strategy to connect the close to 2 million participants in Australia to the game, with Townsend explaining it will allow the representative body to understand who those people are, know their preferences and serve them with appropriate content and information to link them with the sport.

Unique identifiers such as active support will also be prioritised, with the hope being to bring the level of support back to the golden years of the A-League.

“When I bring mates of mine who are Rugby League guys or Rugby Union guys along to a Sydney FC game, they are blown away by the atmosphere that’s created by the active supporters,” Townsend said.

“It’s something we have to embrace. It’s not simple because there are other stakeholders involved that contribute to how they are managed, but we need to reduce the barriers of entry for people who want to be a part of active support.”

Unifying the sport is a key point in the APL’s overall mission for the game and Townsend claims the representative body is supportive of a national second division, as long as there is a sustainable financial framework around it.

“We are about growing football. I’m still yet to really engage with anyone involved in a national second division to understand what their plan is, but where we can we want to help,” he said.

“We are up for working with the NPL and helping them grow the consumption of their content. They’ve got NPL.TV which is a fantastic initiative. How we work with that, with APL and our content, is important in bringing that unity back to the game.”

 

 

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A Coroner’s Call: Why Football Can No Longer Ignore the Science on CTE

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Fabrizio Andrea Bertani / Shutterstock.com

The recent coronial inquest into the death of Gordon McQueen has once again forced football to confront an uncomfortable truth.

The former Manchester United and Leeds United defender was renowned for his aerial prowess. But decades after his playing career ended, McQueen was diagnosed with dementia. The coroner has now formally linked his condition to repeated heading of a football. This is a landmark acknowledgement that many in the scientific community say has been years in the making.

For Ian Greener, Australia’s HEADSAFE representative and former State Director of Coaching at Football Victoria, the ruling should be a turning point.

“The evidence has been there since 2019,” Greener tells Soccerscene. “But the general public and much of the football community have simply not been told.”

The Research Football Can’t Ignore

Much of the modern understanding of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in football stems from the work of Professor Willie Stewart at the University of Glasgow. Commissioned by the English FA and PFA, his landmark 2019 FIELD study found former professional footballers were three-and-a-half times more likely to develop neurodegenerative disease. For defenders, that risk rose to five times more likely.

Stewart then spent years re-examining his findings through analysing lifestyle, alcohol consumption, social factors and broader health variables across tens of thousands of records.

“He looked at everything,” Greener explains. “Drugs, diet, social background. After years of further research, he came back to the same conclusion — there is no other explanation apart from repeated head impacts.”

CTE differs from concussion. Concussion is visible and immediate. It can be identified through dizziness, nausea and blurred vision. CTE is silent. The damage accumulates over decades and can only be confirmed post-mortem through examination of brain tissue.

Greener explains the science in simple terms: repeated head impacts cause the brain to move within the skull, stretching neurons. This releases tau protein, which clumps together over time and disrupts electrical messaging in the brain. The result can be memory loss, personality change, aggression, anxiety, and in some cases, suicidal behaviour.

“It’s not about frightening people,” he says. “It’s about understanding brain health.”

Not About Banning Heading

HEADSAFE, founded by the family of former Middlesbrough player Bill Gates after his battle with dementia, operates across three fronts: research support, financial assistance for affected families, and coach education.

“We are not about banning heading,” Greener stresses. “Heading is an integral part of football. What we’re saying is: minimise the repeated heading in training. Most of the damage is done there.”

In England, guidelines already exist. Children under 12 are not permitted to practise heading in training. Though monitoring is difficult, In the Premier League, players are advised to limit high-force headers to around 10 per week. In Scotland, players are not permitted to head the ball the day before or after a match.

Australia, however, has no formalised CTE-specific guidelines.

Greener says attempts to engage both Football Victoria and Football Australia have so far gained little traction. Instead, he has taken the message directly to clubs, academies and grassroots coaches through workshops and podcasts.

“We just need a module in coach education,” he says. “If we’ve embraced sports science in nutrition, recovery and match analysis, then we also have to embrace the science on repeated head impacts.”

What concerns Greener most is not just the science, but the time lag between evidence and action. “This was once considered an old person’s disease,” he says. “But the science now shows it begins much earlier. The symptoms might not appear for decades, but the damage can start in youth.” He argues that brain health should sit alongside hydration, nutrition and recovery in every coaching curriculum. “We talk about load management for muscles. Why wouldn’t we talk about load management for the brain?”

A Duty of Care

The urgency is heightened by the rapid growth of the women’s game. Emerging research suggests female players may experience head impacts differently due to chemical and physiological factors.

“It’s about duty of care,” Greener says. “My grandson has just started playing. I want to know that whether I’m there or not, he’s protected.”

McQueen’s case has placed the spotlight firmly back on football’s responsibility. With further inquests pending in the UK, including that of Bill Gates later this year, pressure is unlikely to ease.

Football has adapted before — from concussion substitutes to advanced medical protocols. The next step, Greener argues, is simple:

“Make every header count. Don’t do 30 or 40 for the sake of it. Protect the brain, protect the player, protect the future of the game.”

The Future of Football with Bill Papastergiadis

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In our first episode of Unfiltered, our conversation with Bill Papastergiadis quickly cemented why he’s the National Chairman and Managing Partner at Moraine Agnew Lawyers, President of the Greek Community of Melbourne, President of South Melbourne FC, and a board member across several organisations.The episode serves as a lens for examining the deep interconnections between football, community, governance, and the tangled politics beneath Australia’s sporting landscape.

Football and the Ties That Bind

For Australian football stakeholders, the implications are clear. Football’s true power isn’t just what happens in the technical area or at the board table; it’s how sport can unify diverse cultures and channel rivalries into positive outcomes. Papastergiadis reflects on his own journey, where law and leadership blend seamlessly into community-building: “All of the things we work in have an interconnection…my job as a lawyer relates to my work at South Melbourne Hallas.” Clubs are, in this sense, social institutions, able to support not just athletes, but families, grassroots volunteers, and community partners.

Yet, the podcast doesn’t shy away from highlighting how politics shapes the game, for better and worse. “Football brings out the best in us and sometimes not the best in us,” Papastergiadis admits. Behind every bid for a stadium, every negotiation with government or governing bodies, there’s manoeuvring, advocacy, and, at times, division. As he puts it, “People are trying to use whatever skill or relationship they have to get their club where they want it to be. They will describe that as political. Politics is really part of our lives.”

The Fight for Access

It’s in this way that the episode’s most substantial industry analysis emerges. The conversation turns to the national second tier- the newly launched Australian Championship, and the legacy of locking NPL clubs out of the A-League.

“I hope it’s fixed. We will agitate for it to be fixed. Not because for the sake of South Melbourne, but for the sake of every club in this country. They all deserve…to aspire, to dream and to bring out the best in themselves and to progress. You can’t stop that in humanity.”

Papastergiadis credits Football Australia and Football Victoria’s recent efforts to re-introduce competition between historic clubs:

“Every club went another level in terms of player engagement, fan engagement, creating a better experience, match day experience for their supporters. Everything went up because we introduced competition again.” Fan attendance soared by up to 600% in one season, and clubs invested in both players and match-day infrastructure. For commercial operators, administrators, and sponsors, this speaks to a simple truth: when doors open, football’s audience answers.

Community, Identity and Social Cohesion

The episode also asks hard questions about identity and inclusion, both for clubs and communities. Papastergiadis doesn’t downplay the tensions that can arise from tribalism or historical rivalries, yet he champions the need for clubs to embrace their heritage within a multicultural framework. “We’re an Australian club, first and foremost (…) we do have, however, a history and it’s a history that gives meaning and purpose to the club. Let’s not deny that, but let’s make sure that history is conveyed in a way which promotes social cohesion, which doesn’t exclude others.”

He draws a direct line between football, ethnic history, and social progress, arguing that attempts to erase cultural identity or punish clubs for their backgrounds was a regressive move rooted in Australia’s old racism. “The demise of the National Soccer League was racist in its execution and to deny those clubs the opportunity to continue to participate solely because of their historical background, particularly when those clubs are what football was built on.”

 

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Industry Lessons and the Path Ahead

Politics will always be embedded within football’s machinery. But, as Papastergiadis notes, the impacts are not inevitably negative, provided that industry leaders focus on engagement, transparency, grit, and trust-building. His advice for clubs working with councils is clear: “Invite them to your events. Invite them to your club presentations. Invite the counsellors to matches. Organise lunches. Through that process, they will find that doors will open. (…) Trust is built over time.”

If anything, this episode illustrates that the future of Australian football rests on industry’s willingness to marry grit and ambition with cultural sensitivity and openness. “The journey is more important than the outcome. We should encourage people to feel good about the particular journey, that daily journey they’re involved in.”

For listeners, football stakeholders, and policymakers, Papastergiadis’ reflections and stories, some poignant, some political, all rooted in decades of experience, are both a window and a challenge. Open the doors, listen deeply, agitate constructively, and let football’s dreams flourish.

Dive into the full episode for more stories, leadership lessons, and insight on shaping Australian football’s next chapter.

Our episode is now out on Spotify, listen here.

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