AAFC supports Football Australia’s addition of the National Second Division in Domestic Match Calendar

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The placeholder for a National Second Division in the Domestic Match Calendar is a sign Football Australia anticipates the competition's start.

With the addition of a placeholder for a National Second Division in the newly announced Domestic Match Calendar, the Association of Australian Football Clubs (AAFC) believes the initiative is a sign Football Australia is anticipating the competition’s start in the near future, as well as implicit support for the concept.

President of the Association of Australian Football Clubs (AAFC), Nick Galatas, explains the move is a positive step towards a National Second Division being introduced.

“The second division has been in the process of development for some time, independently from the domestic match calendar. The domestic match calendar is a separate initiative which the A-League has undertaken, which we think is a good initiative for the game so that everyone knows when everything is on, there is alignment, and there is provision made for the various seasons, national teams and all competitions,” he said.

“The domestic match calendar is an independent project and not a part of the second division. It is a positive thing because while Football Australia has been developing the national second division, and AAFC is participating in its development, it is heartening and positive to see that Football Australia has made provision for it in the domestic match calendar, anticipating that it will start in the near future.”

South Melbourne FC President Nicholas Maikousis says that the opportunity to play in a National Second Division instead of the Victorian National Premier League (NPL) would be a huge moment for the club. 

“We think it’s critical to get another tier of clubs and raise benchmarks. Ultimately, apart from our club’s self-interests and our forecasts and projections for a national second division, it can be a game-changer for us,” he said.

“We also have some fundamental philosophical views on the unification of football in this country once and for all. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the FA, Chris Nikou, James Johnson, and the board to truly unify the old soccer and new football – and whatever jargon people use these days – because all of a sudden they will get old football paying attention to the A-League.”

The AAFC has already released its framework for how a second division would be run, structured and implemented. Galatas adds that the next step is to work with Football Australia to deliver a model that is suitable for football clubs Australia-wide.

“We are hopefully now at the next stage where we are stress-testing our model with Football Australia’s development, as they are working on the available models. We are going to work with them and see what they think and how our clubs can respond to anything put to them,” he said.

Several high-profile clubs have already laid out their intentions to pursue a position in the National Second Division. Gold Coast United chairman Danny Maher told Soccerscene this week that while the club was wanting a return to the A-League that was separate from the National Premier League team, the club itself would be interested in the viability of the second division.

“Gold Coast United, the NPL entity, may be interested in the second division and we are currently part of that group investigating the viability of a second division,” Maher said. 

Melbourne Knights President Pave Jusup told Soccerscene the club would be interested in joining the competition.

“We’ve got a lot of latent fans who are disappointed in the situation we find ourselves in. There are a lot of people who would put their hands up and into their pockets to help propel the club if given the opportunity. We’ve gone through a period of consolidation, but there’s a new generation of people who want to propel the club into the limelight as their parents and grandparents did,” Jusup said. 

Maikousis believes the second division is a huge opportunity for Australian football and would improve the players that are developed within the country.

“I think the national second division will not only unify the game, but also create bigger clubs again. It will also deal with the issue of developing Australian talent,” he said.

South Melbourne, Melbourne Knights, and Gold Coast United are part of the 32 club National Second Division Partner Group run by the AAFC, and have made contributions towards the framework published in January 2021. The group of clubs “resourced and undertook detailed discussions involving numerous workshops, research and analysis” which ultimately lead to the publishing of the report. According to the AAFC website the competition is aiming to launch in 2022.

A National Second Division below the A-League was once a pipe-dream. However, with key stakeholders embracing the idea and working together, the idea could soon become a reality. With three key organisations – Football Australia, AAFC, and Australian Professional Leagues – all in strong support, the ultimate goal of promotion and relegation between the A-League and a National Second Division could be closer than many realise.

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Football Victoria and VicHealth partner on anti-racism program as community sport data reveals systemic problem

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football Victoria has partnered with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation to roll out the Set The Standard initiative across the state’s football clubs, in a collaboration that signals a significant shift in how Australia’s most popular club-based sport is approaching racism and cultural exclusion at the grassroots level.

The partnership brings together the state’s peak football governing body and its primary health promotion agency around a shared finding that can no longer be treated as incidental. According to the 2025 report Enhancing the Capacity of Victorian Community Sport to Tackle Racism, 56 per cent of surveyed participants had experienced or witnessed racism in community sport. In a state where football draws participants from some of the most culturally diverse communities in the country, that figure represents a systemic failure the sport can no longer address through conduct policies alone.

Clubs that subscribe to the Set The Standard newsletter will be entered into a draw to win one of three $1,000 vouchers, available for equipment, facility improvements, events or other community initiatives. The incentive is designed to drive early engagement with a program whose ambitions extend well beyond a newsletter subscription.

What the Partnership Signals

Racism in sport has historically been treated as a conduct and governance issue, managed through complaints mechanisms that require incidents to be formally reported and tend to significantly undercount the actual prevalence of harm. VicHealth’s framing of racism as a public health problem repositions the entire conversation.

Experiences of racism are associated with measurable negative health outcomes including anxiety, depression and social withdrawal. When community sport, which governments and health agencies actively promote as a vehicle for physical and mental wellbeing, becomes a source of those same harms, the public health cost is direct and quantifiable.

Resources, not Rhetoric

For Football Victoria, the partnership brings something the governing body cannot provide on its own. VicHealth’s credibility, resources and public health framework give the initiative a foundation that a sporting organisation working alone would struggle to establish. Set The Standard offers clubs practical tools and guidance built around progress rather than perfection, which reflects a realistic understanding of how cultural change works inside volunteer-run community organisations.

The $1,000 vouchers are not a side note. Most community clubs operate on tight margins, depend on volunteer administrators and are already stretched managing growing participation demands. Finding room to invest in cultural development programs on top of everything else is difficult. Providing tangible resources directly addresses that constraint at the point where clubs are most likely to disengage.

The program also arrives at a consequential moment. Football in Victoria is absorbing significant participation growth following the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and sustained increases in junior registrations, bringing new communities into the game in large numbers. The 2025 data suggests the environments those communities are entering are not consistently safe or welcoming. Participation growth and cultural safety work need to move together. A sport that grows larger without becoming more inclusive has not actually improved the experience of the people playing it.

The Man Who Built a Women’s Football Program from Nothing is now an Award-Winning Gender Equity Leader

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Image Credit: Football Victoria

Eight years ago, Spring Hills Football Club did not have a girls’ team. Today it has one of the most recognised women’s programs in Melbourne’s west, a senior NPLW side, and a head coach who has just been named Gender Equity Leader of the Year at the Melton City Council Volunteer Achievement Awards.

Tom Markovski, Spring Hills’ NPLW Head Coach, received the award at a ceremony coinciding with National Volunteer Week, recognised for his community leadership, promotion of gender equality and commitment to advancing the status of women and people of all genders in sport. The recognition comes from outside the football community entirely, awarded by a local council celebrating volunteers across every sector of civic life in one of Melbourne’s fastest-growing regions.

Building from scratch

When Markovski arrived at Spring Hills, women’s football at the club did not exist. His first act was to champion the establishment of the club’s first all-girls team, a process that required persuading a club culture built around men’s football that the investment was worth making.

Women’s football in community clubs has historically struggled to access the same facilities, scheduling priority, coaching resources and institutional support as the men’s game. Clubs have been slow to invest in programs whose return is less immediately visible than a senior men’s premiership, and in a growing outer-suburban community like Melton, where volunteer capacity is finite and demand across every program is high, the case for building something new always has to compete with the urgency of maintaining what already exists.

Markovski made the case anyway, and kept making it across eight years of coaching senior and junior NPL teams while simultaneously building the structural foundations of a women’s program designed to outlast any individual’s involvement. The club’s first all-girls team became multiple junior girls teams. Those junior teams created the pipeline for a senior women’s side. The senior women’s side created visible pathways for younger players to see where the game could take them within their own club.

The outcome is a program that Spring Hills now holds up as central to its identity rather than supplementary to it. The club has become a leader in female participation in Melbourne’s west, and recently made history within the NPLW Victoria structure by fielding junior teams coached entirely by female coaches, a milestone that reflects the depth of the program Markovski helped build.

What the Award Recognises

The Melton City Council’s decision to name Markovski its Gender Equity Leader of the Year places his work in a frame that extends beyond football. Melton is one of the fastest-growing local government areas in Australia, a diverse and rapidly expanding community where the institutions that bring people together, like schools, councils, sporting clubs, carry an outsized responsibility for social cohesion.

Mayor Cr. Lara Carli, speaking at the awards ceremony, reflected on the role volunteers play in communities like Melton’s. “Volunteering creates friendships, strengthens communities and builds a sense of belonging,” she said. “It helps people feel connected, supported and valued, and those things are more important than ever in a growing and diverse community like ours.”

For the girls now playing football at Spring Hills who were not playing anywhere eight years ago, Markovski’s contribution is not abstract. It is the specific and concrete fact of having somewhere to play, someone to coach them, and a pathway that leads somewhere.

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