Football Queensland release 2024-2026 Women & Girls Strategy

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Image credit: Football Queensland

Football Queensland has released its ambitious new 2024-2026 Women & Girls Strategy, focusing on achieving the wider Football Australia (FA) objective of 50/50 gender parity in participants, referees, committees, and club officials by 2027.

To maintain and enhance the 44% increase in women’s participation in the sport, Football Queensland has organised its program into 3 Strategic Pillars, presenting the certain initiatives they wish to undertake and key performance indicators (KPIs) they wish to achieve.

Pillar 1: Participation and Clubs

This Pillar is based on creating a culture of inclusivity and diversity in the sport for women to feel valued and empowered to play, coach, administer and referee football at every level.

Their plans include:

  • Conducting a deep analysis of club data to identify key clubs and areas for women’s participation and share their practices at a state level.
  • Expand certain initiatives and develop partnerships that will enhance all facets of the women’s game. Including the Girls United program and higher education girl-tailored scholarships.
  • Taking a stronger focus on women and girls refereeing with tailored training programs, recruitment campaigns and courses.
  • Developing their promotional strategy and pathways to better represent and retain girls’ and women’s participation.

The targets include:

62,000 women and girl players, 1,800 female referees and 5,700 Girls United participants by 2026. Also, they want 100% of Queensland club boards, committees and FQ members meeting the 40/40/20 gender representation by 2027.

Pillar 2: Advanced Pathways is split into two sections.

Section 1: Player development

To work with shareholders to maintain their high standards of providing adequate high-performance facilities and developing educational and technology-backed programs with access to further the careers of the most talented athletes.

Their plan includes:

  • To co-fund and enhance the FQ Academy QAS program with diversified Talent Identification (TID) and Long-Term Talent Development (LATD) goals and action plans. This includes upgrades to the Home of Football facility.
  • To enhance pathways with strengthened rural and statewide FQ academy clubs with more events, interstate competitions and Queensland A league teams. Especially with single age groups in academy leagues.

The targets include:

The FQ Academy QAS program remains the leading talent development academy with state-of-the-art facilities hosting extensive high-level interstate-wide competitions. With state-wide gold rate academies, an athlete management program, and clear career paths to professional leagues from NPL, A-League to the Matildas.

Pillar 2 Section 2: Coaching Development

Creating more opportunities including female-only courses for technical experts, analysts, academy directors, development, and high-performance coaches.

Developing female-only advanced courses such as a Coach Education Tutors workforce to train CETs for C and B Diplomas and the first Technical Director course with scholarships and clear pathways to permanent full-time coaching, analysts and support staff programs through diversifying roles in FQ and clubs and a digital platform for enhanced education accessibility.

Also, a recognition system to increase female technical staff numbers and increase storytelling awareness and representation of achievements in promotions.

The targets include:

9,400 female coaches with 25 Advanced Female Technical Directors with advanced scholarships and female coaches in full-time roles within the clubs, member federations, and 20% Queensland player and coach representation national team programs.

Pillar 3: Infrastructure

To break down the lack of facilities for the women’s game with Queensland Infrastructure Strategy by providing appropriate facilities for players to have the resources to play and represent the state at the very highest level.

This includes working closely with the Queensland Government to get infrastructure investment for the next 3 to help provide more unisex change rooms and female-friendly facilities. While upgrading fields, clubhouse and spectator seating across strategic spots over the state.

Key endeavours include a combined Home of Women’s Football and Women’s Centre of Excellence and securing a second Regional High-Performance Centre in Central Queensland.

The KPI is to attain the Queensland Government’s $60m infrastructure investment over the next three years and Queensland’s Home of Football as a high-performance facility.

This announcement of the Strategy plan presents a convincing and well-planned out mission by FQ to enhance the growing women’s and girls’ game in the state and be on track to delivering the Football Australia 50/50 equality strategy.

You can read the 2024-2026 Women & Girls Strategy in full here.

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Western Strikers Nominated FSA Club of the Month for Equity Outcomes

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Image Credit: Football SA

Western Strikers SC has been nominated for Club of the Month after a period of deliberate structural investment in its female program that is already producing measurable outcomes, and offering a model for how community clubs can drive participation growth through equity-focused planning rather than passive goodwill.

The nomination recognises a program that has moved beyond surface-level commitment to women’s football and into the kind of structural change that determines whether female players actually stay. Improved lighting across training and match pitches, equitable scheduling, extended training hours and dedicated pitch allocation have addressed the practical barriers that clubs often overlook. It’s conditions that tell players, implicitly or otherwise, whether the game was built for them.

 

Leadership as Infrastructure

Central to Western Strikers’ approach is a leadership structure that takes female football seriously as a technical and administrative priority. Women’s Coordinator Michelle Loprete and Technical Director Georgia Iannella, a former Matilda, provide the program with both organisational direction and the kind of visible role modelling that shapes whether younger players can picture themselves progressing through the game.

The presence of a former international player in a technical leadership role at a community level isn’t incidental. It signals to junior players that the pathway from their Friday night training session to elite football is real and navigable, and it gives the club’s coaching staff access to experience and credibility that most community programs cannot offer.

That pipeline is already functioning. Western Strikers’ Under-13 to Under-16 girls teams all qualified for finals in the Youth Premier League this season. Under-15 goalkeeper Sian Schopfer made her debut in the Women’s State League team which is a direct product of a club environment designed to move players upward.

 

The Friday-night model

One of the more quietly significant initiatives at Western Strikers is the scheduling of Friday night women’s matches, with junior girls training beforehand encouraged to stay and watch senior football. The structure is straightforward but its implications are meaningful. Aspiration in sport is not abstract. It’s built through proximity, through watching players a few years older doing what you want to do, in the same kit, at the same club.

The absence of that experience is one of the more consistent reasons girls disengage from football in their mid-teens. When junior female players cannot see where the game goes after their age group, the logical conclusion is that it goes nowhere. Western Strikers’ scheduling decision addresses that directly, at minimal cost, and whose effects are starting to manifest.

 

The Club Changer framework

The club’s participation in Football South Australia’s Club Changer Program has provided a structured framework for identifying and addressing barriers that might otherwise go unexamined. Pitch allocation, training structures and safety conditions are the kinds of issues that accumulate quietly in club environments; not because of deliberate exclusion but because the default systems were built around male participation and have never been comprehensively reviewed.

The Club Changer Program creates accountability for that review. Western Strikers’ ability to project an additional 146 female players over the next three years is a product of planning rather than optimism.

 

Industry implications

Western Strikers’ model matters beyond its own membership. At a time when women’s football in Australia is navigating the challenge of converting a participation surge into sustainable long-term growth, the question of what community clubs actually do with increased interest is among the most consequential in the sport.

Record crowds at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and sustained national visibility have opened the door. Whether players walk through it and stay depends on whether the club on the other side looks anything like Western Strikers

Melbourne City expand youth program with Hallam Secondary College

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Image credit: Melbourne City FC

The school will join the City Futures Program in its mission to consolidate pathways and community bonds for students.

From pupils to players

Hallam is the latest school in Melbourne’s South-East to join the City Futures Program. Also backing the program’s ambitions are Narre Warren South P-12 College, Gleneagles Secondary College and Timbarra P-9 School.

Partnerships between professional clubs like Melbourne City and local schools help to promote community connection, as well as providing pathways from the classroom to the stadium.

“City Futures is about creating genuine opportunities for young people to stay engaged in their education while feeling connected to something bigger,” said Head of Community, Sunil Melon, via press release.

“By bringing the Club into schools and providing access to our environment, we’re helping students build confidence, explore future pathways and see what’s possible both within football and beyond.”

Gone are the days when young players must choose between football and education. Through the City Futures Program, they can enjoy both worlds and still have the opportunities to develop.

 

What City Futures provides

Hallam sudents will be at the centre of the benefits provided by the connection to Melbourne City.

For example, high-quality coaching sessions delivered twice a week will instill confidence and teamwork skills into young participants. And as Melbourne City coaches are set to deliver the sessions, the students will truly learn from the best in Australia’s footbal landscape.

Furthermore, participants can visit Casey Fields, home to the City Football Academy, where they can experience the ins and outs of how an A-League club operates and trains.

“We’re proud to be part of the City Futures Program,” outlined Acting Principal at Hallam Secondary College, Shelly Haughey.

“Seeing our students come together and commit to their training is setting them up for success both on and off the pitch, and we look forward to building a strong and lasting partnership with Melbourne City FC.”

 

The future of football pathways

This isn’t the first – nor will it be the last – partnership to connect football and education in Australia.

Earlier this year, Queensland-based John Paul College embarked on an exciting journey with Spanish outfit, RCD Espanyol, to provide unique coaching support, player education, and pathway opportunities.

But these partnerships aren’t merely about giving young talents a place in the starting XI.

They are designed to ensure all participants develop into confident young people – whether their future lies on the pitch, in the dugout or in the boardroom.

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