CEO OPINION

It’s Time for Football Administrators to Lead: CPD and Membership Standards Can’t Wait

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As CEO of Soccerscene, I’ve been watching Australian football grow and evolve. Crowds are bigger, clubs are modernising, and communities are reconnecting with the game. But there’s a gap that can’t be ignored.
football administrators CPD membership meeting

Australian football is growing fast. Crowds are bigger, clubs are modernising, and communities are reconnecting with the game. However, football administrators CPD membership and professional development are still lacking. The people running clubs and governing bodies operate without clear frameworks or accountability.

For too long, administrators have worked without structured professional standards. If we want a sustainable future, professionalising football administration must match the standards we already require from coaches, agents, and other key roles in the game.

The Gap in Professional Development for Football Administrators

The gap is obvious. Coaches must earn AFC coaching licences or Football Australia equivalent qualifications and complete Continuing Professional Development every three years. Agents must earn 20 CPD credits each year with an 80 percent pass rate.

Administrators, who run clubs and federations, have no similar rules. Consequently, there are no CPD requirements, baseline standards, or accountability measures. This is not a small problem. Instead, it is a major gap in how we see football administration standards.

Membership and CPD Frameworks for Football Administrators

A membership-style framework for administrators would fix this. It could include mandatory CPD, accredited courses, recognition for good work, and clear accountability rules. Importantly, this is not bureaucracy. It helps administrators make better decisions, lead with purpose, and manage football responsibly.

Learning from Chartered Accountants to Guide Football Administrators

Other sectors offer a model. Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand CA ANZ represents over 140,000 professionals. Members follow strict ethical rules, ongoing education, and recognition programs. Their Member Benefits Program supports members personally and professionally through technology, business services, and lifestyle tools.

Chartered Accountants are known for their skill and integrity. Therefore, if football administrators had similar structured professional standards, the game off the pitch could match the ambition on it.

Global Inspiration: Made in Korea and Football Administration Reform

There are strong examples nearby. Over the past two years, the Korea Football Association Made in Korea project has overhauled coaching and administrative systems. It created a clear philosophy, fixed gaps in development, and built a national identity.

Korea Republic has qualified for every FIFA World Cup since 1986, but it has never broken into the top tier of world football. The Made in Korea project shows that progress needs structure, planning, and shared purpose. Australian football needs the same.

Encouraging Moves at Home for Football Administrators

Positive steps are happening locally. For example, the recent Football Convention in Queensland empowered all stakeholders and lifted the discussion about governance and professional development.

Michael Connelly from CPR Group, who spoke at the convention, highlighted Stewardship. This means making decisions for the long-term health of clubs, not just today. He also discussed pathways to sustainable growth from strategic partnerships to small practical changes. These examples show that we have people ready to lead reforms in football administration.

Strategic Planning and CPR Group in Football Administration

CPR Group is Australia’s leading provider of sports governance, planning, and community development. They help national and state bodies, councils, universities, and grassroots clubs. CPR Group delivers master plans, governance advice, constitutions, feasibility studies, and sport and recreation plans.

Michael Connelly’s leadership demonstrates how strategic planning provides a clear roadmap. It aligns decisions with a club’s vision and communicates values to members, sponsors, and funders. Many committees want to transform their clubs but struggle with day-to-day tasks. Strategic planning gives focus and confidence.

Keeping Pace with Growth: CPD for Football Administrators

Victorian football is growing fast. Crowds are bigger, clubs are modernising, and communities are more engaged. Growth brings opportunity but also responsibility. Therefore, administrators need tools, training, and frameworks to manage it effectively.

Professional development would give administrators access to digital membership tools, community engagement models, and financial planning strategies. Without this support, administrators risk falling behind. Structured training helps them lead rather than just react.

Recognition and Motivation for Football Administrators

Recognition helps build a professional culture. CA ANZ rewards excellence through fellowships, service awards, and honours. Football could do the same for administrators who innovate, lead inclusively, and strengthen clubs. Recognition motivates administrators to stay engaged and improve the game.

The Time to Act for Football Administrators CPD and Membership

Australian football is at an important point. Crowds are growing, investment is rising, and community support is strong. However, if this growth is to last, administrators must be prepared to lead professionally.

The CA ANZ model shows how professional standards can transform a sector. The KFA’s Made in Korea project shows how structure can redefine football identity. The Football Queensland Convention shows how stakeholders can elevate the debate. CPR Group shows how planning brings clarity and focus.

By introducing football administrators CPD membership programs, we can create a generation of ethical, capable, and accountable leaders. Football is more than what happens on the pitch. It is the reawakening of the game’s heart and identity. To protect that, we must invest in the people who manage, grow, and sustain football every day.

The time to act is now.

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Tasmania’s State Budget Commits $350,000 to Football Facility Planning as $80 million Home of Football Moves Closer to Reality

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Image Credit: Football Tasmania

The Tasmanian State Government has committed $350,000 in seed funding for the next stage of planning for Football Tasmania‘s proposed Home of Football, moving the state’s most significant football infrastructure project closer to construction and signalling political recognition that demand for rectangular facilities in Tasmania has outgrown what currently exists.

The funding, confirmed in the 2026-27 State Budget handed down last week, sits within an almost $200 million investment in sport and recreation across the budget and forward estimates: a package the government describes as designed to improve access and participation for Tasmanians of all ages. The football allocation is listed alongside a $25 million community sporting infrastructure commitment at Kingborough, $12.5 million for new multipurpose indoor sporting courts at New Town Bay, and $8 million for the Domain Tennis Centre redevelopment.

Football Tasmania CEO Tony Pignata OAM welcomed the commitment as an acknowledgement of the structural gap between participation numbers and available infrastructure, particularly in the state’s south.

“The State Government’s delivery on this commitment shows us that they understand that demand outstrips supply for rectangular facilities in the state,” Pignata said. “If we are to continue to grow and develop future Matildas and Socceroos, we need to invest in the infrastructure our game so desperately needs.”

The proposed $80 million facility would include six full-sized pitches, three synthetic and three turf, alongside four five-a-side pitches, modern changerooms for both men and women, and dedicated training facilities. The design is intended to serve every level of the game simultaneously, from grassroots junior competitions through to national-level tournaments.

From grassroots to A-League ambitions

Football Tasmania has framed the facility’s purpose across a deliberately wide range of uses. At the community end, it would provide a permanent home for junior games and regional tournaments that currently compete for limited rectangular ground availability across the state. At the elite end, it would create the capacity to host national competitions including the Emerging Matildas and Emerging Socceroos Championships, flagship state competitions such as the Statewide Cup finals, and potentially, in time, an A-League team.

That last ambition is the most significant and the most distant. Pignata was measured but direct in raising it, situating a Tasmanian A-League club alongside the NBL’s Jackjumpers, the WNBL’s Jewels and the AFL’s Devils as part of the state’s emerging identity as a home for national sporting competition.

“One day down the track, we anticipate this would become home to our very own A-League team, so that we take our rightful place in the nation’s elite competition,” he said.

The pathway from planning funding to A-League admission is long and would require sustained political and commercial support well beyond the current commitment. But the logic is consistent with how football infrastructure investment has worked elsewhere in Australia. The facility comes first, and the competitive pathway follows. Without a purpose-built ground that meets the standards required for elite competition, the conversation about an A-League team cannot begin in earnest.

The equity dimension

The inclusion of modern women’s and men’s changerooms in the facility’s design carries more weight than it might appear. Community and semi-professional football facilities across Australia have historically been built to male standards, with women’s changerooms added as afterthoughts or not included at all. That inadequacy has been consistently identified as a barrier to female participation and to the hosting of women’s competitions at venues that cannot accommodate them properly.

A purpose-built facility that treats women’s infrastructure as a design requirement rather than a retrofit positions the Home of Football to serve the growth of women’s football in Tasmania in a way that existing facilities cannot. The state recorded 41,395 registered football participants in 2025, a number that has been growing and that the current rectangular facility stock was not built to support at this scale.

Additionally, the government’s Ticket to Play program, which provides eligible children with two vouchers worth up to $100 each for sporting participation, and the Ticket to Wellbeing program offering $100 vouchers to eligible seniors, represent indirect but meaningful support for football participation across the state’s communities.

Pignata also acknowledged outgoing Football Tasmania President Bob Gordon, who he said had dedicated almost a decade to the organisation and had been instrumental in lobbying for this and other facilities across the state.

The $350,000 planning commitment is a beginning. The $80 million facility it is intended to progress remains subject to further government investment and development approval.

Football NSW calls on clubs to Make It Red for Heart Health Round

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football NSW is calling on clubs and associations across the state to register for the 2026 Make It Red campaign, joining a national awareness movement aimed at reducing heart-related deaths on sporting grounds ahead of Heart Health Round on the weekend of June 5 to 7.

The campaign, developed by the Heartbeat of Football Foundation, asks sporting clubs to wear red, raise funds and build awareness around heart disease and sudden cardiac arrest, which is the leading single cause of disease burden and death in Australia for both men and women, and one that health authorities say is largely preventable through modifiable risk factors.

The call to action comes as the Foundation continues its work to map and register Automated External Defibrillators across NSW sporting facilities, a project that has already engaged twelve football associations and fed data into both the NSW Ambulance GoodSAM registry and NSW Health’s public AED map. The availability of a functioning, registered AED on site is among the most significant determinants of survival following sudden cardiac arrest, with survival rates declining sharply for every minute without defibrillation.

Football NSW is encouraging clubs to engage with the campaign across three areas. Clubs can register for the Make It Red campaign to help fund research, education and prevention programs. Participants, particularly those aged over 35, are encouraged to seek a free heart health screening test from their local GP or enquire about hosting a Heartbeat of Football testing day. Clubs are also urged to ensure their grounds have active, accessible AEDs in place, with guidance available through Football NSW’s Rescue Ready Guide.

The Make It Red campaign runs from June 5 to July 12, with Heart Health Round taking place across the opening weekend. Clubs can register and access participation resources at makeitred.org.

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