New Zealand Football confirms 2020/21 season details

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New Zealand Football has confirmed the details and starting dates of its national competitions for the 2020/21 season.

The national men’s football league, the ISPS Handa Premiership will start in November, while the National Women’s League will commence from the weekend of October 31.

COVID-19 has also forced some structural changes to be made to both the men’s and women’s competitions.

In the ISPS Handa Premiership, the competition will feature eight club instead of the usual 10 teams. The South Island teams, Southern United, Tasman United and Canterbury United Dragons, will merge for the upcoming season. They will play under the Canterbury United Dragons name.

The competition will retain its usual format of a regular season with each team playing each other twice before a finals series including semi-finals and a grand final – the latter is expected to be held in March 2021.

Plans for a promotion and relegation framework have been postponed and will be reviewed before the 2021/22 season.

The National Women’s League will be played as a single round robin competition for this season. A grand final will be held on the weekend of December 19. The competition will feature all seven women’s teams.

“It has taken a lot of work with our clubs and federations to get to this stage but we are excited to now be able to confirm initial details of our national competitions for the upcoming season,” Daniel Farrow, General Manager of Football for New Zealand Football said in a statement.

“While Covid-19 and the knock-on effect of shifting community football dates has had an impact on the length of competitions and, in the case of the ISPS Handa Premiership, the number of teams able to take part, running men’s, women’s and futsal national league competitions this year was a key priority and we are very pleased to be able to make that happen.

“We also want to acknowledge the support of Sport NZ and our on-going partnership with Trillian Trust as key contributors to staging competitions this season.”

The 2019/20 ISPS Handa Premiership was called off early in March due to COVID-19. Auckland City, who were leading the competition at the time, were declared champions.

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Victory unites with Roasting Warehouse in culture-led partnership

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Image credit: Melbourne Victory

The Melbourne-based anf family-owned business will join the Victory family, uniting two institutions which represent the city’s culture and identity.

A partnership with local roots

As the newest partner of Melbourne Victory, Roasting Warehouse joins forces with a vital part of the city’s sporting landscape.

The club’s Managing Director, Caroline Carnegie, outlined why the partnership bears so much value to both parties.

“We are excited to collaborate with Roasting Warehouse, a community-oriented destination for high-quality coffee, proud of its foundations in Melbourne,” said Carnegie via official media release.

“Football and coffee sit at the epicentre of Melbourne’s culture. The two go hand-in-hand, consistently at the centre of the conversation that stirs Melburnians, which is no different to the conversation sport and Melbourne Victory stir in the State.”

Indeed, this is a partnership which combines the identity, passions and culture of an entire city, therefore giving it the foundations required for long-term, mutual success.

Representing the best of Melbourne

Both Victory and Roasting Warehouse are hugely successful in their respective industries. They are institutions with community-oriented philosphies, who pride themselves on craft and quality.

“We’re incredibly proud to partner with Melbourne Victory, a club that represents the heart, passion, and ambition of Melbourne,” revealed Roasting Warehouse Head of Brand, Alexander Paraskevopoulos.

“As a Melbourne-founded, family-run business, supporting a team that means so much to the local community feels very natural for us.”

Furthermore, through their high-quality blends, Roasting Warehouse will look to prepare Victory’s players and staff for high performances on the pitch as the seasons nears completion.

But this is about far more than just fueling athletes.

This is a partnership which embodies and unites two of Melbourne’s greatest strengths and cultural markers – a connection forged from the city’s very own DNA.

 

For more information about Roasting Warehouse, click here.

Football NSW supports Female Coaches CPD as Women’s Football Surges

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football NSW has used the platform of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to deliver a targeted professional development workshop for female coaches, bringing together scholarship recipients for an evening of structured learning and direct engagement with elite women’s football.

Held at ACPE last month, the session was open to female coaches who received C or B Diploma scholarships through Football NSW in 2025. Coaching accreditation carries a financial cost that disproportionately affects women, who are less likely to have their development subsidised by clubs or associations operating in underfunded community football environments. Scholarship access changes that equation at the point where many women exit the pathway.

Facilitated by Football NSW Coach Development Coordinator Bronwyn Kiceec, the workshop focused on goal scoring trends from the tournament’s group stage, with coaches analysing attacking patterns and exploring how those insights could translate into their own environments. The group then attended the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia.

The structure of the evening mattered as much as its content. Female coaches in community football rarely have access to elite competition environments as a professional resource. The gap between the level at which most women coach and the level at which the game is analysed and discussed tends to reinforce itself. Placing scholarship recipients inside a major tournament, as participants rather than spectators, closes that gap in a way that a classroom session cannot.

Female coaches remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of the game in Australia. The pipeline that will change that depends not only on accreditation access but on the professional networks, peer relationships and exposure to elite environments that male coaches have historically taken for granted.

The workshop forms part of Football NSW’s ongoing commitment to developing female coaches through scholarships and structured learning opportunities.

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