Energy crisis hits UK football – how does Australia prepare?

Avatar
Energy Crisis
Image via Pxhere

Can we afford to turn the lights on? That is the question many football clubs across the UK are asking themselves this winter, in the midst of an energy crisis.

Energy prices have skyrocketed throughout 2022 due to a shortage in supply, and renewable energy sources are producing less energy to power homes. The current war between Russia and Ukraine has also increased energy prices, with most nations halting all business with Russia, known for being a large fossil fuels exporter to the world. Football teams are now in the firing line, feeling the pinch of the energy costs required to operate a football club on a daily basis.

Conversations are being had at the highest levels of England’s League One and Two divisions, with many clubs feeling the squeeze of rising costs. The hike in electricity prices has clubs across the competition concerned that they may not be able to afford to run floodlights at their grounds.

The uncertainty around energy prices has already forced some clubs to make changes in the way they operate. League Two club Mansfield Town has informed the English Football League (EFL) and their fans that kick-off times will change in a bid to save money. The club’s home match in October against Walsall will be brought forward from 3pm to 1pm in order for the club to leave the floodlights off.

Up a division, League One side Shrewsbury Town shared insight on some of the astronomical figures clubs were facing. The Shrews’ CEO Brian Caldwell voiced his concerns stating that the club’s annual energy bills are expected to rise from £80,000 – £100,000 (approx $139,000 – $174,000) last season, to £160,000 – £200,000 (approx $278,000 – $348,000) this season.

Changing kick-off times to earlier time slots may just be a band-aid solution for the short term. Clubs may be able to save on the costs of running floodlights, but run the risk of damaging other streams of revenue, such as ticket sales and concessions. Nigel Clibbens, the CEO of League Two side Carlisle United, admitted that the club’s energy bills have doubled, but that his club would not seek to change kick-off times.

“The lost income in moving kick-off would make us worse off financially – reduced fan numbers attending earlier games and match day concession sales from early starts would be bigger than what we save,” he stated.

Turning off the lights and playing day matches may sound like a simple solution, but with winter approaching in the UK, clubs may not have a choice but to turn them on. Inclement weather could force clubs to use the lighting and possibly consume more energy with heating if it happens to snow. Most EFL clubs have undersoil heating which is used in snowy conditions to prevent the playing surface from freezing, whilst keeping all pitch markings visible in order for the match to be played.

Continued rises in club’s operating costs have called for emergency meetings among EFL Executives. Multiple meetings have taken place to date with the latest being on September 29 – and the discussions are still ongoing. Reports from the BBC suggest that parachute payments may be removed in order to make more funds available to clubs in the lower divisions of English football.

Parachute payments act as a pressure release valve for clubs who have been relegated from the English Premier League. These payments help mitigate the costs relegated clubs face when going down a division. The funds help with player wages and loss of revenue from Premier League TV deals. If implemented, this move will upset newly relegated clubs but may provide a more sustainable and level playing field for all clubs across the divisions.

Closer to home, the energy crisis is no stranger to Australia, with costs involved in running sporting clubs being debated once again. In recent times, Australian sporting organisations have raised concerns over energy prices and how they may affect clubs at the grassroots level. VIC Sport, which is the peak body for sport and active recreation in Victoria, highlighted some of the challenges that clubs face. The point was made that most clubs train in the evenings after children have finished school and adults have finished work. They have urged the government that more needs to be done to safeguard community sports from increasing costs.

With football clubs in the UK already feeling the pinch, all eyes will be on the EFL and how they handle the energy crisis heading into the winter months. The challenges that lie ahead are unprecedented for football clubs in the country, but many around the world, including the A-Leagues and National Premier League, will be watching with keen interest to see how one of football’s biggest nations handles this crisis.

Previous ArticleNext Article

Football West’s Female Football Week draws record engagement from Metropolitan Perth to Remote Kunurra

Avatar
Image Credit: Football West

Football West has wrapped up its 2026 Female Football Week with activations spanning metropolitan Perth, regional Western Australia and national online platforms, as participation data from the state’s most remote football association underlined the scale of demand for women’s and girls’ football beyond the city.

Kununurra Soccer Association, situated in the East Kimberley more than 3,000 kilometres from Perth, recorded 47 new female registrations aged 7 to 12 across the first two terms of 2026 through Football West’s Junior Girls United program, representing a 30 percent increase in female membership that coaches Hannah Grominsky and Evie Marchetti described as overwhelming.

“The support from the community has been simply awesome,” Grominsky said. “We’re up to nearly 50 registered girls now. The majority of them have never played before or aren’t part of our association, so it’s great to give them a positive football experience in a comfortable environment.”

The program, supported by the Federal Government’s Play Our Way grant, now runs every Wednesday and has extended football activity into the cooler months of the Kimberley calendar, a season when the association would not traditionally operate. The result is a cohort of players new to the game, in a region where access to organised sport has historically been constrained by geography, infrastructure and seasonality.

Recognition across the state

Back in Perth, Female Football Week’s centrepiece event was the Women in Football Celebrate You Breakfast at the Sam Kerr Football Centre, featuring two panel discussions covering officiating pathways, coaching development and advocacy for women in football.

Subiaco AFC NPL Women’s head coach Christine Coppin, who is one of few women coaching at her level in the region, said events like the breakfast were critical to making the pathway visible for others.

“I’d love to see more women coaches putting their hat in the ring, both at junior and senior levels, realising that there’s more to football than just playing,” Coppin said. “They can stay involved in the sport as they get older in different ways.”

A regional Women in Football Breakfast in Albany drew more than 30 attendees, while a Girls Day Out event in the same city attracted more than 50 participants aged 6 to 16 for a come-and-try introduction to the game, extending the week’s reach into the Great Southern and reinforcing Football West’s stated commitment to building women’s football outside metropolitan areas.

Recognising those who make it happen

The week’s awards, nominated by the WA public, recognised five individuals whose contributions to female football across the state were judged most significant over the past year. Cassandra Paxman of Albany Rovers FC was named Coach of the Year, Georgia Whitelaw of Great Southern JSA and Albany JSA took Referee of the Year, Karen Harris of Carramar Shamrock Rovers FC was named Volunteer of the Year, Georgia Aiesi of Mandurah City FC received the Player of the Year award, and Melissa Spillman of Football Futures Foundations was named Community Champion of the Year— a recognition she also received at the national level.

Football West Female Football and Advocacy Manager Sarah Carroll said the week had reinforced both the momentum and the responsibility facing the sport.

“Female Football Week continues to showcase the incredible passion and growing appetite for the women’s game,” Carroll said. “It’s a reminder of how important it is that we keep working together to drive the game forward.”

The contrast between a packed breakfast at the Sam Kerr Football Centre and a Wednesday afternoon program in Kununurra working around wet season schedules captures something essential about where women’s football in Western Australia actually lives. The growth is real, and it is happening in places the cameras do not always reach.

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

Avatar
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.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend