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.
