Football Victoria announce a new era for futsal in the state

Avatar

Football Victoria have announced they are stepping up their efforts and investment in resources to govern and unite the futsal community in Victoria.

The state federation will lay the foundations for an aligned framework for the small-sided game in the coming months, with existing futsal competition providers and clubs uniting with FV to deliver a new era of positive experiences for players, coaches and referees in Victoria.

FV President Kimon Taliadoros believes the time is right to unite the futsal fraternity and claims the governing body does have an important role in taking the lead.

“Historically, football’s governing bodies have lacked certainty over what role they should play in Futsal and what leadership they should provide. But after extensive consultation with the game’s stakeholders and a deeper understanding of best practice principles, it is clear that the sport must be aligned,” he said.

“As such, the time has now come for FV, as the state’s governing body for Football, to not only embrace Futsal but to lead it, govern it and unite it.

“We understand that there has been not only great division but also great confusion, going back many years. The only way forward from here is to establish a framework that brings everyone together and provides greater clarity to Futsal centres, facility operators, councils, clubs, referees, coaches and players.

“We are excited about the opportunities that Futsal will bring to the community under this new strategy, including how integral it is to achieving our overall target of 50/50 gender participation balance by 2027.”

As part of these various changes, Anthony Grima will move into a newly-created position of Head of Futsal, alongside his existing role of Head of Commercial at Football Victoria.

Grima is an accomplished futsal referee and player over the past two decades.

“As a governing body, we have to make a genuine commitment to provide Futsal with the kind of leadership that empowers this great sport to officially develop, grow and service even more participants than it does now,” he said.

“There are approximately 40,000 players playing Futsal and ‘Indoor Soccer’ across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. They all need Futsal pitches to play on and competitions to participate in. We want to make sure we can partner with local councils and Futsal competition providers to ensure players, clubs, coaches and referees are provided with the best possible Futsal experiences, on and off the pitch.

“My own experience in Futsal has shown me that it is a sport with enormous appeal and potential. There are many amazing and dedicated individuals at the heart of the Futsal family here in Victoria and we now have a profound opportunity to work together for the good of the game and build something that will service the game for decades to come.”

Peter Parthimos, CEO of ‘Futsal Oz’ and ‘Series Futsal’, welcomed FV’s decision to step forward and lead the sport through a formalised structure.

“This is clearly a development that will benefit the entire Futsal community. For many years, the providers, like us, have been left to promote the game themselves but the opportunity to help create a more formal structure underpinned by a unified vision is undeniably exciting,” he said.

“We look forward to formally affiliating with Football Victoria. I know many other centres and Futsal clubs will follow suit and that’s just such a positive step forward. It’s been many years since we’ve had an opportunity to collaborate like this.

“If we all support each other and put the sport first, I believe we will put Victoria back on the map.”

FV will continue to deliver premier futsal events, including the FV State Futsal Championships, which will be held in April 2021.

In the lead up to the 2022 Football Australia National Futsal Championships, all Victorian squads will be administered and managed directly by the governing body. The federation will also hold both futsal referee and coach education courses to officially recognise and upskill futsal referees and coaches from February 2021.

Football Victoria’s formal Futsal Strategy is listed below:

  1. Formally recognise the sport of Futsal within Football Victoria’s existing Strategic Plan 2019-2022 ‘FootbALLways’ to facilitate its growth, including in schools and to foster the increase and development of players, coaches, referees, Futsal clubs and Futsal centres in the broader futsal pathway.
  2. Provide Futsal competition providers and Futsal clubs with a genuine value proposition to partner with Football Victoria via a revamped affiliation and support program to grow and develop Futsal together as a unified Futsal community.
  3. Integrate Futsal within the implementation of Football Victoria’s current Facilities Strategy and advocate for increased and improved Futsal facilities with local, state and federal government for the benefit of all Futsal competition providers and Futsal clubs across Victoria.
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