Kimon Taliadoros resigns – experienced CEO now needed for Football Victoria

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Kimon Taliadoros
Image credit: Football Victoria via Community in Business Breakfast

Last week, Kimon Taliadoros resigned from his position as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Football Victoria.

He also served as Chairman of Football Victoria for five years before his role as CEO.

Taliadoros stated in regards to his exit decision via media release confirmation; “After much reflection, I have decided to step down from my role as CEO of Football Victoria.  It has been a privilege to serve the game. I am grateful to the selfless volunteers and dedicated staff that provide the resilience and energy that drives football in Victoria every day.”

Throughout his tenure, Taliadoros played a strong part in guiding the development of the Home of Matildas facility at La Trobe University – which also acts as the governing body’s headquarters.

Stage one of the precinct, an overall $101.1 million investment by the Victorian Government, was completed just before the beginning of the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

An overview of what the facility is eventually set to include, is listed below.

  • FIFA and AFC compliant elite training facility
  • Five pitches including
    • Show Pitch – Premium FIFA standard Hybrid
    • 1 additional Premium FIFA standard Hybrid
    • 3 FIFA standard synthetic pitches 
  • 400m2 high-performance Gym
    • Cardio
    • Weights
    • Additional Rehab/pilates / yoga multi-purpose space
    • Sprint track
    • Hydration station
    • Med ball wall
    • Warm-up / kicking zone
  • Sports Science / High performance
    • Prehab/rehab zone
    • Sports science lab
    • Doctor / Physio / Psychologist consulting suites
    • 2 Massage spaces
    • Strapping bench
    • Coaching hub/office
  • Elite-level Recovery / Wet Area
    • Hot & Cold Plunge Pools
    • ‘Endless River’ recovery pool with swimming jets
  • Multiple change rooms including a purpose-designed circular Matildas locker room
  • Referee change-room 
  • Auditorium / Theatrette and 3 configurable team meetings rooms with pitch markings in the carpet (team walk-throughs)
  • Approximately 800 seat grand-stand with additional terrace/balcony for standing room and/or functions – overlooking the main pitch
  • Function spaces and bar overlooking the main pitch (with commercial kitchen attached)
  • Public Café and match day canteen
  • Matildas and FV historical/interactive displays and memorabilia
  • Media production centre
  • Broadcast spaces and capability
  • Players dining room
  • Player’s lounge, study space, and 2 sleep rooms (sleep/meditation/prayer / quiet rooms)
  • Property office and laundry
  • Football Victoria offices within the main administration building
  • Public amenities throughout – including Changing Places, all abilities, gender neutral and parents facilities
  • Purpose-built international standard Futsal pitch (Stage 2 – subject to funding)
    • This facility will support wheelchair football, rugby, and other indoor events
    • The Futsal pitch will also provide an indoor training/game warm-up space

Taliadoros was also was responsible for the governing body’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, working around the impacts of lockdowns and reduced competition across the state. The organisation was also the first sporting entity to commit to 50/50 gender equity under his reign.

In the interim, the FV Board has installed Karen Pearce OAM – the current Head of Equity, Growth and Inclusion at the governing body, as acting CEO. She will continue in her current role as well taking on responsibilities of the CEO’s office in an acting capacity.

The board has initiated a recruitment process for a permanent CEO – and it’s an opportunity for the governing body to appoint an experienced individual, with fresh ideas, to take the game forward in Victoria.

The success of other governing bodies, such as Football Queensland, are an appropriate guide of what to do next for Football Victoria.

Rob Cavallucci and his organisation recently delivered a new home for football in Brisbane’s North, after an agreement between the governing body and the Brisbane City Council.

The facility will provide young footballers in the state with further development programs, to improve their skills at a young age.

It is just one of a number of initiatives that Football Queensland have implemented, since Cavallucci took over in 2019.

On the back of a hugely successful Women’s World Cup, participation numbers are set to soar in Australia and it’s important for the governing body in Victoria especially, to take advantage of this.

Increased funding from governments should be on the agenda to cater for the boom, with a lack of suitable football pitches across the state still an issue for many participants.

Improvement on a commercial front is also necessary.  The organisation should be focusing heavily on signing sponsorship deals for their major competitions and events across Victoria – something that they can definitely capitalise on.

To accomplish this, the game in Victoria needs a CEO with a wealth of commercial experience, with an extensive network to tap into – to take the state’s game to the next level.

Transformation is needed in the governing body now, before the momentum of the Matildas’ home World Cup achievements wear off.

Proactive business decisions must be made by the incoming CEO, instead of reactive, if the game is to grow into its full potential across Victoria.

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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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