On Episode 16 of Soccerscene’s Off the Pitch Podcast, it was a special episode with FQ CEO Rob Cavallucci to discuss the issues surrounding Australian and Queensland football ahead of a big 2026 year.
Many topics around the issues in Queensland football were discussed including Futsal’s incredible growth, update on Perry Park’s upgrade plan and driving player retention in certain youth age groups.
However one important topic that was discussed in detail was the fact that Football Queensland have the most affordable player registration fees in the country, and Cavallucci explained how they balanced the revenue lost from this big decision whilst also ensuring the sport is accessible for all.
“We made a decision 5-6 years ago, when I became CEO, and we looked at the game and how it was structured. The main issue we found was the lack of support from the commercial sector and the government sector,” Cavallucci expressed on the podcast.
“This meant there was always going to be significant cost pressure on the game. So we had to find a way to get us on a different path.”
FQ are no longer heavily reliant on the revenue made from registrations and have found solutions to ensure they maximise revenue in other areas of the sport to allow the fees to drop.
“We transformed the governance and competition structures. For competition we had the conference-based leagues, the pyramids, the junior FQ Academy system… all of those things allowed us to transition away from a reliance on registration fees,” he said.
“Registration fees used to represent 50% of our revenue and now it’s down in the 20’s.”
The key was in FQ’s ability to appeal to the government and private sector for more money, and the approach to this has been transformed by Cavallucci since he arrived as CEO in late 2019.
“Importantly we repositioned ourselves to appeal more to the corporate and to the government sector,” he said.
“Our corporate revenue is more than 20 times higher than it was five years ago. Our government revenue used to rake in $2 million a year, now it’s up to $30 million a year.
“The difference there has allowed us to maintain really affordable registration fees for everyone.”
Click here for the full interview with Rob Cavallucci, on Episode 16 of Soccerscene’s Off the Pitch Podcast – available on all major podcasting platforms.
