41,395 Tasmanians played football last year
Football Australia’s 2025 Participation Report shows
41,395 Tasmanians played football last year.
Across 44 clubs.
Participation in Tasmania grew 32 percent.
These are official numbers.
They matter.
What the report actually says
In Tasmania in 2025
• 41,395 total participants
• 15,193 outdoor affiliated players
• 44 clubs
• 5,318 women and girls
• 1,810 registered coaches
• 261 referees
• 762 volunteers
The total number already includes schools, futsal, social football and community programs.
This is one of the largest community sport networks in the state.
It runs in every region.
It runs mostly on council grounds and volunteer labour.
Now look at the other number
Tasmania has committed about $1.1 billion to the Macquarie Point AFL stadium project.
Hundreds of millions in public funding.
For one elite competition.
This is not about AFL.
It is about priorities.
Do the maths
Tasmania has 44 football clubs.
If even $100 million were invested statewide in football facilities, that would be about $2.2 million per club.
Enough for lighting, drainage, changerooms and safe training space across the state.
Instead, clubs apply for grants of $20,000 or $50,000 and hope.
That is the scale of the gap.
The everyday reality
Every Tasmanian football person knows the winter message.
No spare pitch.
No lights.
No time available.
Training cancelled.
Matches moved.
Waiting lists growing.
This is not complaint.
It is capacity.
Women and girls are growing the game
More than 5,318 women and girls now play football in Tasmania.
That number will keep rising.
Growth needs infrastructure.
Separate changerooms.
Lighting for evening training.
Safe facilities.
Participation without facilities becomes exclusion.
Quietly.
The people who keep it going
Football in Tasmania relies on a small workforce and many volunteers.
1,810 coaches.
261 referees, who are paid modest match fees.
762 volunteers.
Thousands of hours every season organising teams, marking fields, running canteens, driving kids, writing grant applications.
This is community service.
It deserves community planning.
Prestige versus participation
Tasmania is choosing to spend more than a billion dollars on one stadium.
At the same time forty-one thousand footballers share space, share facilities and fundraise for basics.
This is not envy.
It is arithmetic.
Participation builds community health, inclusion and belonging.
Funding should recognise that.
The question Tasmania should ask
If forty-one thousand Tasmanians played cricket or AFL,
would they still be sharing changerooms and waiting lists?
Because footballers are not asking for a stadium.
They are asking for somewhere to train.
Somewhere to play.
Somewhere for their daughters to change safely.
That is not ambition.
That is dignity.