Football Deserves Better — And So Do the People Who Carry it

For more than twenty years, I’ve watched Tasmanian football grow, stall, reinvent itself, and then circle back again. The pattern has become familiar. Big ideas. Small follow-through. Endless passion. Very little communication.

Football has been part of my life for decades. I’ve spent long hours on cold sidelines, in clubrooms, at council meetings, on training grounds and at finals, alongside people who give everything to this game. The highs have been extraordinary. The frustration, at times, has been exhausting.

There are moments when it feels easier not to say anything at all. To keep your head down. To just get on with it. But there is also a truth that keeps resurfacing for me, no matter how often I try to ignore it.

We can do better.

The Weight of Being Unheard

Over the years, I’ve watched football in Tasmania flip and flop its way through strategies and decisions.

Pathways are built, abandoned, then rebuilt.
Competitions are reshaped year after year.
Promises are raised, dropped, then raised again.
Consultation processes are run, only to deliver outcomes that look nothing like what was discussed.
Participation continues to grow, while resources struggle to keep pace.
Some clubs access facilities with ease, while others beg for basics.

None of this happens in isolation. It wears people down. It makes good volunteers retreat quietly. It leaves clubs feeling invisible. And eventually, you start asking yourself a simple question.

Why is this so hard?

It shouldn’t be.

Football is the most played sport in the country. It has numbers, history, diversity and deep community roots. What it often lacks is not passion or effort, but communication, clarity, and a willingness to genuinely listen to the people doing the work.

Why Silence Isn’t Helping

I’ll be honest. I go through phases of speaking up, and then phases of saying nothing at all. Not because I stop caring, but because it can feel like shouting into the wind.

You start wondering what the point is. You question whether raising concerns changes anything, or whether it simply marks you as difficult.

Sometimes it shows up in small moments. A meeting where questions are noted but never answered. A decision announced without explanation. A season ending with more uncertainty than clarity. None of it dramatic on its own. All of it familiar.

But silence doesn’t protect football. It protects the systems that keep it stuck. It allows poor communication to continue unchecked. And it quietly tells volunteers that their experience doesn’t matter enough to be heard.

No one expects perfection. No one expects every decision to go their way. But it is not unreasonable to expect respect. To expect transparency. To expect decisions that reflect the realities faced by the people who actually run the game week to week.

That should be the baseline.

Football Is People

Football isn’t policy documents, structures or slogans.

It’s parents driving children across the city after work.
It’s coaches planning sessions late at night.
It’s referees turning up, even when they know abuse is likely.
It’s volunteers washing bibs, setting up fields, unlocking gates and locking rooms.
It’s young players dreaming big because someone once believed in them.

Football is people.

Without them, it is nothing more than grass and goalposts.

And those people deserve better.

What Comes Next

This isn’t a complaint. It’s a reflection.

Tasmanian football has everything it needs to thrive, except alignment. When communication breaks down, when lived experience is overlooked, and when silence becomes the default, progress stalls.

But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

If we listen more carefully, communicate more honestly, and value the experience that already exists within our clubs and communities, the best years of Tasmanian football don’t have to sit in the past.

They can still be ahead of us.

The real question isn’t whether football can be better.

It’s whether we are prepared to listen.