Football Without Consequence Is Not Football

Promotion and relegation is what makes football unique.

It rewards hard work. It punishes complacency. It makes survival as meaningful as success. Every match matters because every season carries consequence.

Why Promotion and Relegation Matters

Globally, this is not controversial. Promotion and relegation is the norm. It exists across almost every footballing nation, at every level of the game, from elite competitions to grassroots leagues. Only two countries operate long-term closed shop, franchise-style systems: Australia and the United States.

Frankly, that should give us pause.

In a closed system, it does not matter how poor a season is. You stay in the competition. Survival is guaranteed. Hard work does not necessarily lead to progression, and failure does not necessarily carry consequence.

That is not football as most of the world understands it.

What Football Looks Like With Consequence

I love looking at the league tables in the English Premier League.

Above the line sit the Champions League places, ambition rewarded. Just below, the Europa League, still something to fight for. And at the bottom, three clubs clinging on for dear life. Survival, not glory, is the goal.

That tension is football at its rawest.

Every match matters. Every point matters. A late goal can mean European football or relegation. A missed chance can mean another season at the table or financial ruin. Managers live and die by it. They are praised when it works and blamed when it does not. Sometimes unfairly. Often brutally. And yes, they are sacked.

It is harsh. It is unforgiving. And it is what makes football compelling.

The Drama That Cannot Be Manufactured

Then there are the play-offs.

By all accounts, some of the richest games on the planet. One match that changes everything. Promotion as the holy grail. Careers made. Clubs transformed. Generations of supporters carried along by ninety minutes of possibility.

That is football.

There is nothing quite like the final day of the season.

Kick-off at the same time across every ground. Phones glued to ears. Eyes flicking between the pitch in front of you and scores from elsewhere. A goal at one ground changes the fate of another. Staying up or going down, kick by kick.

That shared moment, the collective tension, is football at its most alive.

What We Don’t Have in Australia

This simply does not happen in Australia.

Our competitions are structured to avoid that level of jeopardy. Results rarely have consequences beyond pride. Seasons drift to their conclusion rather than building to a crescendo. The most powerful emotional tool football has is largely absent.

It is almost as if the most played team sport in an AFL-dominated landscape is afraid to take that step. Afraid of risk. Afraid of instability. Afraid of what happens when outcomes are not controlled.

The Distance Argument, and Why It Falls Short

Distance is often offered as the explanation.

In England, you can get around most places in a few hours. In Australia, Perth is five hours away by plane. Travel is expensive. Logistics are complex. These challenges are real.

But distance alone does not explain the choices we have made.

Australian football has chosen to stretch itself across vast geography while simultaneously rejecting the mechanisms that make that scale meaningful. We now have two teams from Oceania playing in the Asian confederation and competing in the A-League.

It is extraordinary when you stop to think about it.

We accept international travel across continents, time zones and cultures, yet hesitate to embrace promotion and relegation within our own domestic structure.

Tasmania as a Microcosm

Tasmania reflects these contradictions in miniature.

There is no true promotion and relegation here. Advancement is not earned purely on the pitch. It is assessed through licensing, benchmarking and compliance. Clubs are judged on spreadsheets, facilities and perceived capacity, not simply on results.

Tasmania has had promotion and relegation. It was stopped. It was replaced with the NPL licensing model, licence fees and administrative gatekeeping.

Championship clubs do not always want to be promoted. Some cannot afford it. Some do not meet licensing requirements. Some are blocked because they already have teams in the NPL. Others look at the cost, the compliance, the facilities and decide it is not worth the risk.

Across Australia, models have come and gone. Structures change. Competitions are rebranded. Pathways are redesigned. Yet the core issue remains.

Progression is rarely earned purely on the pitch.

Why Instability Is the Point

Football is cyclical.

My own club spent years languishing in the lower leagues before rising again. That is not an argument against promotion and relegation. It is the argument for it. Clubs rebuild. Communities regroup. Fortunes change. The ladder reflects reality over time, not permanence.

There are uniquely Tasmanian realities, including geography and a long-standing north–south divide. These factors are real and should be acknowledged. But complexity should not be used as a reason to remove consequence altogether.

The irony is that instability is the point.

Football is not meant to be safe. It is meant to be earned. Survival should be celebrated. Promotion should be chased. Relegation should hurt.

Without consequence, results lose meaning.
Without jeopardy, ambition dulls.

Where I Stand

I am unapologetically pro promotion and relegation.

Because football without consequence is not football.

It is participation.