When Running a Club Became a Second Job

Reading the North Again

I recently resubscribed to The Examiner and The Advocate.

Partly because I miss reading a real newspaper with my morning tea.
Mostly because it is one of the best ways to hear what is happening in football in the North and North West of our state.

So thank you to the journalists up there who keep writing about our game.

Local football stories do not write themselves. Someone has to turn up. Someone has to listen. Someone has to care enough to file the story. It matters more than you probably know.

On 29 November 2025, Ryan Bentley wrote an article in The Examiner titled Fees going up and rising volunteer burden has clubs wondering is it worth it?

I found myself nodding the whole way through.

Not because it was new.
Because it was familiar.

Voices From The North

Launceston City president Danny Linger said clubs are “getting past being just a community organisation, you're a business now.”

Riverside Olympic president Stuart McCarron spoke about the workload, saying applying for an NPL licence took him more than one hundred hours.

He also said clubs are trying to “run an elite program but at the same time run a community program and at times they're at odds.”

Those words will feel familiar to anyone who has sat on a football board in Tasmania.

Ninety Criteria

The article explained that there are ninety licensing criteria for NPL clubs, spread across sporting, infrastructure, personnel and administrative, legal, and financial areas.

Some are simple. An email address. A phone number.

Others are not.

Youth development programs that must run at least forty weeks a year for players aged fourteen and above. Safeguarding policies. Governance structures. Documentation.

This is real work. Done mostly by volunteers.

One president spoke about spending more than one hundred hours on licensing paperwork alone.

That is not unusual.

Running Two Clubs At Once

Clubs like Launceston City, Riverside Olympic, and Launceston United are dealing with more than five hundred players each.

Most are juniors.

As McCarron said, “less than a tenth of your players are involved in any elite program, the majority just prefer to play football.”

But every one of those players still needs a team, a coach, a uniform, a referee, a ground, and someone organising it all.

That web of work sits quietly behind every Saturday morning.

Often after someone’s real job.

North, South, North West – Different Models

One important difference across Tasmania rarely gets explained.

In the North and North West, most juniors play directly for clubs. That is why clubs there can have five hundred or more players registered.

In the South, junior football is powered by regional junior associations, and many children also play for their schools. Club junior numbers look smaller because players are spread across schools, association competitions, and club pathways.

It is a different structure, not less football.

Across the state, junior associations organise fixtures, support volunteers, develop referees, and carry the weekly workload that keeps football alive for children.

So when we talk about club size, volunteer burden, or licensing capacity, we need to remember these regional differences. Northern clubs carry junior numbers inside their club structure. Southern clubs rely more on association competitions feeding into clubs.

Both systems depend on volunteers.
Both systems are stretched.
Both systems power Tasmanian football.

Fees and Expectations

The article noted the 2025 NPL licence fee of $18,900, with another $10,500 for clubs with a women’s team.

Football Tasmania said these fees help cover travel and referee costs.

At the same time, the season is shortening as the league expands to ten teams and introduces relegation.

So clubs meet ninety criteria, organise hundreds of volunteers, raise sponsorship, and risk relegation at the end of it.

You can understand why some boards are quietly asking whether it is worth it.

The article reported that several clubs considered whether to leave the NPL after the 2025 season.

That should make all of us stop and think.

Volunteers Carrying The Weight

Danny Linger spoke about volunteers backing clubs out of their own pocket, serving on boards, running match days, and doing committee work.

He said it is “a second job for some people.”

Anyone who has sat on a Tasmanian football board knows that is true.

The sport runs on goodwill.

And goodwill is not infinite.

Clubs Becoming Businesses

Football Tasmania CEO Tony Pignata was quoted saying NPL and WSL level has gone past being community clubs and needs to be run like a business.

In one sense that is right.

We want proper safeguarding. Good coaching. Safe facilities. Financial transparency. Strong pathways.

But businesses have staff. Revenue streams. Office hours.

Most football clubs have volunteers and parents trying to keep everything afloat late at night after work.

That gap is where the strain lives.

The Quiet Fear

Northern Rangers faced the same decision years ago and stepped away from the NPL.

If more clubs do the same, replacing them will not be easy. There are only a few non-NPL clubs ready to step up.

Pathways disappear faster than they are built.

Communities lose teams. Juniors lose role models. Volunteers burn out.

Rebuilding takes decades.

This Is Not One Region’s Problem

Reading Danny Linger and Stuart McCarron speak so openly mattered to me.

It reminded me that these challenges are not about one club or one region.

Across Tasmania, presidents are having the same conversations about licensing hours, volunteer fatigue, sponsorship pressure, facility standards, and the gap between expectations and support.

Different structures in the North, South, and North West.
The same strain everywhere.

We all want strong competitions.

We also need sustainable clubs.

Thank You For Telling The Story

So again, thank you to the northern journalists who keep covering football, and thank you to the club presidents who speak honestly about the reality of running clubs.

These stories help the rest of us see the full picture of the game across our state. They honour the volunteers who carry far more than most people ever see.

Because clubs are not failing.

They are trying to carry more than they were ever designed to hold.

Continue Reading

If this piece resonated, you might like this earlier reflection.

When Football Outgrew the Volunteer Model
A look at how expectations grew faster than volunteer capacity in Tasmanian football.

Thank you for reading and caring about the game in our state.