When Football Outgrew the Volunteer Model

I was prompted to write this after sharing a recent Football Faces interview with Cathy James. She made a simple observation in passing, that football clubs now operate much like small businesses. It landed because it rang true.

It also explained a tension many of us feel but struggle to articulate.

For a long time, football clubs were spoken about as community organisations.
Run by volunteers.
Low cost.
Flexible.

That description once fitted.
It no longer does.

Modern football clubs now operate somewhere between amateur sport and professional enterprise. Expectations have shifted, quietly but decisively, while the structures beneath them have not.

Professional expectations, volunteer labour

Players expect to be paid.
Coaches expect to be paid.
Support staff expect allowances.

Families expect quality programs, safe environments, clear pathways and professional communication. Leagues expect compliance, reporting, licensing and consistency. Sponsors expect professionalism.

At the same time, boards remain unpaid. Canteens are staffed by volunteers. Administration is done after hours. The same six or eight people carry most of the load, year after year.

The tension is obvious.
It is also unsustainable.

Football clubs as small businesses

Whether we like the label or not, most football clubs now operate as small businesses.

They manage substantial budgets.
They pay wages and allowances.
They hire facilities.
They purchase equipment.
They insure people, assets and activities.
They manage risk.
They communicate, market and brand themselves.

Many clubs are registered for GST. They submit BAS statements to the ATO. They maintain financial records and manage cash flow. These are not optional tasks. They are legal obligations.

Clubs also apply for competitive grants, often to fund infrastructure, equipment or participation programs. Grant writing is skilled, time-consuming work. It involves compliance, reporting and acquittals and it carries real consequences if done poorly. This work is largely invisible and almost always unpaid.

Safeguarding and compliance

Child safeguarding alone has transformed how clubs operate, and rightly so.

Clubs are responsible for child safety frameworks, working with vulnerable people checks, education, reporting obligations and compliance. These are critical protections. They take time, care and administrative effort. They are not optional, and they are not light-touch responsibilities.

This work matters deeply. It also adds to the professional load carried by clubs that are still largely powered by volunteers.

Governance and responsibility

Boards are not symbolic. They carry legal and financial responsibility. Decisions have consequences. Compliance matters.

Many clubs are independently audited. Audits cost money but they provide assurance and transparency for boards, members and the wider community. They are part of operating responsibly.

This level of responsibility is one reason board positions are increasingly difficult to fill. It is not apathy. It is caution. People understand, instinctively, that being on a board carries weight, risk and expectation.

Trying to solve the volunteer problem

I remember many conversations over the years around a board table, asking the same question.

How do we tackle the lack of volunteers?

One suggestion was to ask families to staff the canteen once a season, shared across a team. On the surface, it seemed reasonable. Spread the load. Keep costs down. Maintain the volunteer model.

The response was mixed.

Some said they simply did not have the time.
Some said they would rather contribute financially instead.
Some felt it was unfair if everyone did not participate equally.
Some were willing. Some were not.

There was no solution that felt both fair and workable.

When consensus could not be reached, clubs returned to the only mechanism they reliably have.

Registration fees increased.

Bottom-up funding

Football is largely funded from the bottom up.

There are no major broadcast deals filtering down to community clubs. No television windfalls quietly underwriting participation. Football competes with AFL, NRL and cricket for broadcast money and commercial attention and it does so from a weaker position.

As a result, money flows upwards, not downwards.

Clubs pay affiliation fees.
They pay levies.
They pay licensing costs.
They pay to be governed.

Very little flows back.

NPL clubs, in particular, sit in an uncomfortable twilight zone. They are expected to operate like small businesses, with professional standards, paid staff and significant compliance obligations, yet because they are sporting clubs they are often ineligible for small business grants and support. They carry the costs of professionalism without access to the systems designed to support it.

This is not a complaint. It is a structural reality. But it matters when football is criticised for its cost without acknowledging how the game is actually funded.

The shrinking volunteer pool

The volunteer model has also collided with social change.

Two-income households are now the norm. Women work. Evenings are full. The cost of living is higher than ever. Time is scarce.

The old assumptions, mums in the canteen, dads on the committee, no longer reflect how families live. Yet clubs are still expected to function as though that labour will simply appear.

It doesn’t.

Football is expensive

Football is often accused of being expensive. That criticism is not always wrong, but it is rarely placed in context.

Benchmarks are higher than ever. Safety standards, coaching qualifications, facilities, insurance, compliance, communication and expectations have all risen. Clubs are expected to deliver professional experiences while charging community prices.

When volunteer labour cannot be guaranteed and funding does not flow down, costs do not disappear.

They shift.

How boards are really filled

When board vacancies arise, there is rarely a queue. Positions are filled through personal approaches. A tap on the shoulder. A familiar name.

This is often framed as exclusivity or power retention. More often, it is survival.

Clubs do not struggle to find people who care. They struggle to find people who can carry the responsibility, the workload and the time commitment without breaking.

The question we keep avoiding

If football clubs are already operating as small businesses, perhaps the real question is not why volunteers are disappearing, it is why we continue to design systems that rely on unpaid labour, while funding flows only one way?