Who Measures the Health of Our Clubs? I Fear Too Many Are Quietly Struggling.
There is an old saying that every organisation should know what its most important asset is.
In football, I sometimes wonder whether we've forgotten.
We spend countless hours discussing competitions.
League structures.
Promotion and relegation.
Finals.
Streaming.
Governance.
Licensing.
Scheduling.
Participation.
Referee development.
Coach education.
All of these things matter.
They should matter.
But perhaps we've forgotten to ask a much simpler question.
What is the most important part of the football ecosystem?
I would argue it isn't the competition.
It isn't the governing body.
It isn't the representative team.
It isn't even the elite pathway.
It's the football club.
Everything in our game begins there.
A five-year-old doesn't join Football Tasmania.
They don't join Football Australia.
They join a football club.
Parents don't volunteer for governing bodies.
They volunteer for clubs.
Sponsors don't invest in fixture lists.
They invest in clubs.
Children don't create lifelong football memories because of a competition structure.
They create them because of the people around them.
The coach who encourages them.
The volunteer who lines the field.
The canteen manager who knows everyone's name.
The committee member who quietly unlocks the clubhouse every Tuesday and Thursday night.
The teammate who becomes a lifelong friend.
Every Socceroo.
Every Matilda.
Every NPL player.
Every coach.
Every referee.
Every administrator.
Every volunteer.
Almost every football journey begins at a football club.
That is why I believe the health of football should never be judged solely by the strength of its competitions or governing bodies.
It should also be judged by the health of its clubs.
Are they financially sustainable?
Are volunteers still willing to put their hands up?
Are sponsors seeing value?
Are families enjoying the match-day experience?
Are committees growing stronger?
Or are clubs simply becoming better at surviving?
These aren't anti-governing body questions.
They're governance questions.
Because the role of a governing body isn't simply to administer competitions.
Surely it is also to create an environment where clubs can flourish.
Strong clubs create strong competitions.
Strong competitions strengthen governing bodies.
The flow of football has always been from the grassroots up - not from the boardroom down.
Why I'm Writing This
Those thoughts were already in my mind this week when I received an email from someone heavily involved in running a football club.
It wasn't written for publication.
It wasn't intended to make headlines.
It was simply an honest reflection on the pressures they believe their club is facing.
Their identity will remain confidential because this article isn't about one club.
It's about a much bigger issue.
As I read their words I couldn't help wondering how many presidents, treasurers, committee members and volunteers across Tasmania would quietly nod their heads.
Not because every club faces exactly the same challenges.
But because many are probably confronting similar ones.
Increasing costs.
The constant search for sponsors.
More administration.
More compliance.
More travel.
Fewer volunteers.
Trying to remain competitive while balancing a budget that never seems quite large enough.
The email wasn't angry.
It wasn't political.
It wasn't looking for sympathy.
It was simply the honest thoughts of someone trying to keep a football club healthy.
And it made me stop and ask myself a question.
If clubs are the foundation of football...
Who is measuring their health?
Football's Hidden Economy
Most supporters see ninety minutes of football.
Club committees see everything else.
They see the invoices.
The insurance.
The electricity bills.
The travel costs.
The equipment that needs replacing.
The ground hire.
The fundraising.
The sponsorship meetings.
The grant applications.
The rosters.
The volunteers who ring at 7.00am to say they can't make it.
The search for someone else to cook the barbecue.
Football has a hidden economy.
Thousands upon thousands of volunteer hours.
Hours that never appear on a balance sheet.
Hours freely given because people love their football club.
That goodwill has carried football for generations.
But goodwill is not an unlimited resource.
Nine Home Games
For clubs competing in the NPL, there are only nine home games.
Nine opportunities to generate gate income.
Nine opportunities to welcome sponsors.
Nine opportunities to sell food and drinks.
Nine opportunities to showcase the club to its community.
Those weekends matter.
Lose one to poor weather.
Lose another to a rescheduled midweek fixture.
Lose another because supporters don't know when the game is on.
Suddenly opportunities become very limited.
Many clubs rely on those match days to help fund everything else they do.
When attendance falls, the impact extends well beyond the gate.
The canteen feels it.
The bar feels it.
Sponsors notice it.
The entire club feels it.
Has The Club Day Changed?
I wonder whether we've quietly lost something that once made football clubs special.
There was a time when multiple teams from the same club played at the same venue.
Families arrived early.
Players stayed after their own game.
Parents watched older age groups.
Senior players watched juniors.
Juniors stayed to watch the first team.
The clubhouse remained busy.
Children kicked footballs around between games.
People belonged.
Today that experience is becoming harder to create.
It isn't unusual for one club to have teams spread across multiple venues and sometimes multiple cities on the same weekend.
Nobody intended to weaken the traditional club day.
But perhaps that has become one of the unintended consequences.
Volunteers Are Football's Greatest Asset
Every year volunteers are asked to do more.
Safeguarding.
Governance.
Licensing.
Reporting.
Digital systems.
Compliance.
Risk management.
Every one of those requirements exists for a good reason.
This isn't an argument against standards.
Football should have high standards.
But volunteers don't experience these requirements one at a time.
They experience the cumulative weight of all of them.
Another form.
Another deadline.
Another meeting.
Another policy.
Another online module.
Another audit.
Eventually every volunteer asks themselves the same question.
"How much more can I realistically do?"
That should concern every single person who loves football.
Because volunteers don't usually resign dramatically.
They simply stop volunteering.
And when they do, replacing them becomes one of the hardest jobs in football.
A Licence Fee Is Not A Health Check
Perhaps this is the question that troubles me most.
Every year clubs pay their licence fees.
They complete the paperwork.
They satisfy the compliance requirements.
They meet the standards expected to participate.
This year many also absorbed an increase in licence fees.
From the outside everything appears healthy.
The fee has been paid.
The boxes have been ticked.
The licence has been granted.
But is the club actually healthy?
That's a completely different question.
Is the treasurer lying awake wondering how the next bill will be paid?
Are volunteers burning out?
Has sponsorship become harder to secure?
Are committees getting smaller?
Are gate receipts falling?
Is the canteen generating the income it once did?
A club can be fully compliant and quietly dying at the same time.
Paying a licence fee proves only one thing.
It proves a club has managed to pay a licence fee.
It tells us nothing about the financial or operational health of the organisation behind it.
Sometimes it feels as though the relationship between governing body and club has become increasingly centred on compliance.
Whether intended or not, the cumulative effect is that many clubs feel they are spending more time satisfying the system than strengthening their football community.
That perception alone should concern us.
Participation in the NPL and WSL should absolutely require high standards.
Nobody is arguing otherwise.
But there is an important difference between setting standards with clubs and simply placing obligations on clubs.
The strongest sporting systems don't simply regulate their clubs.
They strengthen them.
They don't just ask:
"Have you met the standard?"
They also ask:
"What can we do to help you succeed?"
That is what genuine partnership looks like.
Because the success of a governing body can never be separated from the success of its clubs.
Who Measures The Health Of Our Clubs?
Football measures many things.
Participation.
Coach education.
Referee numbers.
Registrations.
Safeguarding.
Facilities.
Governance.
Licensing.
All of these are important.
But who measures whether clubs themselves are becoming stronger?
Do we know if sponsorship is increasing or declining?
Do we know whether volunteers are staying or walking away?
Do we know whether clubs are financially healthier today than they were five years ago?
Do we know whether committees are finding it easier or harder to recruit volunteers?
I don't have those answers.
Perhaps that's part of the problem.
If we aren't measuring them, how do we know whether our reforms are achieving what they were intended to achieve?
Good governance isn't simply introducing change.
It is evaluating whether that change is strengthening the game.
Football has become very good at measuring compliance.
I'm not sure we've become equally good at measuring sustainability.
And What About Our Associations?
While this article has focused largely on clubs, the same questions should also be asked of our regional associations.
They too rely heavily on volunteers.
They coordinate thousands of matches every season.
They support hundreds of teams and volunteers.
They solve problems that most people never see.
Much of that work is carried out quietly, behind the scenes, by people who simply care about football.
If clubs are the heartbeat of football, then associations are its circulatory system.
Both need to be healthy if the game is to thrive.
The Conversation We Need
This article isn't about blaming Football Tasmania.
Nor is it about suggesting that every reform has been wrong.
Many changes have improved our game.
Higher standards matter.
Better governance matters.
Safeguarding matters.
Coach education matters.
Live streaming has brought enormous benefits.
But perhaps it is time to ask one more question alongside all of those.
Are our clubs becoming stronger?
Because if the answer is no, then we owe it to ourselves to understand why.
For twenty years I have watched football from almost every angle imaginable.
As a parent.
A volunteer.
A club administrator.
A board member.
An association president.
One thing has never changed.
Football has always been built from the grassroots up.
Every player.
Every coach.
Every referee.
Every volunteer.
Every administrator.
Almost every football journey begins at a football club.
If we ever lose sight of that, we risk measuring the success of our game by the wrong things.
The true health of football isn't found in a strategic plan.
It isn't found in a licensing document.
It isn't found in a compliance checklist.
It is found on a cold Tuesday night when volunteers unlock the gates, coaches put out the cones, parents arrive with children full of excitement and another generation falls in love with football.
Protect the clubs.
Support the associations.
Strengthen the volunteers.
If we get those things right, football will look after itself.