Who Actually Decides Who Leads Tasmanian Football?

Leaders of the future

After looking at how the AGM works, I found myself coming back to one question.

Who actually decides the formal direction of football in Tasmania?

Because when you look closely, the voting group is much smaller than most people would imagine.

The Members

Under the structure of Football Tasmania, voting rights sit with Members.

In simple terms, those Members are made up of:

clubs
recognised associations
and standing committees

Each Member holds one vote.

Who are the Members?

To make this more tangible, it helps to look at who those Members actually are.

Based on the information provided in the AGM papers and a list provided by the CEO of FT, the current Members include:

Recognised Associations

Central Region JSA
Devonport JSA
Eastern Region JSA
Northern Suburbs JSA
NTJSA
Western Schools Soccer Association

Clubs

Barnstoneworth United
Brighton Storm
Burnie United
Clarence Zebras Football Club
Devonport City Strikers FC
DOSA
Glenorchy Knights
Hobart City FC
Hobart United
Huon Valley
Kingborough Lions
Launceston City
Launceston United Soccer
Metro
Nelson Eastern Suburbs
New Norfolk Soccer Club
New Town Eagles
North Launceston Eagles
North Launceston Eagles Junior Soccer Club
Northern Rangers
Olympia FC Warriors
Phoenix Rovers
Riverside Olympic
Somerset Soccer Club
South East United FC (TAS)
South Hobart Football Club
Southern Football Club
Southern Raiders Junior Soccer Club
Taroona Soccer Club
Ulverstone Soccer Club
University Football Club

Standing Committees

Referee Standing Committee

What stands out

Football in Tasmania involves tens of thousands of people.

But the formal outcomes of the AGM are decided by this relatively small group of Members.

That is not necessarily unusual in governance terms.

But it is worth understanding.

Proxies matter

Not every Member attends the AGM in person.

Some appoint proxies to vote on their behalf.

Looking at the 2025 AGM provides an interesting snapshot of how governance participation works in practice.

Of the 33 Members listed in the financial report:

• 14 were recorded as attending

• 10 were represented by proxy

• leaving 9 not represented

Which again highlights how the formal outcomes of the AGM can ultimately be shaped by a relatively small group.

And because nominations for President are only formally advised 24 hours before the AGM, those proxy decisions may need to be finalised within a very compressed timeframe.

Representation and distance

The system is built on representation.

Players elect club committees.
Clubs and associations become Members.
Members vote at the AGM.

That is the pathway from the weekend game to the boardroom.

The question is not whether that structure is valid.

The question is how connected people feel to it.

Membership in practice

Another interesting aspect of the structure is membership itself.

The financial report lists 33 Members of Football Tasmania, with annual membership subscriptions applying through the constitution and governance structure.

Which raises a practical question around timing and process.

For example, CRJFA had not received a membership invoice at the time AGM notices and papers were distributed.

That may well be entirely consistent with the normal process and timing of invoicing.

But it does highlight how difficult these structures can sometimes be for ordinary participants in the game to fully understand.

The broader question

Football in Tasmania is not just the people listed above.

It is players.
Parents.
Volunteers.
Coaches.
Referees.

People involved every weekend across the state.

So perhaps the bigger question is this:

outside the AGM itself, how does the Board consistently hear from the wider game?

Next

In the final post, I’ll look at how timing, process and structure combine to shape decisions

and why governance can sometimes feel distant from the people actually participating in the game

The AGM: What Actually Happens

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Football Tasmania AGM.

Not from the outside this time, or as a candidate, or as member who is eligible to vote but simply as someone who has spent a long time in the game and is still curious about how it all works.

Because if I’m being honest, I’m not sure many people really understand it.

And that’s not a criticism. It’s just the reality.

The basics

The 2026 Annual General Meeting of Football Tasmania will be held at:

5.30pm, Wednesday 27 May 2026
Salamanca Inn, Hobart
(or via Teams)

Members need to register attendance by Wednesday 20 May.

That’s the formal part. The part that appears on paper.

What the AGM actually is

At its simplest, the AGM (Annual General Meeting) is the one time each year where Members come together to:

hear reports
receive the financials
and elect the Board, including the President

It is, in theory, the moment where the game looks at itself and decides what comes next.

Nominations

If you want to stand for President, or for a Director position, you need to be nominated.

That involves:

a proposer
a seconder
a completed nomination form
and a statutory declaration

All of which must be submitted by:

5.30pm, Monday 25 May 2026

Again, very clear on paper.

And then something interesting happens

Members are advised of who has been nominated by:

5.30pm, Tuesday 26 May

Which is 24 hours before the AGM.

Pause on that for a moment

That means that for most clubs and associations across Tasmania, the formal list of candidates arrives the day before the meeting.

There isn’t a week.
There isn’t even a few days.

It’s one day.

What that means in the real world

Clubs and associations don’t operate in isolation.

Decisions are usually talked through.
People ring each other.
Committees weigh things up.

That’s how football works here.

But with a 24-hour window, there is very little time for that kind of conversation to happen formally.

So in reality, most of those conversations, if they happen at all, happen beforehand.

Quietly. Informally. Through relationships.

Attendance and proxies

Members can attend the AGM in person, or online.

If they can’t attend, they can appoint a proxy.

That means someone else votes on their behalf.

Again, all very normal.

But it does mean that on the night, not everyone who has a vote is actually in the room.

Proxies and timing

There is also a practical aspect to proxies.

If a Member is unable to attend, they can appoint someone else to vote on their behalf.

But with nominations only confirmed 24 hours before the AGM, there is very little time to make an informed decision about how that proxy should be used.

In some cases, a proxy may be appointed before all candidates are formally known. In others, the decision is made in a very short window the day before the meeting.

Who can attend

It’s also worth noting that the AGM is not a public meeting.

It is a Members’ meeting, which means attendance is limited to a defined group of clubs, associations and representatives. Each Member can send an authorised delegate, or appoint a proxy to attend and vote on their behalf.

While others may attend by invitation or permission, the general football community does not attend as of right.

The bit that isn’t written down

On paper, the AGM is a single meeting.

In reality, it is the end point of a series of conversations that have already taken place.

Who attends.
Who doesn’t.
Who holds proxies.
Who has spoken to who.

By the time people walk into the room at 5.30pm, much of the shape of the meeting is already there.

A note on the Constitution

All of this sits within the current constitution of Football Tasmania.

The version in place dates back to 2009.

That’s not unusual. A lot of sporting organisations are still operating under constitutions written in that period, often aligned with national models at the time.

They tend to be:

structured
formal
and, at times, a little clunky

That’s the nature of these documents. They are designed to ensure process is followed, rather than to make things feel simple or intuitive.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the process outlined. It is clear in a legal sense and it works.

But it isn’t particularly consultative. And it doesn’t always make things easy to understand for the people actually involved in the game.

How does the Board hear from the game?

All of this leads to a broader question.

If the AGM is a Members’ meeting, and attendance and voting sit with a relatively small group, how does the Board hear from the wider game?

Because football in Tasmania is not just the Members in the room.

It is thousands of players.
Coaches.
Volunteers.
Parents.

People involved in the game every week, in all parts of the state.

Formally, that connection tends to sit through the structure. Clubs and associations represent their participants, and the Board receives information and perspective through those channels, often via the CEO.

But from the outside, it is not always clear how those broader voices make their way into decision-making.

Why it matters

It doesn’t mean the system doesn’t work.

But it does raise a simple question.

How well does the structure capture what is actually happening across the game?

Next

In the next post, I’ll look at something I’ve always found interesting:

who actually gets a vote at the AGM

and how small that group is, compared to the size of the game in Tasmania

Who Gets Tapped on the Shoulder?

A $95,000 role.
No advertisement.
No process.
Just a tap on the shoulder.

I read the article this week about the Tasmanian ambassador appointment and kept coming back to that phrase.

Tapped on the shoulder.

Because that phrase tells you everything.

There was no public expression of interest.
No visible selection criteria.
No explanation of why this person, for this role, at this time.

Just a decision.

Made somewhere.
By someone.
About someone.

And then announced as something we are all supposed to get excited about.

Not personal

This isn’t about the individual.

By all accounts, he’s a good operator.
Well liked. Successful.

That’s not the issue.

The issue is the process.

When something isn’t advertised, when it isn’t tested, when it isn’t opened up…

It stops being a selection.

It becomes a choice.

The tap, and the rules that allow it

The contract sits just under the $100,000 threshold.

Which means it didn’t have to go to open tender.
Which means it didn’t have to be tested.
Which means it could be hand-picked.

We’re told all appropriate procurement processes were followed.

That may well be true.

But following the rules is not the same as testing the decision.

This wasn’t just a tap on the shoulder.

It was a tap made possible by the rules.

The context

This was announced in the same period as 250 job cuts in the same department.

Maybe the $95,000 “would not even save one job”.

But it might still deserve scrutiny.

Because public money, regardless of amount, carries an expectation.

Transparency.
Clarity.
Accountability.

What are we actually buying?

The role itself is broad.

Speaking engagements.
Awareness.
Promotion.

Delivered in partnership with Brand Tasmania.

All worthwhile.

But also hard to measure.
Easy to announce.

What exactly is this role meant to achieve?

And how will we know if it has?

Outcomes should be clear.
Measurement should be visible.
Otherwise, it’s just a title.

Perfect, compared to who?

We’re told he is “perfect for the role”.

But perfect compared to who?

Because there was no one else in the process.

The quiet system

This is how decisions get made in small systems.

Quietly.
Internally.
Within familiar circles.

Visibility matters.
Proximity matters.
Being known in the right rooms matters.

And if you’re not in those rooms, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve done.

You’re not in the conversation when the tap happens.

The sport outside the room

Football is the most played sport in Tasmania.

By participation.
By reach.
By community footprint.

Thousands of kids every weekend.
Hundreds of teams.
Clubs in every corner of the state.

The participation is here.
The voice often isn’t.

And when it comes to influence, visibility, and moments like this…

It rarely feels like football is in the room.

Close enough to see.

Not close enough to be asked.

On the couch beside me

Because sitting on the couch beside me is someone who has lived in Tasmania for 40 years.

Someone who came through Manchester United.

Someone who has coached across countries, systems, and generations of players.

More than 50 years in the game.

Someone who understands this place.

Someone who would share his knowledge tomorrow if anyone asked.

When I mentioned the role, he laughed and said, “$95K… pick me, pick me.”

A joke.

But also, not really.

He doesn’t lack experience.

He lacks an invitation.

Most of the time, he doesn’t even get asked.

Not by government.
Not by the broader sporting system.
And, if we are being honest, not often enough by football’s own governing body.

So perhaps this isn’t surprising

Because once you understand how these decisions are made…

Who is in the room.
Who is visible.
Who is already part of the conversation…

The outcome starts to make sense.

But it should

That’s the uncomfortable part.

This isn’t about one role.
Or one sport.
Or one person.

It’s about a pattern.

Public decisions made through closed processes.

Local knowledge overlooked.

Experience sitting quietly on the sidelines while we look elsewhere.

Before the next tap

Before the next announcement.

Before the next contract.

Before the next moment where we are all expected to nod along and celebrate.

Maybe just one question.

Who didn’t we ask?

Or more to the point…

Who was never going to be in the conversation?

Outside the Fence

Sometimes I need a football reset.

Yesterday was one of those days.

At D’Arcy Street.

No camera. No pressure to capture everything.
To be honest, with so much going on, I’ve realised I need to slow down. Take fewer photos. More targeted ones. The editing alone can take hours.

So I left the camera alone.

And instead, I sat with Ken outside the fence.

Not inside, where I usually am.

Outside.

Watching.

A Different View

We watched the Women’s Championship first, then the WSL.

Same games. Same people.

Different feeling.

When you step back like that, you notice different things.

You’re not chasing moments or thinking about what you might have missed.

You’re just there.

The Conversations

Justin asking, almost in passing, “Will Tottenham stay up?”

As I write this, Tottenham are out of the drop zone, having just beaten Villa 1–2.

Justin can breathe for another week.

Clare and Freya stopping for a chat.

Freya itching to move on, keen to get to her friends in the grandstand.

Clare still talking to me… again.

So much to talk about. So little time.

Clare sorting the Hobart Cup merch.

No small thing organising all of that.

Grandparents quietly talking about how nervous the players looked.

Richard, our wonderful, loud supporter, exactly as he always is.

Good coffee. Easy conversation.

And in between it all, football just happening.

The Familiar Faces

Ken being greeted as he walked around.

Stopping. Chatting. Listening.

Always polite. Always willing.

Fran and I talking about the new wall along D’Arcy Street.
One of those small, local things that somehow becomes part of the football conversation.

Abbey moving constantly.

Team manager. Match manager.

Volunteering.

No fuss. Just getting it done.

Nick arriving and settling in with his dad.

Talking through yesterday’s game in detail.

The difference for Devonport without Mulraney.

The kind of conversation you only really hear when you’re standing right there.

Adam had 20 minutes yesterday against Devonport.

Josi is still injured.

Both there.

Supporting the team. Catching up with teammates.

The Quiet Work

A nice chat with the Clarence Zebras FC lads who coached the women’s Championship side and beat South 1–0.

Two young coaches right in the middle of their journey.

Learning. Growing. Doing a really good job.

No spotlight. No noise around it.

Just the work.

Nikki in her little corner.

Rain or shine.

Capturing photos from the other side of the ground.

Volunteering for her football community.

Always thinking about next week.

And at one point, Nikki and I teasing Ken.

Him loving it.

The People

Many people took the time to say how much they enjoy reading the blog.

Encouraging. Kind.

The sort of moments that make you smile in that slightly embarrassed, slightly proud way.

The kind you don’t quite know what to do with, but carry with you anyway.

Mel and Adrian, always there, volunteering, supporting their daughter, thanking me for their morning read.

And more. Many more.

That silly grin returning, whether I like it or not.

Meaghan sharing that she’s moved closer to town.

Less driving after 16 years.

One of those small life shifts that feels big when you say it out loud.

Harvey on his scooter, greeting everyone.

A football community constant.

What It Really Is

We talk a lot about football in terms of structure, results, decisions.

And yes, that matters.

But sitting outside the fence yesterday, it felt very simple.

It’s people.

Talking. Watching. Connecting.

Connected

That’s the word I keep coming back to.

Connected.

Not formally. Not strategically.

Just people who know each other. Care about it. Turn up.

Week after week.

In Hobart, and across grounds all over the state, this is happening quietly all the time.

The Reset

Stepping outside the fence did something.

It slowed everything down.

Reminded me that I don’t have to capture every moment to be part of it.

I can just sit in it.

Watch it.

Be there.

Because I know now that if I’m inside the fence, I miss a lot of this.

You can see the game from there.

But you don’t feel it in quite the same way.

Observing the comings and goings from the other side of the ground is not the same as realising how important the community is on the outside of the fence.

A Quiet Reminder

I spend a lot of time writing about what isn’t working.

And I won’t stop.

But this is the other side of it.

The part that is easy to miss when things feel busy or heavy.

Connected. Caring. Community.

And yesterday, sitting outside the fence, that felt like more than enough.

Is this right for Tasmania? The women’s game deserves an honest answer

This started as a look at the ladders.

Nothing more.

But once you look closely, it becomes something else.

Because what the women’s competitions are showing right now is not subtle.

And it’s not random.

The gaps are already there

Six rounds in, and you can see it clearly:

• Strong top sides

• A stretched middle

• Teams already struggling

Goal differences tell the story:

• +30 at one end

• -30 at the other

Not in one match, but across multiple rounds.

Games being decided early.

Ladders taking shape quickly.

This is not a competition finding balance.

It is a competition reflecting its structure.

And it’s not just WSL

Look underneath.

Championship North.
Championship South.

Same pattern:

• Strong top teams

• A stretched middle

• Bottom teams falling behind

This is not one league with an issue.

It is the whole system showing the same shape.

The league is getting younger

That’s often framed as a positive.

And in part, it is.

But it is also a signal.

Clubs are:

• Filling gaps

• Pushing players up earlier

• Managing limited depth

That’s not always opportunity.

Sometimes it’s necessity.

There is no promotion. Let’s be clear

Clubs don’t earn their place in WSL through results.

They apply.

They meet criteria.

They are accepted.

So this isn’t a system where performance exposes the gap.

It is a system where entry can create it.

Which leads to a simple question:

What is the criteria actually measuring, and does it include the ability to compete at this level?

Because being able to enter a league is not the same as being able to compete in it.

Let’s look at the numbers

This isn’t opinion.

It is arithmetic.

• Greater Hobart: ~230,000

• Launceston: ~90,000

• North West (Devonport region): ~60,000–70,000

Now look at WSL teams:

• Hobart: 4

• Launceston: 3

• North West: 1

Each squad needs around 18–20 players.

So Launceston is trying to sustain roughly 55–60 WSL-level players from a population of around 90,000.

That’s before you even get into participation rates, age profile and availability.

It’s not a criticism.

It’s a constraint.

And then there’s a reality unique to the women’s game

Players step away.

For:

• Pregnancy

• Having children

• Raising families

Some return.

Some don’t.

Some return differently.

That means depth is not just smaller.

It is fluid.

And if you are already stretching your player base, that matters.

This is the same reality that plays out beyond football, where women step away from work at key stages of life and carry the long-term impact of that. Football doesn’t sit outside it. It reflects it.

One town, one club vs one town, many clubs

Devonport shows something important.

• One town

• One club

• One consolidated player base

In Hobart and Launceston, it is different:

• Multiple clubs

• Same population

• Same player pool

We are not building depth.

We are dividing it.

So what are we actually asking of the system?

We are asking:

• Smaller populations

• With fluid player availability

• Split across multiple clubs

To sustain multiple top-level teams.

And then we are surprised when:

• The gaps appear

• Results stretch

• The competition feels uneven

This matters for the people in it

Because this isn’t abstract.

It’s:

• Players in games that are over early

• Coaches trying to hold things together

• Clubs stretching to stay competitive

And quietly:

Players stop.

Not dramatically.

They just drift away.

To be fair

Football Tasmania does ask the questions.

Clubs are consulted.

Feedback is gathered.

But asking the question is only part of it.

The outcome has to reflect the answer.

Right now, the ladders suggest it doesn’t.

So here is the question

Not:

“How many teams do we want?”

But:

How many teams can Tasmania genuinely sustain at this level?

And just as importantly:

Have we actually had that conversation?

Because this is where it lands

Clubs wanting to be in the top league is not the problem.

That ambition is what drives the game.

The problem is the gap between aspiration and readiness.

And right now, the structure is not bridging it.

What does good actually look like?

A strong competition should feel:

• Competitive week to week

• Unpredictable

• Sustainable for the clubs in it

Right now, too many games are predictable too early.

The honest version

Launceston is trying to run three top-level teams off a population base that probably supports one and a half.

That’s not opinion.

That’s arithmetic.

And the final question

Is this right for Tasmania?

Because right now, it feels like we are:

• Stretching the top

• Splitting the middle

• Exposing the bottom

And calling it a pathway.

One last line

The women’s game is growing.

That’s not in doubt.

But growth without the right structure doesn’t strengthen the game.

It stretches it.

Right now, the structure is shaping the game.

The question is whether we’re comfortable with what it’s creating.

Relegation: Ugly, Brutal, Brilliant

Why we watch

It is a strangely hot Tasmanian evening.

Twenty degrees in May.

Doesn’t feel right.

But here we are anyway, sitting down to watch Launceston United v South East United.

Bottom of the table.

Relegation battle.

Do or die.

And if I’m being honest, Ken and I looked at each other beforehand and said,

Why on earth are we watching this?

We could be watching something easy. Something comfortable. Something “nice”.

A rerun of Downton Abbey.

But we didn’t.

We chose this.

And the reason is simple.

Relegation.

The Fear of Losing

This is what football looks like when it matters.

Not pretty.

Not polished.

Not always good.

But gripping.

Every pass is tight.

Every tackle has consequence.

Every mistake feels like it might end your season.

The football is edgy, cautious, aggressive, all at once.

And then there’s the noise.

We can hear the friction from the coaching benches through the microphone.

Disputing.

Encouraging.

Pushing the boundaries.

It spills into the game.

Into the players.

Into every decision.

Pure theatre.

No one is playing freely.

They are playing to survive.

And that changes everything.

Because it’s not about style.

It’s about stakes.

Then… 9:30pm

Later tonight, we flick over to England.

EFL Championship.

Final round.

Round 46.

Forty-six.

Not 18 rounds like Tasmania.

Forty-six meaningful rounds.

Let’s just sit with that for a second.

Forty-six games where something is always on the line.

Let’s poke the bear a little.

Up. Down. Or Not Quite

Coventry City are already up.

But the rest?

Chaos.

Ipswich Town or Millwall FC.

Millwall.

“No one likes us, we don’t care.”

Millwall in the Premier League.

Just imagine that.

The noise.

The edge.

The theatre.

Ned says it’s his favourite ground in London.

He went on his own several times to the new “Den”.

Sat in the middle of it.

Chanted.

Felt it.

That’s football.

The Scramble

Wrexham AFC.

The Hollywood club.

Can they sneak into the playoffs?

Hull City right behind them.

Same points.

No margin.

Then Middlesbrough FC and Southampton FC lining up for playoff football.

Another chance.

Another layer of pressure.

You can feel it through the screen.

This Is The Point

This is why we watched the game in Tasmania.

Not because it was top of the table.

Not because it was beautiful.

But because it mattered.

Relegation creates something you cannot manufacture.

Urgency.

Fear.

Meaning.

Why It Matters

Relegation is unique to our game.

No drafts.

No safety nets.

No soft landings.

You finish at the bottom, you go down.

Simple.

Brutal.

Ours.

And we should embrace it.

Not hide from it.

Not dilute it.

Not quietly design it out of existence because it makes people uncomfortable.

Because this is what it gives you.

Edge.

Tension.

Desperation.

Meaning.

It gives you a reason to watch Launceston United v South East United on a warm Saturday night in May instead of doing something easier.

And then it gives you forty-six rounds of it in the EFL Championship.

Not 18.

Forty-six.

Forty-six chances for something to matter.

So here’s the uncomfortable question.

If we believe in football,

really believe in it,

why would we ever move away from the very thing that makes it different?

Relegation is not a flaw.

It’s not a problem to be solved.

It is the point.

Messy.

Uncomfortable.

Sometimes ugly.

But absolutely alive.

And on nights like this,

you wouldn’t swap it for Downton Abbey.

Not for a second.

It is 3-5 at the moment. South East holding the lead with 10 to go.

Tasmanian Football Has A Structure Problem - And It Goes Much Deeper Than 8 Or 10

Photo: Football Tasmania

There was a conversation on Tassie Football Central recently about the NPL.

Should it be 10 teams or 8?

Plenty of views. Plenty of strong opinions.

And like most of these threads, it didn’t take long before it drifted.

Into development. Into youth. Into depth. Into clubs.

Which is usually a sign the original question isn’t quite the right one, or at least not the whole one.

It got me thinking.

And then it got me remembering.

So firstly, thanks to Matthew for raising it.

Conversations like that matter.

Opinions matter.

Voice matters.

Being heard matters, even if it’s via social media.

Because if we’re not talking about it, nothing changes.

It Used To Be Simpler

And It Adapted To Reality

Before all of this, we had:

Southern Championship
Southern Championship Reserves

Up north, North and North West played together.

Not because it was designed that way.

Because they had to.

There weren’t enough teams to split it.

So the system adapted to the player pool.

Not the other way around.

And then we came together in the cups.

That was the connection point.

That’s where the state met.

Now We’ve Built The Model First

Now we have:

NPL
U21s
Championship
Championship One
And even “social” underneath

That’s a full pyramid.

But the NPL model wasn’t built for Tasmania.

It was applied to Tasmania.

And it assumes a level of depth that we don’t consistently have.

I Looked At All The Ladders

There Was A Pattern

This isn’t opinion.

It’s visible.

Across every level:

• Strong teams at the top

• A middle that shifts

• Clear drop-offs at the bottom

NPL.
U21s.
Championship.
Championship One.

Same pattern.

If the system is working as intended, depth should be improving across all levels.

The ladders suggest otherwise.

So Clubs Are Bridging The Gap

Some clubs concentrate:

NPL + U21

Others stretch:

NPL + U21 + Championship + Championship One

That’s not just a difference in approach.

That’s a difference in burden.

Some clubs are focusing on performance.

Others are carrying players, pathways and opportunity.

Both sit on the same ladder.

They are not doing the same job.

This Is A Saturday Problem

All of this lands in one place.

Saturday.

Who plays.

Who sits.

Who gets minutes.

Who doesn’t.

If you don’t run a Championship team:

You lose over-21s.

If you do:

You double your load.

If you add Championship One:

You create depth.

But now you’re running four teams.

This isn’t a structural diagram.

It’s a Saturday juggle.

And sometimes it’s a bloody mess.

And players notice.

If they don’t have a place that feels right for them, they don’t move down the system.

They leave it.

The Season Doesn’t Work

And It’s Costing Clubs

This is the part that frustrates me the most.

We don’t play enough football.

Clubs are charging registration fees that people question.

And I understand why they question them.

But walk in the shoes of a club for five minutes.

Registration doesn’t just cover “playing”.

It covers:

• Ground hire

• Clubroom rent

• Utilities

• Playing kit

• Training gear

• Equipment

• Insurance

• Travel

• Referees

• Coaching support

• Admin systems

• Compliance requirements

The list keeps going.

Clubs are not charging what they like.

They are trying to cover what it costs to exist.

And None Of This Works Without Volunteers

If it wasn’t for volunteer labour, most clubs would be buried.

That’s the reality.

There is no spare capacity.

There is no hidden workforce.

There is no ability to just hire someone to fix it.

Clubs cannot afford paid staff to run this system.

So everything you see is being held together by people giving up their time.

And we keep asking them to do more.

And Then We Cut The Revenue Side

But Keep The Fees
Around $2,500 to nominate a Championship team.
Around $23,000 for NPL.
And that’s just licence and nomination.
That’s before you even kick a ball.

Eighteen rounds.

Home and away once.

Fewer home games than we’ve had before.

Less gate.

Less canteen.

Less opportunity to actually bring money in.

But the licence fee?

That stays the same.

So clubs are:

• Generating less

• Paying the same

• Carrying more

It’s not hard to see what that does.

If the governing body’s bottom line has improved, that money has come from somewhere.

And it hasn’t come from thin air.

Clubs are the ones absorbing it.

This Is Where It Falls Apart

Clubs are told:

• Be more professional

• Develop more players

• Run more teams

• Meet higher standards

And then given:

• Fewer home games

• Less revenue opportunity

• The same volunteer base

• The same licence costs

It doesn’t add up.

Help Us Out

This isn’t complicated.

If clubs are expected to carry the system…

Then give them the tools to do it.

More football.

Not less.

More opportunities to host games.

More opportunities to generate income.

Because right now, we’ve built a system that costs more to run…

and gives clubs fewer chances to pay for it.

This part of the structure is not working.
It’s not just imperfect.
It’s shite.

This Is A Small State

And That’s Not The Problem

We don’t have too many games.

We don’t have too few games.

We have a small player pool.

In a place like Tasmania, you will play the same teams more often.

That’s just reality.

It always has been.

And it’s not the end of the world.

The problem is when that becomes the whole experience.

That’s What The Cups Were For

Cups didn’t replace the league.

They complemented it.

They added:

• Different opposition

• Different challenges

• Different energy

They gave players something outside the weekly rhythm.

They connected the state.

And importantly, they still provide pathways.

Pathways to the Australia Cup.

That doesn’t disappear with a different structure.

If anything, it becomes clearer and more meaningful.

The Balance We’ve Lost

We’ve tried to solve everything through the league.

More structure.

More rounds.

More layers.

But Tasmanian football has always been a mix of:

• Familiar opposition

• And occasional difference

Right now, we’ve leaned too far one way.

And Then We Call Part Of It “Social”

A 19-year-old doesn’t want to say they’re playing social football.

They want to play.

We’ve labelled part of our own system as something outside it.

And then we wonder why players drift away.

Why Do We Have A State League?

It’s worth asking this.

Not emotionally.

Honestly.

Why do we have a State League in its current form?

Was it created as part of a long-term plan that fits Tasmania?

Or was it, at least in part, a reaction to what other codes were doing at the time?

Because AFL had a state league structure.

Now it doesn’t.

And we do.

So what are we holding onto?

Is it:

• A pathway?

• A standard?

• A necessity?

• Or a label?

Are we keeping a State League because it genuinely fits our player pool…

or because it feels like something we should have?

Let’s Be Properly Honest

We’ve built a system that is designed to work perfectly on paper.

Every layer has a purpose.

Every competition has a place.

The problem isn’t the design.

It’s that not enough clubs can realistically carry it…

and not enough players fit neatly inside it.

So What Does This Actually Point To?

Reading this back, I can see where I land.

It probably looks like a return to:

• Strong North / North West and South competitions

• Properly aligned Championship and reserves

• And a much stronger, broader cup structure

More football.

Not less.

Lower cost.

Less burden on clubs.

But still with high standards.

Still with ambition.

Still with pathways.

But More Than Anything

It’s About Listening

Because this can’t be solved with another quick fix.

Not another tweak.

Not another layer.

And not through a consultant flown in who doesn’t understand how football actually works in Tasmania.

We don’t need that.

What we have already is:

• Decades of experience

• Hundreds of years of combined knowledge across clubs

• People who live this every week

Get them in a room.

Ask the question properly.

Listen.

No More Knee Jerk Fixes

This needs a proper look.

A hard look.

At what is:

• Sustainable

• Affordable

• Realistic

For the people actually running the game.

Because the members are the clubs.

And the clubs are the ones carrying it.

Two Lenses

Ken and I talk about this all the time.

He looks at it through a football lens.

Standard. Quality. Competition.

And I understand that.

But I look at it differently.

Through:

• Sustainability

• Longevity

• Volunteer burnout

Because without that…

none of the rest exists.

Final Thought

We don’t need to look like something bigger.

We need to build something that works here.

For our players.

For our clubs.

For the people holding it together every week.

One Line To Leave It With

Ask us.

Listen to us.

And build it with us.

The Congress Game, Part Three

Congress for Dummies, Who Actually Decides?

Let’s make this really simple.

Because football governance sounds complicated.

It isn’t.

Think of it like your club

Forget national structures for a moment.

Think about your own football club.

There are a few key groups that matter.

The people running the football.
The people who control who runs it.

Everything sits between those two ideas.

The Board

The Board of Football Australia is the group running the game at a strategic level.

They:

• set the direction

• decide the priorities

• oversee the CEO and staff

Think of them as the coach and football department combined.

They design how the team is going to play.

Congress

Congress is the group with power over the Board.

They:

• elect the Board

• can remove the Board

• approve major rule changes, like the constitution

They do not run football day to day.

But they control who does.

And importantly:

They do not just approve decisions.

They can stop them.

The CEO

The CEO is the person who actually runs things day to day.

In football terms:

The CEO is like the club manager or general manager.

They:

• run operations

• manage staff

• implement the plan

They do not decide the direction on their own.

They deliver it.

The President

The President leads the Board.

In football terms:

The President is like the chair of the committee.

They:

• lead the Board

• represent the organisation

• sit between the Board and Congress

They are not the coach.

They lead the group that decides the direction.

Now the full picture

Put it all together and it looks like this:

• Congress → the committee, holds the power

• President → leads the Board

• Board → sets the direction

• CEO → runs the game day to day

That is the system.

The key difference

The Board runs the game.

Congress decides who gets to run it, and whether big changes happen at all.

So who actually decides?

• The CEO runs the game day to day

• The Board shapes the direction

• Congress can stop major change

That is the balance.

What actually happens

If the Board wants to make a major change:

They cannot just decide.

They have to:

• talk to Congress

• test support

• adjust the idea

• build agreement

Before anything happens.

Because Congress does not just approve ideas.

It can stop them.

Which is why most decisions are shaped before they ever reach a vote.

When is the decision really made?

Not in the meeting.

Before the meeting.

The football version

The Board can design the tactic.

Congress decides if the team plays that way.

Why it feels slow

Because this is not one decision maker.

It is a group of people:

• with different priorities

• protecting different parts of the game

So every major change becomes a negotiation.

And that takes time.

Who is in Congress (simple version)

Think of it like this:

• Federations → grassroots football

• A-League clubs → professional game

• Professional Footballers Australia → players

• Women’s football → women and girls in the game

Each group has votes.

Each group has a say.

Why this matters

If you have ever thought:

“Why doesn’t football just do this?”

This is why.

Because it is not just about a good idea.

It is about getting enough people to agree.

The part people feel

This is also why people get frustrated.

Good ideas are not always the problem.

Getting agreement is.

Final thought

The CEO runs the club.

The Board decides how it should run.

Congress decides who gets to decide.

Everyone has a role.

But not everyone has the final say.

And that is why football is not run by one decision maker.

It is run by agreement.

And agreement takes time.

At a Glacial Pace

Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly - The Devil Wears Prada

The Slow Politics of Football Change

Votes, Alliances and the Politics of Football

In Part One, I explained who holds the votes in the Football Australia Congress.

This is the part people rarely see.

How those votes are actually used.

Because the constitution tells you where power sits.

It does not tell you how it moves.

The vote is the last act

Most people think decisions are made when hands go up.

They are not.

By the time a vote happens, the real work has usually already been done.

Numbers are counted quietly.
Support is tested.
Positions are softened.

By the time Congress meets, the outcome may already be known.

The vote is theatre.

The decision was made earlier.

That is not corruption.

That is politics.

One hundred votes decide the game

Pause on that.

The national direction of football in Australia can be shaped by 100 votes.

Not millions of players.
Not supporters.

One hundred.

That is the electorate.

Imagine standing for the Board.

Imagine being someone like Mark Schwarzer and trying to get elected.

What does campaigning look like?

Not public debate.

Private persuasion.

Calls. Conversations. Counting.

In a room that small, every relationship matters.

And yes, one suspects the conversations over coffee are often hotter than the coffee.

Fame does not win elections

Here is the part people underestimate.

Public profile does not equal votes.

Take Craig Foster.

Years on SBS.
A respected voice.
A human rights advocate.

Yet even someone like Foster could not convert that into Congress support.

That tells you something important.

This is not a popularity contest.

It is a numbers contest.

Admiration does not win elections.

Coalitions do.

I remember a moment that brought this home.

Ken and I once shared a taxi with Foster on the way to drinks. We spoke openly about how difficult the process was. There was no bitterness, but there was a sense that the numbers were not there.

He understood the reality.

Looking back, having seen his work on human rights and the Save Hakeem campaign, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.

His influence on the game, and beyond it, has not come from a seat on a board.

And I suspect Hakeem al-Araibi would see it that way too.

Blocs do not win. Interests do.

It is easy to talk about blocs.

Federations.
A-League clubs.
Players.
Women’s football.

But blocs are just labels.

Underneath them sit interests.

And interests tend to protect themselves.

The Member Federations are expected to protect the grassroots game.

The A-League Club Members protect the commercial game.

The Players’ Member, through Professional Footballers Australia, protects professional players.

Each is doing what it is meant to do.

But it also means every decision carries an element of self-interest.

That is not a criticism.

It is the system.

Four blocs. Four different priorities

At its simplest, Congress is a negotiation between priorities.

Grassroots participation.
Commercial growth.
Player welfare.
Women’s football development and equity.

None of these are wrong.

All of them matter.

But they do not always align.

And when they do not align, decisions are not made on what is best in theory.

They are made on what can get enough support.

That is a different test.

The most interesting votes in the room

The ten votes held through the Women’s Football Council are particularly interesting.

Not because they are unclear.

But because they are not fixed.

They sit across multiple priorities.

Participation.
Equity.
Professional conditions.

At times they may align with federations.

At times with the professional game.

That makes them harder to predict.

And in close votes, unpredictability can become leverage.

A fixed position is easy to count.

A flexible one is harder to control.

That is where influence can sit.

Where ambition meets arithmetic

This is where it becomes very real.

If football is pursuing major ambitions, expansion, new competitions, or even an A-League future in places like Tasmania, those ambitions have to pass through this system.

Which means they have to pass through competing interests.

The professional game may want growth.

The federations may want protection of the base.

Players may want improved conditions.

Women’s football may be pursuing equity and development outcomes.

None of these are unreasonable.

But they do not automatically point in the same direction.

So ambitions are not simply judged on merit.

They are judged on alignment.

Who benefits.
Who is neutral.
Who resists.

That is the reality of the system.

Why reform feels glacial

People ask why football reform is so slow.

This is why.

Coalitions take time.

Agreements take time.

Compromise takes time.

Sometimes reform only survives by becoming less threatening.

Which is why that line from Meryl Streep feels uncomfortably accurate:

“By all means, move at a glacial pace.”

Reform is rarely blocked outright.

It is slowed.
Adjusted.
Absorbed.

Which can be a more effective way of controlling it.

Formal power is not the whole story

Votes are visible.

Influence is not.

Who can persuade.
Who can broker agreement.
Who can bring others along.

That is where outcomes shift.

Power does not always sit in the vote.

Sometimes it sits in who shapes it.

The quiet game

There is the visible game.

Votes. Meetings. Structures.

And then there is the quieter one.

Positioning.
Timing.
Relationships.

Knowing when to push.
Knowing when to wait.

That game is harder to see.

But often more important.

There are moments in football governance where one suspects Niccolò Machiavelli would recognise the tactics.

Not in any sinister sense.

Simply in the way influence is exercised.

Quietly.
Strategically.
Sometimes long before any formal decision is made.

The real question

Part One asked:

Who has the numbers?

This is the better question.

Who can assemble them?

Because in football politics, numbers matter.

But coalitions win.

And often, they win long before the vote is ever taken.

Who Really Runs Football in Australia?

A 101 Guide to the Congress System

When people talk about decisions in Australian football, they usually talk about the Board of Football Australia.

But the Board is not where power begins.

The Board is elected.

And the body that elects it, and votes on major decisions affecting the game, is called Congress.

Think of Congress as football’s parliament.

If you want to understand how power works in Australian football, this is where you begin.

And it is more interesting than many people realise.

Because this is not simply a voting system.

It is a system of representation.

And representation in football can be complicated.

What is Congress?

Congress is Football Australia’s national voting body.

It is responsible for:

• electing the Board

• approving constitutional changes

• voting on major governance reform

It does not run football day to day.

But it helps decide who does.

And whether change happens at all.

Whether it is board appointments, competition structures or national reform, all roads lead back to Congress.

Who gets represented?

Congress has 100 votes.

Those votes are shared across four parts of the game.

State and Territory Federations, 55 votes

The nine member federations are:

• Football Queensland

• Northern NSW Football

• Capital Football

• Football NSW

• Football Northern Territory

• Football Victoria

• Football Tasmania

• Football South Australia

• Football West

Together, the state and territory federations hold 55 votes.

That gives them the majority.

And here is the first surprising thing.

Those 55 votes are allocated equally across the nine federations.

Tasmania carries the same voting weight as New South Wales.

Read that again.

Tasmania and New South Wales have equal national voting strength.

This is not representation by size.

It is representation by federation equality.

That protects smaller states.

It also creates fascinating politics.

A-League Club Members, 28 votes

The next voting bloc is the A-League Club Members.

Together, they hold 28 votes.

This is not the same as saying “all senior clubs” or “the whole professional and semi-professional pyramid”.

It does not include National Premier Leagues clubs across the country.

It does not include clubs such as South Hobart, Sydney Olympic, South Melbourne, APIA Leichhardt, Heidelberg United or the many other historic clubs sitting outside the A-League structure.

These votes sit with the legal entities admitted as A-League Club Members.

That distinction matters.

When people hear “the professional game”, they may assume a broader club voice than actually exists in Congress.

But this bloc is about the A-League clubs.

That creates another paradox.

The A-League clubs drive much of football’s commercial value and visibility.

But they do not control Congress.

Money does not automatically equal governance power.

And many clubs outside the A-League system are not directly represented through this bloc at all.

Players, 7 votes

The Players’ Member holds seven votes.

This pathway comes through Professional Footballers Australia, the players’ union.

But there is an important clarification.

The PFA primarily represents professional players.

It does not represent every player in Australia.

Not every community player.

Not juniors.

Not the enormous grassroots base.

Yet within Congress, it is the formal players’ voice.

Again, representation is structured, not universal.

Women’s football, 10 votes

Women’s football has ten votes through the Women’s Football Council.

And this may be one of the most intriguing features of all.

Those representatives are not directly elected by clubs or the broader football public.

Under the constitution, the Women’s Football Council is made up of:

• three members nominated by the State Body Members

• three members nominated by the Professional League Club Members

• three members nominated by the Players’ Member

• one chair appointed by the Nominations Standing Committee, subject to ratification by the Members

Each of the ten Women’s Football Council members then carries one Congress vote.

So the women’s football votes exist as an important bloc.

But they are created through stakeholder nomination and appointment pathways.

They are not directly elected by women and girls in football.

They are not directly elected by clubs.

That is a constitutional nuance worth understanding.

It does not make the votes unimportant.

Quite the opposite.

In close decisions, those ten votes can be highly influential.

Sometimes potentially decisive.

But it does raise a bigger question.

Representation in football is not always direct.

Sometimes it is layered.

Sometimes mediated.

Sometimes negotiated.

That matters.

What does all this mean?

It means no single part of football controls the game outright.

And that is deliberate.

The system is designed to balance competing interests:

• federations

• A-League clubs

• professional players

• women’s football representatives

That sounds fair.

But it comes at a price.

Why change is hard

Reform usually requires blocs to align.

And blocs do not always agree.

Even a good idea can stall if it shifts power.

That is why football governance often moves slowly.

Not necessarily because people oppose change.

But because change usually alters somebody’s influence.

And power rarely shifts easily.

In theory, these groups vote independently.

In practice, alliances and shared interests often shape how votes are used.

That is where the politics begins.

Why this matters

This is not abstract politics.

These structures influence:

• who sits on the national Board

• how reform happens

• national pathways

• league structures

• even ideas like a National Second Division

The Congress arithmetic sits quietly beneath much of it.

And questions about representation are not only national ones.

Only a few days ago, writing about junior associations, I noted that the Central Region Junior Football Association, representing around 4,000 junior players, has a single vote in Football Tasmania structures.

That prompted a simple question.

When does one vote represent voice, and when does it merely symbolise it?

It is a Tasmanian example.

But it echoes the larger Congress question too.

Who gets represented, and how?

Why this matters to Tasmania

For Tasmanian football people, this is not abstract.

Football Tasmania holds the same Congress voting weight as every other federation.

That means Tasmania’s vote carries real influence at national level.

In close decisions, that can matter a great deal.

There is another layer too.

Current Football Tasmania President Bob Gordon is Chair of the Football Australia Member Federations group.

That is a reminder that smaller states do not necessarily sit at the margins of national football politics.

Sometimes they sit closer to its centre than people realise.

That does not mean Tasmania carries more votes than anyone else.

It does suggest influence can operate through relationships and leadership, not just arithmetic.

Quietly, that is one of the least understood features of the system.

The hidden question

Once you understand Congress, many football debates look different.

Because beneath almost every major decision sits one simple question:

Who has the numbers?

And perhaps another.

Who gets represented, and who does not?

That is where things get interesting.

That is where decisions are often won and lost.

Next

In the next piece:

How these blocs actually operate.

Because in football politics, the votes matter.

But so do the alliances behind them.

Stirring the Pot Seems to Have an Audience

Twenty thousand visits in four months will not trouble major media outlets.

The Athletic will not be knocking to acquire my media empire any time soon.

Still, for an independent football blog from Tasmania, often written in a fluffy dressing gown at the kitchen table before daylight, it tells me something.

People are reading.

More than that, they seem to be returning.

That matters to me because much of what I write is not designed to flatter anyone. It asks questions. It pushes at assumptions. Sometimes it irritates people. Occasionally people I know.

So yes, there are moments when I wonder whether it is worth doing.

Then I look at the graph.

January steady.

February steady.

March climbing.

April taking off.

And I think perhaps this says something larger than website traffic.

Perhaps honest writing finds its people.

When I started this blog I worried I might run out of things to say.

An odd concern in hindsight.

Football cured that anxiety quickly.

Football is the gift that keeps on giving.

Some mornings I sit in a fluffy dressing gown at the kitchen table wondering what to write.

Football usually answers before the tea goes cold.

And not just through matches, though this morning’s Paris Saint-Germain against FC Bayern Munich was some reminder of the game’s drama.

I do not even need to write match reports.

Football keeps handing over material.

Politics.

Characters.

Contradictions.

False dawns.

Petty empires.

Moments of grace.

Moments of farce.

Sometimes all in the same week.

Sometimes in one ordinary Saturday around a football ground.

That is why the well does not run dry.

The game keeps giving.

And perhaps readers sense that what I am writing about is often not just football.

It is power.

Belonging.

Memory.

Community.

How decisions get made.

Who gets heard.

Who doesn’t.

There is an old warning that if you stir the pot too much, people stop listening.

I am beginning to suspect the opposite can sometimes be true.

Maybe people are tired of polite silences.

Tired of managed messaging.

Tired of safe language pretending difficult questions do not exist.

Maybe they want someone to say aloud what many mutter on sidelines and over coffees.

Not because they want conflict.

Because they want candour.

There is a difference.

Some of the posts that have resonated most have surprised me.

Often they were not the most careful.

They were the most honest.

That has taught me something.

Readers are not only drawn to certainty.

Sometimes they are drawn to recognition.

To seeing something named.

And I rather like the irony that while grassroots football is so often reduced to metrics, participation numbers, registration numbers, convenient statistics, perhaps people are reading precisely because they want the stories behind the metrics.

Not numbers.

Members.

Not data.

People.

That thought stays with me.

Because for years many of us in grassroots football have been trundled out as participation numbers when convenient.

Useful as evidence.

Less useful as voices.

Maybe some of this readership is people pushing back against that in their own quiet way.

Maybe they are simply drawn to writing that starts with lived experience rather than institutional language.

Either way, it encourages me.

This blog began almost as a notebook made public.

A place to remember.

A place to make sense of things.

A place to stir the pot now and then.

Somewhere along the way it seems to have become a conversation.

I like that.

If twenty thousand visits tells me anything, perhaps it is this.

Keep writing what you feel.

Keep asking awkward questions.

Keep naming patterns.

Keep stirring.

The pot, it seems, may have an audience.

And no, The Athletic probably is not buying the publication.

But perhaps the little media empire has found a few readers.

That will do nicely.

Are Junior Associations Members, or Metrics?

When being counted is not the same as being heard.

Junior associations are often spoken of as part of football’s participation base.

Pathways.

Feeders.

Growth.

Numbers.

But are junior associations treated as members of the game in a meaningful governance sense…

or mainly as metrics?

Ahead of Football Tasmania’s AGM, I keep returning to that question.

It is not a throwaway line.

It is a question about representation, reciprocity and what affiliation actually means.

Junior associations are central to football in this state.

CRJFA alone has around 4,000 participants, around 3,800 in last year’s registrations.

Add the other junior associations and we may be talking close to 10,000 junior players across Tasmania.

That is not peripheral to the game.

That is a major part of the game.

Yet I sometimes wonder whether junior associations are seen primarily through three lenses.

Participation.

Revenue.

Administration.

Visible in participation reports.

Visible in revenue lines.

Visible in strategic rhetoric.

But how visible in decision-making?

That is a fair question.

Visible in the accounts

With around 3,800 players and combined Football Tasmania and Football Australia levies of $46 per player, approximately $174,800 flowed upward through registration levies last year.

Pause on that.

Around $175,000.

From one junior association.

That is significant.

And under the newer registration system, those levies are deducted before junior associations even receive their share of registration income.

That is simply how the system now works.

But it does sharpen a question.

When the first slice of registration revenue flows upward automatically, what relationship sits behind that levy?

Because junior football is not only counted.

It is, quite literally, deducted.

And that may be why the accounting lens metaphor feels hard to ignore.

Are junior associations seen mainly as part of football’s financial and participation architecture?

Or as a constituency with authority?

If I’m honest, there are moments when junior associations can feel trundled out when football wants to point to participation numbers, then pushed back to the margins when the conversation turns to power, priorities or voice.

That is uncomfortable.

But worth saying.

Visible when our numbers are needed.

Less visible when our voice is.

Participation should mean more than being useful in a statistic.

It should imply representation.

Otherwise people may reasonably ask whether they are being counted…

without really counting.

Thousands of players. One vote.

CRJFA, representing around 4,000 players, has one vote.

One.

Thousands of players.

One vote.

One vote may satisfy equality of members.

It does not necessarily reflect equality of representation.

That distinction matters.

Especially when junior football is continually cited as foundational to the game.

If junior football is part of the foundation, what does one vote say about how that foundation is represented?

That is not grievance.

It is a governance question.

And perhaps an AGM question.

If standing committees are the voice mechanism… where are they?

Football’s constitutional architecture appears to envisage channels for voice, including standing committees.

If those channels are weak, absent or largely dormant…

where exactly is grassroots voice meant to land?

That question matters.

Because if formal channels are unclear, people fall back on informal ones.

Private frustration.

Car park conversations.

Sideline complaints.

Which are often dismissed as negativity.

Sometimes they are simply feedback with nowhere formal to go.

That is a structural issue.

Not a personality issue.

What does affiliation provide?

To be clear, this is not aimed at staff doing day-to-day work.

And it is not an argument against affiliation.

It is a question about whether the relationship between grassroots and the governing structure could be richer.

Because CRJFA, which I represent, is largely self-sufficient.

Our own accounts tell a story of that.

We invest heavily in equipment.

We provide balls to clubs and schools.

We fund ground rebates.

We contribute to ground hire.

We pay for grounds to be set up and packed down.

We carry significant volunteer and administrative load.

We run football.

That is not complaint.

It is simply fact.

Which raises a reasonable question.

Beyond affiliation, what support exists for junior associations?

What advocacy?

What development support?

What practical assistance?

That should be discussable.

And to be fair, junior associations perhaps have not always clearly articulated what support they might want beyond existing arrangements.

That too may be part of the issue.

But that does not make the question any less valid.

Is insurance the answer?

Often when fees are questioned, insurance is raised.

Fair enough.

Insurance matters.

But in my time as President of CRJFA I have never signed an insurance claim for a junior player.

Not one.

I dealt with claims in senior and youth club football.

Never in juniors.

That does not make insurance irrelevant.

It simply means insurance should not end the conversation.

Affiliation cannot be reduced to “you get insurance”.

That feels too thin.

Services we purchase, or support we receive?

Other examples are often cited.

Dribl.

PlayFootball.

Necessary systems.

Important systems.

But are these examples of support provided?

Or services associations effectively pay to use?

That is not the same thing.

Software is infrastructure.

But infrastructure is not, by itself, a relationship.

Using systems we fund is not necessarily the same as being supported.

And perhaps those ideas are too often blurred.

If the answer to what affiliation provides is insurance, software and registration systems, some may reasonably ask whether that answer is enough.

That is not hostile.

It is a question about reciprocity.

Constituency, or statistic?

This may be the real issue.

Are junior associations constituents.

Or statistics?

Partners in governance.

Or registration categories?

Junior associations are often spoken of as pathways, feeders or participation bases.

Less often as political actors within the game.

That language itself may reveal something.

Because at times grassroots can feel heavily referenced…

but lightly represented.

There is a difference.

And it matters.

A game built on grassroots should not treat grassroots as background.

The biggest participation base in the game should not also be its quietest voice.

The invisible engine room

Months ago I wrote that junior associations were the engine room of football.

I still believe that.

But there is a harder truth in that metaphor.

Engine rooms power ships while remaining out of sight.

Essential.

But unseen.

Perhaps that is what some in junior football recognise.

Not exclusion.

But invisibility.

And invisibility can be its own problem.

A question before the AGM

So perhaps the question before the AGM is not who occupies seats.

Or who wins votes.

But something simpler.

Does football see junior associations beyond an accounting lens?

Because if thousands of junior players help give the game scale, legitimacy and revenue…

should they not also help shape its voice?

Junior associations should be more than something trundled out when participation numbers are convenient.

Otherwise we may need to ask a harder question still.

Are junior associations represented.

Or simply referenced.

There is a difference.

And it matters.

When Experience is Treated As Conflict

I saw an article about Mark Schwarzer angling for a place on the board of Football Australia and it got me thinking about who should sit on football boards.

Not just national boards.

All boards.

Who is considered qualified.

Who is considered independent.

And, just as importantly, who gets quietly ruled out.

Because one of the curiosities of football governance is this.

The people with the deepest lived experience of running the game are sometimes treated not as assets but as conflicts.

That deserves scrutiny.

Good governance does not eliminate conflicts. It declares them, manages them and gets on with the work.

What counts as expertise?

Boards rightly seek financial skills.

Legal skills.

Commercial understanding.

Risk oversight.

All sensible.

But where, in that familiar list, do we place lived football experience?

Club leadership.

Volunteer governance.

Running a ground.

Balancing books.

Managing growth.

Dealing with parents, referees, registrations, facilities, sponsors and the thousand small problems that keep football alive every weekend.

That is not anecdotal knowledge.

That is expertise.

Caring deeply about football is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. It may simply be evidence of commitment.

And yet football can sometimes treat that expertise as something to be managed around.

Or worse, excluded.

When involvement becomes “conflict”

Our current Football Tasmania Constitution places emphasis on directors being free of conflicts.

No reasonable person would disagree conflicts should be declared and managed.

That is basic governance.

But there is a larger question worth asking.

When did practical involvement in football begin to be viewed primarily through the lens of conflict?

A club president may be seen as conflicted.

A grassroots leader may be seen as conflicted.

Someone deeply involved in the everyday game may be seen as carrying interests.

Of course they carry interests.

They are in football.

The more interesting question is whether those interests are necessarily disqualifying.

Or whether they are the very source of valuable perspective.

There is a difference between managing conflicts…

and using the language of conflict to keep practitioners away from power.

That distinction matters.

Independence is not the same as distance

This is where governance can get slippery.

Sometimes distance from the game is mistaken for independence.

But they are not the same thing.

Distance can simply be distance.

Meanwhile those closest to the consequences of decisions often bring the sharpest understanding of them.

That should strengthen governance.

Not weaken it.

Imagine saying doctors should be kept away from hospital governance because they know too much about hospitals.

Or principals should be viewed cautiously on education boards because they understand schools too well.

It sounds absurd.

Yet football sometimes flirts with versions of that logic.

Experience is not the opposite of independence.

Where is the lived club voice?

This is where the Schwarzer story made me pause.

Not because former players should automatically be directors.

They should not.

But because it raised a broader question.

Why don’t our governance structures deliberately make room for lived football expertise?

Why is there not a clearer pathway for substantial club experience to be valued as a governance competency?

Football seems to have pathways for players, coaches and referees. Governance pathways are less obvious.

Should there be a designated pathway, perhaps even an expectation, for significant club experience on football boards?

In Tasmania, that question feels particularly relevant.

Volunteer clubs do not sit at the edge of the system.

They are the system.

They carry participation.

They absorb cost pressures.

They build facilities.

They develop players.

They hold communities together.

Why would the people doing that be viewed primarily through a conflict lens?

Why not also through an expertise lens?

Having spent years in club rooms, committee meetings and volunteer football, I struggle to see that experience as something governance should keep at arm’s length.

Perhaps the issue is not conflict, but discomfort

A harder thought.

Sometimes “conflict of interest” can become shorthand for something else.

Discomfort with people who may challenge assumptions.

Discomfort with voices shaped by practical experience.

Discomfort with perspectives not easily managed.

That is not always what is happening.

But it is a question worth asking.

Because governance is not just about who sits at the table.

It is also about who is considered legitimate to be there.

And those are not always the same thing.

Sometimes “conflict of interest” can be invoked very selectively. It is fair to ask whether grassroots experience is occasionally treated more cautiously than other institutional interests that pass without much comment.

Consultation is not representation

Football often speaks of consultation.

But consultation is not representation.

Being heard occasionally is not the same as having a structural voice.

That matters.

Especially in a sport that talks often about being member based.

It is fair to ask whether the pathways for grassroots knowledge into governance are as strong as they should be.

And if not, why not.

This matters even more when formal structures intended to channel football voices, such as standing committees, are weak, dormant or absent. If those pathways are thin, the question of voice at board level matters more, not less.

A fair question, not a radical one

This is not an argument that only football insiders should govern football.

Far from it.

Healthy boards need a mix.

Independent thinking.

Financial strength.

Legal capability.

Commercial insight.

And football knowledge.

Especially football knowledge.

That should not be the controversial one.

The question Schwarzer made me think about

The article about Mark Schwarzer did not make me wonder whether former players belong on boards.

It made me wonder why lived experience in football can so often be treated cautiously at all.

Why expertise born from participation can be framed as conflict.

Why practical knowledge can be seen as partial.

And why the people carrying so much of the game can sometimes appear furthest from its power.

Those feel like governance questions worth asking.

Because if those carrying much of the game are viewed mainly through a conflict lens, perhaps the question is not whether grassroots has too much influence.

Perhaps it is whether it has too little.

The Sideline Is Not the Technical Area

With junior football pausing for school holidays, it feels like a good time to say something about the people who put themselves out there every week.

The coaches.

I always remember parents questioning Ken about his team selection or how he was coaching their son or daughter.

It happened often enough.

Ken had a stock response.

What do you do for a living?

“I’m a builder.”

Do I tell you how to build?
Why do you think you can tell me how to coach?
Let me get on with it.

Blunt.

But fair.

Because too many people confuse watching football with understanding coaching.

They are not the same thing.

There is always a complaint

Play your strongest team? Someone objects.
Rotate players? Someone objects.

Push standards? Too hard.
Keep it fun? Too soft.

Give one player responsibility? Favouritism.
Share responsibility? No leadership.

Play them in one role? Too rigid.
Move them around? Too confusing.

There is always noise.

Often, people do not want better decisions.

They want decisions that suit them.

Or more honestly -

they want their child centred.

Sometimes this isn’t about football

This may be the uncomfortable part.

Sometimes criticism of coaches is not really about coaching.

It is about adult ambition.

Adult insecurity.

Adult ego.

Sometimes it is parents trying to coach through their children.

Sometimes it is disappointment dressed up as “feedback”.

Sometimes it is living vicariously through a Saturday morning.

That happens.

Pretending it doesn’t helps no one.

Equal game time is not the issue

At junior level, children should get equal game time.

That is a principle.

But once that is honoured, much of the noise has nothing to do with fairness.

It is often about preference.

And preference is not a coaching philosophy.

Development is a right.

Entitlement is not.

The sideline is not the technical area

A respectful question after a game is one thing.

Running commentary from the touchline is another.

That is not involvement.

That is interference.

Support does not sound like tactical instructions shouted over the coach.

And children hear it.

Every word.

The loudest voice on the touchline is rarely the most qualified.

Everyone thinks they can coach

Football suffers from accessibility.

Because you need grass and a ball, people think expertise is optional.

Would you interrupt a piano lesson?

Correct a driving instructor?

Walk onto a building site and offer structural advice?

Yet people do the football equivalent every weekend.

Because the game looks simple.

It isn’t.

Many coaches have done courses, hold licences, spend nights planning sessions and weekends giving up family time.

Coaching is judgement.

Timing.

Psychology.

Development.

It is far more than where a child is played in the first half.

Of course coaches get things wrong.

They do.

They’re human.

But disagreement is not a licence to undermine.

Good coaches do much more than coach

This is what critics often miss.

A good junior coach is not just organising a team.

They are building confidence.

Teaching resilience.

Helping children recover from mistakes.

Creating belonging.

Sometimes protecting a child from themselves.

Sometimes asking more of them than they thought possible.

That matters more than the result.

Much more.

Good coaches do not just develop players.

They help shape people.

That deserves trust.

And here is the danger

Keep chipping away at volunteer coaches and they stop volunteering.

It’s that simple.

Good people walk.

Others stop making brave decisions and just manage complaints.

And then people ask why there aren’t enough coaches.

As if it’s a mystery.

It isn’t.

We drove some of them away.

A thought for the sideline

Trust more.

Comment less.

Support publicly.

Question privately.

And maybe ask yourself one hard question before criticising a coach:

Is this really about my child’s development…

or my own expectations?

That answer might explain more than any tactic board.

Children do not need perfect coaches.

They need committed coaches we don’t drive away.

Ken was right.

Let the coach get on with it.

When Politics Starts Picking Who Goes to the World Cup

Gianni Infantino

I’m going to say this straight.

Iran qualified for the FIFA World Cup.

Iran has not withdrawn.

And yet people are discussing who should replace them.

Sit with that.

A qualified team, still in the tournament, being talked about as though its place is somehow negotiable.

Not because of football.

Because of politics.

That should concern everyone who cares about the game.

This is not a debate responding to an actual vacancy.

It is politics speculating about displacing a team that earned its place.

That is a very different - and much more troubling - thing.

Iran qualified. On the pitch.

That should be enough.

Full stop.

We are not talking about replacing one qualified team with another qualified team.

We are talking about inserting a team that did not qualify.

Think about the absurdity of that.

If places can be negotiated, qualification is just theatre.

And if an Asian nation ever did withdraw, the place belongs to the Asian Football Confederation.

Not Europe.

Not politics.

Not whoever has the strongest relationship.

Confederations are not decorative.

They are the structure of the competition.

This is not about Italy. It’s about the system

Italy is not the villain here.

Any nation would take the call.

The issue is the mechanism.

And even Italy has effectively said this is not how it should work.

You qualify on the pitch.

That should tell us something.

If an AFC place can even be discussed as negotiable, what exactly are we watching qualification for?

Why ask nations to grind through years of campaigns if the final outcome can be shaped elsewhere?

You cannot tell the football world “earn your place”, then quietly turn qualification into diplomacy.

There are real tensions. That’s exactly the point

There are real geopolitical tensions here.

No one is pretending otherwise.

But football either protects its processes in difficult moments, or it abandons them.

There is no middle ground.

In fact, difficult moments are precisely when principles matter most.

And if this can happen around Iran, every smaller football nation should pay attention.

Because today it is framed as an exception.

Tomorrow it becomes precedent.

Let’s stop pretending politics isn’t in the room

The visible closeness between Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump raises legitimate questions.

Because when football power sits too comfortably around political power, you create a system where politics can begin to sit above qualification.

That is the risk.

And increasingly, that feels less like risk and more like drift.

You do not get talk of envoys influencing World Cup participation in a healthy system.

You do not get speculation about swapping confederation places in a healthy system.

And then, almost unbelievably, you get a FIFA “peace prize”.

Honestly.

Handing out peace prizes while entertaining political substitutions is not irony.

It is contradiction.

The same leadership floating a peace prize cannot look relaxed about turning qualification into diplomacy.

Don’t talk about peace while bending the rules of the game.

The moment the rules bend, they don’t bend back

These things never sit in isolation.

They set precedent.

If politics shapes one replacement debate, it shapes the next.

If relationships matter once, they matter again.

If influence overrides process once, it becomes part of the process.

Either the pathway means something, or it doesn’t.

FIFA built this environment

This did not come from nowhere.

FIFA has concentrated power and become far too comfortable around political power.

That brings money.

It brings reach.

It also blurs the line between football governance and geopolitics.

And once that line is crossed, it does not get uncrossed.

The people who lose are the ones you don’t see

It is not Infantino.

It is not Trump.

It is not Italy.

It is the next smaller nation wondering whether qualification really means qualification.

It is players who believed the pathway was real.

It is federations that depend on rules being rules, because they do not have influence to fall back on.

They do not get a meeting.

They get overlooked.

This is the line

Iran qualified.

That should be enough.

And if an Asian place ever did become vacant, the replacement must come from Asia.

Not because it is convenient.

Because it is fair.

Because it is consistent.

Because it protects every qualifying match already played.

If not, be honest about it

Say the system is flexible.

Say politics sits above performance.

Say qualification is only part of the story.

At least then everyone knows the game they are in.

But don’t pretend both things can exist

You cannot have merit-based qualification and politically adjustable outcomes.

One cancels the other out.

The World Cup is supposed to be decided by football.

Not by who can pick up the phone.

And once politics starts picking who goes to the World Cup…

the game has already changed.

He Should Have Had Another Season

James Youle Frier died 28 May 1918 Dernancourt, France

ANZAC Day

One name, one life, one story

There are thousands of names.

We know that.

We say it every year.

But the truth is, it is too easy for those names to blur into one another. To become something distant. Historical. Manageable.

So today, just one.

James Youle Frier.

Before the war

He was born in Hobart in 1895.

A local boy. Waterworks Road. Hobart State School.

He was the son of William and Jemima Frier. A family home on Waterworks Road. The kind of place you expect someone to come back to.

A painter by trade.

A goalkeeper on Saturdays.

He joined South Hobart in 1911. Started in defence, moved into goal, became the number one. Sat on the committee while still a young man. On the cusp of representative honours.

You can see it clearly. Not potential, but momentum.

The kind that builds quietly. Week by week. Season by season.

A life taking shape in a club, in a routine, in a place.

And then 1915 came. The season was declared null and void.

And like so many others, he enlisted.

The interruption

He left on the Ceramic in November 1915.

From Saturday football in Hobart to the Western Front.

He was wounded once already, at Pozieres in 1916. A scalp wound. Survived. Recovered. Sent back.

Transferred. Back into it.

Third Ypres. 1917 into 1918.

Not one moment. Not one defining event.

Just a continuation.

That might be the hardest part to grasp.

The night of 28 May 1918

A patrol.

Go out. Locate enemy positions.

They came upon an enemy post. A bombing fight. Close, chaotic.

Most of the patrol made it back. Wounded, but back.

James didn’t.

The later testimony is blunt:

Shot through the neck by a machine gun bullet.

Died shortly after.

He was 23.

Buried near where he fell, at Dernancourt.

The distance between places

He is buried in France.

But he is remembered here.

On the Roll of Honour.

At Hobart Town Hall.

On a tree, number 478, along Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue on the Queen’s Domain.

A tree.

Something living. Growing. Still here.

While he is not.

What we say, and what we understand

We gather. We stand still. We listen to the Last Post.

We say the right things.

But it is possible to do all of that and still keep this at a distance.

To honour the idea of sacrifice without really sitting with what was taken.

James wasn’t a symbol when he left.

He was a young man who kept goal for South Hobart.

He had teammates who expected to see him at training.

A committee that expected him at meetings.

A season that was meant to come next.

And then a ship left Sydney.

The thin line between then and now

This is the part that stays with me.

Not the scale of the war. Not the strategy.

Just how ordinary it all was before it wasn’t.

A Saturday game.

A training night.

A routine.

The same rhythms that still exist in football clubs all over Tasmania.

The difference is not as big as we sometimes pretend it is.

Why this story exists at all

Stories like this don’t survive by accident.

They survive because people decide they matter.

Because someone goes looking.

Because someone connects the fragments and refuses to let the detail disappear.

The work of Ian Syson and Athas Zafiris, through socceranzacs.com.au, is the reason we can tell stories like this at all. Special credit also to Paul Hunt, whose research and writing on Tasmanian ANZACs helps keep these lives visible. History is remembered because dedicated people like this do the work.

Without that work, James is just a name.

With it, he is a person again.

One is enough

We cannot hold thousands of stories properly.

But we can hold one.

And if we are honest, one is enough to make the point.

Because once you see him clearly, the others are not abstract anymore.

They are just people you have not met yet.

A goalkeeper.

A painter from Waterworks Road.

A young man who should have had another season.

And didn’t.

Lest we forget.

Why is the A-League Still Trying to “connect to grassroots”?

A-League Men Rd 15 - Western United v Sydney FC

I was reading a piece in The Guardian this week about the new A-Leagues boss, Steve Rosich.

His priority?

Arrest the decline in crowds. Rebuild interest. And importantly, reconnect the league with the broader football community.

Sound familiar.

Because if you’ve been around the game for any length of time, you’ve heard this before.

Many times.

New leader. Same message

Rosich steps into a role that has already seen a number of voices and resets in recent years, including Danny Townsend, Nick Garcia and Stephen Conroy.

Different people. Different structures.

Same conversation.

“We need to connect to grassroots.”

At some point, that stops sounding like a strategy and starts sounding like a pattern.

The phrase sounds right. That’s the problem

Of course it sounds right.

Football in Australia has always been built from the bottom up.

Kids on wet grounds. Volunteers marking lines. Parents packing oranges.

That is the game.

So when leaders talk about connecting to grassroots, it feels logical.

But it also quietly assumes something else.

That the connection isn’t already there.

If it’s not there, why not?

This is the part we don’t sit with for long enough.

Because grassroots football has never been disconnected from football.

It is football.

What has often been disconnected is the professional game from the lived experience underneath it.

And that’s a very different problem.

Participation is not connection

The numbers will always be rolled out.

Participation is strong.

But participation and emotional connection are not the same thing.

A child can play for ten years and never feel drawn to the A-League.

A parent can volunteer every weekend and still not feel like the professional game belongs to them.

That gap matters.

Because connection is not built on activity.

It is built on identification.

People follow what feels like theirs.

What grassroots actually feels like

And this is the part that is hardest to replicate.

Going to your local club is not just about the football.

It’s the greetings when you arrive.
The familiar faces.
The quick conversations on the sideline.
The smell of the canteen.
Standing close enough to hear the tackles, the calls, the referee, the frustration, the laughter.

You are not watching the game.

You are inside it.

It’s imperfect. Sometimes chaotic. Often cold and uncomfortable.

But it belongs to you.

And then there’s the other experience

We went once to AAMI Park for a Melbourne Heart game.

About 6,000 people there.

We took our seats. Settled in.

And some time later, we were asked to show our tickets again. Checking if we were in our correct seats.

A small moment.

But it told you everything.

Controlled. Checked. Managed.

You’re not part of it.

You’re being processed through it.

And then we tried to bring it here

There was another moment that has stayed with me.

The Tasmanian Government, at the request of Football Tasmania, supported bringing A-League content down.

We went along to North Hobart Oval to watch.

Again, an oval.

Again, a space not quite built for the game.

A small group of Western United FC supporters had made the trip.

They tried to get the local crowd going. Tried to start chants. Tried to lift the atmosphere.

And it just… didn’t land.

A few kids joined in.

Most people didn’t.

It wasn’t hostility. It wasn’t even disinterest, really.

It was something quieter than that.

A lack of connection.

It felt forced. Slightly awkward. A bit uncomfortable to watch.

Almost embarrassing.

Because you could see the effort.

And you could also see that it wasn’t being met.

That gap is the problem

This is the tension the A-League hasn’t solved.

It’s not just about getting grassroots people in front of the product.

It’s about whether it feels like theirs when they get there.

Because if it doesn’t, no amount of effort fixes that.

Connection isn’t created by proximity alone.

And it certainly isn’t created by asking people to perform it.

Would a Tasmanian A-League team fix it?

There’s an argument you hear often.

If Tasmania had its own A-League team, everything would be different.

The connection would be automatic.
Crowds would come.
People would care.

It’s an appealing idea.

And parts of it are probably true.

Proximity matters. Identity matters.

But it’s not a guarantee.

We already know what connection feels like

We see it every weekend.

Local clubs are full of it.

People who know each other.
Spaces that feel familiar.
Football that feels close, not distant.

That’s real connection.

And it already exists.

So the question isn’t “would people turn up?”

They probably would.

At least at the start.

The real question is what happens after that.

Does it feel like an extension of the football culture people already live?

Or does it feel like something separate?

Because if it’s the second, the novelty wears off.

And we’re back asking the same questions.

So let’s be honest

A Tasmanian A-League team might help.

It might create moments.

But it won’t automatically fix the gap between the professional game and grassroots football.

That gap isn’t geographic.

It’s cultural.

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question

We keep asking:

How do we connect the A-League to grassroots?

Maybe the better question is:

Why does the professional game still feel so different from the football most people actually live?

Because until that is answered honestly, we will keep hearing the same line.

New leader. Same promise.

And the gap remains.

I Heard You

I didn’t expect the response.

I thought I was writing about goalkeepers.

I wasn’t.

I was writing about you.

I Know You

As I read through the comments, I realised how many of you I know.

Angela. Nikki. Clare. Sarah. Jason and more

That’s the thing about football here.

We don’t sit in anonymity.

We stand on the same sidelines.
We see each other every weekend.
We share those moments where everything slows as the ball comes in.

And reading your words, I could feel it.

Not just what you were saying.

What you’ve been carrying.

I Felt It

There was something sitting underneath the comments.

Not loud.

Not angry.

Something quieter.

Heavier.

Angst.

The kind that builds over time.

Game after game.
Season after season.

Watching your child stand in a position where every mistake is seen.

And knowing you can’t take that moment away from them.

You Stand There Too

We talk about how exposed the goalkeeper is.

But you are there with them.

Feeling it.

Hearing everything.

The quick comments. The throwaway reactions. The ones people don’t think matter.

And choosing, most of the time, to stay quiet.

Not because you agree.

Because you’re protecting your child.

The Honesty

What stayed with me was your honesty.

You didn’t pretend.

You spoke about the instinctive reactions, the moments of frustration, and the guilt that follows.

Because you understand what your child is carrying.

That matters.

The Pride

That was there too.

In every message.

Not just pride in the saves.

Proud of how they handle it.

How they reset.
How they keep going.
How they stand there again the following week.

That’s what you see.

That’s what matters to you.

I Understand

I want to say this clearly.

I understand.

I understand the feeling of watching it unfold.

I understand the way you carry it with them.

Quietly.

And Maybe This Helps

I hope people read your words.

Really read them.

Not skim past them.
Not dismiss them as “just part of the game”.

But pause.

Just for a moment.

Before the comment.
Before the reaction.
Before the judgement.

Because someone always hears it.

And often, it’s more than one person.

That Matters

Nothing needs to be argued here.

But something has been shared.

And it matters.

We Know Each Other

And maybe that’s the difference here.

We don’t sit in big crowds where no one knows who is who.

We know each other.

We see each other next weekend.

We stand on the same sidelines again.

And for those of us who do know each other, who share this space every week,

that should matter. You are heard.

Would You Let Your Child Stand There? “Keeper!”

Not play.

Stand there.

In goals.

Where one mistake doesn’t disappear into the game, it defines it.

Where the silence after a goal is louder than any noise before it.

Where everyone knows exactly who it was.

Would you choose that for your child?

Because someone does.

Every week.

The Truth We Avoid

We like goalkeepers when they save us.

We don’t like them when they don’t.

And the shift between those two things is instant.

There is no grace period. No benefit of the doubt. No shared responsibility.

Just a moment, and then judgement.

Fast. Public. Final.

This Isn’t Just “Part of the Game”

We hide behind that line.

“That’s football.”

It’s a convenient way of not examining what actually happens.

Because what actually happens is this:

A young player makes a mistake.
And within seconds, adults decide it.

Out loud.
Within earshot.
Sometimes directly at them.

Not because they are cruel.

Because it has become normal.

Listen Next Time

Stand on the sideline and really listen.

Not just to the loud voices.

To the quick ones.

“Keeper.”
“That’s poor.”
“Has to do better.”

No pause. No context. No awareness of who is standing there.

Just instinct.

We don’t do this the same way with anyone else.

Because no one else is as exposed.

A Child Still Chooses This

That’s the part that should stop us.

No one lines kids up and assigns this role.

Someone volunteers.

“I’ll go in goals.”

They choose the position where they will be blamed first and praised last.
Where they will be analysed more harshly than anyone else on the pitch.

And they do it anyway.

Now Put Yourself Behind Them

Not on the sideline.

Behind them.

As their parent.

You see every moment coming before it happens.
You feel the shot before it’s taken.
You hear the reaction before anyone speaks.

And then it comes.

A goal. A mistake. A moment.

And with it, the commentary.

Not directed at you.

But impossible to ignore.

You don’t respond.

Because you know that makes it worse.

So you stand there.

And take it.

The Part We Don’t Like to Admit

Some of the harshest reactions don’t come from opposition.

They come from our own side.

From people who would never consider standing in that position themselves.

From people who would never accept that level of exposure.

But are very comfortable judging it.

What Are We Actually Teaching?

We say football builds resilience.

But what does this teach?

That if you take responsibility, you will be singled out.
That if you make a mistake, it will be public.
That if you are brave enough to step forward, you will stand alone when it goes wrong.

And we wonder why some kids stop wanting to do it.

And Still, They Come Back

This is the part that deserves more attention than any save.

They come back.

They put the gloves on again.
They stand in the same spot.
They accept the same risk.

Again.

And again.

Not because they have to.

Because they choose to.

So Be Careful

Next time you feel it coming out.

“Keeper.”
“That’s poor.”
“Has to save that.”

Just pause.

Because you’re not talking about a position.

You’re talking about a person.

A young one.

Who chose the hardest job on the field.

Ask It Properly

Would you let your child stand there?

And if the answer is no,

then maybe we should all think a bit harder about what we say to the ones who do.

The Loud Whisper

The football community is big in some ways and very small in others.

Thousands of players. Hundreds of teams. Weekends full of games, noise, volunteers, families.

And then, sitting quietly alongside all of that, governance.

There’s a loud whisper going around that Football Tasmania may introduce a new constitution.

So before anything changes, it’s worth understanding the one we have now.

The constitution is the most important document in the game.

It’s also probably the one most people have never read.

What is an AGM, really?

An Annual General Meeting is the formal moment each year where a governing body reports back to its members.

That includes:

• The financials

• The annual report

• Elections

• Key decisions

It’s not designed to be exciting.

It’s designed to be accountable.

How many people actually have a vote?

From the most recent papers, the organisation has:

• 33 total members

That’s it.

Thirty three.

Those 33 members are the entire voting body at that level of the game.

Not players.

Not parents.

Not the thousands of people involved every weekend.

Members.

Who counts as a member?

This is where the constitution becomes important.

Under the current constitution, membership includes:

• Clubs

• Recognised associations

• The chair of each standing committee

That means the voting group is not just clubs.

It also includes representatives from areas like referees, coaching, women’s football and juniors.

Membership is defined.

It is invited.

And once admitted, each member has one vote.

Who showed up?

From the AGM minutes, we can see:

• 14 members attended

• 10 members were represented by proxy

That gives:

• 24 members represented in total

Which is enough for the meeting to go ahead.

It meets quorum.

It’s valid.

So what about the other 9?

• 33 total members

• 24 represented

That leaves:

• 9 members not accounted for in the minutes

That doesn’t mean anything improper.

It simply means:

• They didn’t attend

• They didn’t submit a proxy

And that happens.

But it does raise a simple question.

Who isn’t in the room?

What is a proxy vote?

A proxy is when a member gives someone else the authority to vote on their behalf.

It’s completely normal.

It allows decisions to be made even if people can’t attend.

In this AGM:

• 10 members were represented by proxy

That’s a significant portion of the voting group.

What we can’t see

The minutes tell us which organisations gave proxy votes.

But they do not tell us:

• Who held those proxy votes

• Whether one person held multiple proxies

• How those votes were exercised

That’s not unusual.

But it does mean one thing.

We can see which organisations were represented.

We can’t see who held the influence.

What the constitution says should exist

The current constitution doesn’t just define who can vote. It also describes a broader structure around the game.

It provides for standing committees across key areas, including referees, coaching, women’s football and juniors, with the chair of each able to form part of the membership.

On paper, that creates a wider representative model. Each of those areas has the potential to have a direct voice and a vote, at the table.

In practice, it is not always clear how many of those committees are active or functioning.

If they are not, those voices are not in the room.

And neither are those votes.

Why this matters

If you’re involved in football at any level, this is the part that often gets missed.

Governance doesn’t happen in big public moments.

It happens in rooms like this.

With:

• 33 members

• 24 represented

• 10 votes cast by proxy

And potentially fewer voices than the constitution itself envisages.

The quiet reality

This isn’t a criticism.

It’s just how the system works.

The AGM was:

• Valid

• Quorate

• Compliant

And the constitution sets out clearly who gets to be a member and how voting works.

But like most governance systems, it only shows part of the picture.

You can see attendance.

You can see structure.

You can see outcomes.

But you can’t always see how influence is distributed.

Final thought

If there is a new constitution coming, it’s worth understanding the current one first.

Because any change will ultimately come back to a simple question:

Who gets to be in the room?

And who gets a vote when it matters.