2026: No more band-aids. It’s time for the master plan.

Credit: Tom McCarthy

By any metric, 2026 promises to be a watershed year for Australian football.

We have an AFC Women’s Asian Cup on our shores, we have a Socceroos side preparing for a FIFA World Cup in North America and domestically, we are staring down the barrel of critical broadcast negotiations and Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) that will define the financial livelihood of the A-leagues for years to come...

The stakes have rarely been higher, the opportunity for meaningful change and genuine unity rarely greater.

But opportunity without a plan is just a "sugar hit." And Australian football has survived on sugar hits and short-term fixes for far too long.

The current strategic cycle for Football Australia and the Member Federations concludes this year. The "One Football Strategy 2022-26" is entering its final chapter.

This natural conclusion offers us a choice. We can either rinse and repeat, rolling out another short-term, three-year corporate strategy that patches over the cracks, or we can finally be brave enough to build a legacy.

In 2025, the FSAA did the work.

We didn't just complain from the sidelines; we tabled a comprehensive submission to Football Australia containing three core recommendations.

The centrepiece of that submission was Recommendation 2: The establishment of an all-encompassing Football Master Plan.

We called for a move away from fragmented election cycles and toward a 50-100 year generational roadmap.

A plan that connects the entire ecosystem—from the grassroots park player to the A-Leagues star, right up to the National Teams.

To date, this submission has not been meaningfully acknowledged by Football Australia despite our endless attempts.

The silence and disregard suggests there is still much work to do.

But as we enter 2026, our questions remain: Where is the vision? Where is the leadership? And to put it far more bluntly…. Who the hell is actually running this show?

2026 cannot be another year of factional infighting or short-termism. It requires genuine unity and leadership from the game's custodians at national, state and association level.

• Football Australia: As the national governing body and regulator, must provide the vision and the governance framework that unites the pyramid.

• Member Federations: As the administrators of the local leagues and associations, but equally important, representative of their states and regions to Football Australia.

• The Australian Professional Leagues (APL): As the owner and operator of our premier competition, must deliver a product that is financially sustainable, culturally vibrant, engages the masses and has a keen eye on the future and history of Australian football, and it’s place within it.
  

These three entities must work in lockstep. The era of the bickering and gatekeeping within our code must end. Transparency is essential.

We are not asking for magic; we are asking for strategy, leadership and respect.

We need a master plan that provides certainty for investors, clarity for clubs, genuine pathways for players, and a reason to passionately buy-in for supporters.

The FSAA stands ready to engage with Football Australia, State Federations, and the Australian Professional Leagues in 2026.

Our door remains open, as we know it does for other stakeholders.

We have the framework, we have the will, and we have the backing of our growing membership.

Let’s make 2026 the year we finally stopped fixing the game for "now," and started building the game for forever. Together.

Happy New Year.

Now, Let’s get to work.