Licence woes for Magpies Crusaders United FC as Football Queensland cuts out the North
A petition has drawn attention to Football Queensland’s pivot towards SE Qld, as a Mackay club’s licence goes unrenewed. Find out how the team’s loss may exclude regional players from high level soccer.
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Belinda Wix is a keen fan of the Magpies Crusaders United Football Club, with her 10-year-old son Hamish playing in their junior team.
Yet after a members’ Zoom call with Football Queensland in early August, she started a change.org petition once she realised her son had lost the chance to play for his favourite team past the age of 16.
No announcement has yet been made, but MCU officials expect their senior team to be cut from the Queensland Premier League in what will be a huge blow to soccer in Central and North Queensland.
MCU is the last team in the QPL tables from regional Queensland, with teams from Cairns, Rockhampton and Townsville exiting the league by 2018.
Citing pandemic costs, the National Premier League cut Mackay from their tables in 2020 and now only fields teams as far north as the Sunshine Coast.
“Football Queensland basically said that if they want to pursue anything from 16 years of age onwards, they have to move to the South East corner,” Ms Wix said.
“MCU has been told (we) are too expensive to be part of the QPL competition.
“And they don’t want us to be part of that anymore.
“If you’re going to run a state competition, you need to include clubs of quality football from right across the state.
“Not just the South East corner.”
She said her son Hamish loved going to the Saturday night games at Magpies Sporting Club and getting a high five from his heroes as they entered the field.
“When we had Macarthur FC come ... (Hamish) didn’t care about the Macarthur team,” she said.
“He just got all our Magpies Crusaders boys to sign his ball.
“He loves going.”
Ms Wix said she started the petition to show Football Queensland how important MCU was to the area, and that 800 signatures in four days was “fantastic” and “really exciting”.
“We have a lot of vested interest in this club in our region,” she said.
“And it’s not just here in Mackay, it’s right across the northern part of our state from Rocky up.”
Ms Wix said what really “got her goat” was the robbing of opportunity for kids in the region, saying players from Moranbah, Dysart, Bowen and Proserpine that all fed into MCU would have “nowhere to go”.
While Ms Wix admitted she was “just a concerned parent” unfamiliar with the internal politics, MCU club chairman and founding member Barry Jansen was able to confirm her fears.
“Once you turn 16, there’s nothing for anyone in North Queensland unless you move down there in Brisbane,” he said.
“There’s nothing.”
Mr Jansen said MCU was founded in 2017 with the help of $4 million over five years in local fundraising.
“We’re very fortunate we’ve got very good support from the local business community in Mackay and we can sustain what we’re doing,” he said
Despite its strong financial support in developing regional programs, Mr Jansen said the club was “absolutely being treated with disdain”.
“We’re the only club in Queensland that’s in this predicament,” he said.
“If we don’t fight or make a noise about it, everyone’s going to have to move to Brisbane.”
He said he was most concerned about the players and their families who would have to move to pursue their dreams, as well as those who had moved to Mackay on contract to a team that may soon vanish.
“That’s when parents are then going (to) make very big decisions.”
As a longtime state official for both football and cricket, Mr Jansen said changing league tables was a normal thing, but Football Queensland was unusually tight-lipped about cutting MCU.
“They’re not being transparent in what they’re trying to say or what they’re trying to do,” he said.
“It’s very concerning, but the biggest thing is, why aren’t they coming out and saying ... this is the (licence) criteria, we’re only going to do the South East corner, you’ve got to pay your own way.
“If they (did), right then, it’s me having to get the business case and raise the money.
“But they haven’t said any of that stuff to us.
“I’ve been around a while in sport and understand regional sport, and what happens in soccer is absolutely astounding.
“No other sport would do what they’re doing.”
Following news of MCU’s exclusion, both Mr Jansen and Ms Wix alleged they saw posts on the Football Queensland Facebook page congratulating Sunshine Coast teams on their QPL licences for the 2023 season.
A Football Queensland spokesperson said the governing body had invested $900,000 since 2017 to subsidise MCU’s participation and would increase investment in 2023 towards a Mackay Football Park upgrade.
“The five-year licence period concluding in 2022 ... clearly stipulates no ongoing participation rights as discussed in a meeting with Magpies Crusaders 11 months ago.”
The written statement noted that FQ had increased investment in the Whitsunday Coast region by more than $150,000.
“This is reflected in the highest number of regional players in the Queensland state representative teams on record.”
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