Football Queensland have launched their new ‘Future of Football 2020+’ consultation paper, inviting participants, clubs and stakeholders to shape the future of the game in Queensland.

Football Queensland is seeking feedback and input on four key areas of the game; governance, administration, competitions and affordability as part of an extensive statewide consultation process.

The body will host a series of virtual town halls, webinars, interviews, focus groups, surveys and other consultations sessions as part of ‘Future of Football 2020+’.

Football Queensland CEO Robert Cavallucci said the paper was not a strategic plan, but would instead aim to action several goals, with the help of stakeholder feedback, the organisation set last year.

Goals include growing participation, growing referee and coach numbers and increasing the participation of women in football.

“It’s a document that as an organisation, we’re proud of,” Cavallucci told the Football Queensland Future of Football podcast series.

“It’s brave and ambition to open up and have a series of frank conversations with our stakeholders.”

An initial poll by Facebook Queensland found a whopping 96 per cent of respondents believed Football in Queensland needs reform.

MORE FOOTBALL:

-FRESH ENERGY AT UNITED

-IN CASE YOU MISSED EACH: EVERY GCPL COACH’S TEAM OF THE DECADE VOTES

-WHY KNIGHTS WILL HAVE NO TROUBLE RETURNING TO NPL FORM

-’TALKS UNDERWAY:’ INSIDE FIGHT TO SAVE LISMORE ACADEMY

-UNIQUE SLICE OF HISTORY AHEAD OF SEASON RESTART

Governance and administration

ONE key area of focus Football Queensland wishes to explore is the best way to structure governance.

Cavallucci said governance is intrinsically linked to administration but the two were separate entities.

Governance, Cavallucci explains, is how the game is lead and the strategic direction of the organisation but administration centres around home the game is run.

“The board of Football Queensland, it’s the board that sets the strategy and myself as CEO, I lead the administrative side of the game and we lead the strategy the board sets,” he said.

Football Queensland survey results revealed 64 per cent of Football Queensland participants agreed that great administration and efficiently run organisations place downward pressure on costs which allows reinvestment into the game.

71 per cent of respondents agreed an efficiently administered game leads to new competitive structures and programs becoming available to meet community expectations and deliver pathways for aspirational clubs and players.

DON’T MISS: Experts Coast football’s team of the decade

Competitions and affordability

MORE than half of the Football Queensland community feel as though they aren’t getting value for money from their football club.

Through consultation, Football Queensland hopes to provide better transparency around the cost of the game and what goes into running competitions.

Cavallucci also wants to examine affordability so that emerging talents are not priced out of the game.

The cost of competitions has a direct relationship with the quality of competitions and Cavallucci believes the small number of NPL participants are dominating the affordability conversation.

“Our game across the board can always be delivered cheaper and more efficiently,” he said.

“But if we believe lowering costs is the goal, then we’re lowering the standard.”

Cavallucci wants to ensure that Football Queensland embraced talent from right across the state and no mechanisms inhibit people from playing.

Football Queensland also has to continue to live up to the objective and reputation of producing future Matildas and Socceroos stars.

“What we design those layers of competition to look like have a direct consequence for cost,” Cavallucci said.

When it came to community football, 56 per cent of survey respondents believed their football club wasn’t providing value for money which jumped to 61 per cent for advanced competitions.

56 per cent of community respondents believed they had a good understanding of where participation fees go which dropped to 45 per cent for advanced participants.

Participation

FOOTBALL Queensland hopes to grow from 73,000 registered participants to over 90,000 as a result of the consultation process.

Football is already the biggest code in Queensland but Cavallucci hopes to grow the game even further.

Crucial to growing participation will be embracing all football frameworks, not just those that lead towards elite competition.

“There’s got to be a place for everyone,” Cavallucci said.

“The only way we can grow participation is to have products accessible to all.”

Cavallucci said Football Queensland would fully embrace the recommendations of stakeholders, even if that meant drastic measures such as abolishing layers of governance.

“If that’s what our stakeholders think through this detailed process, if we can determine a better way of delivering football in QLD, whatever that might be, delivering more holistically than that, and there’s merit in that, why wouldn’t we adopt it,” he said.

“Why would we be worried of the answers.”

Participation is also linked to lowering the costs of the game as a result of potential government and corporate partnerships.

“We don’t have a cost problem, we have a revenue problem and that means investing in the right ways and in the right places,” he said.

84 per cent of survey respondents believed participation helped drive value, interest and partnership opportunities, placing downward pressure on costs and driving reinvestment in the game.