Governance failures led to Western United's demise, new players’ union report finds
A damning report reveals how governance failures turned Western United's demise into a ‘catastrophic’ blow that impacted a host of professional players.
The “catastrophic” demise of Western United could have been avoided had Football Australia adhered to its club licensing deadline.
Financially embattled United’s absence from the 2025-26 A-League season has been highlighted in Professional Footballers Australia’s report on the men’s competition’s 2024-25 campaign.
United was in September placed in “conditional hibernation”, giving the squad’s players little time to find new clubs ahead of the start of the season the following month.
While most of the squad did secure deals at rival A-League clubs, a lot of the players were forced to accept lesser deals because of limited money remaining in salary caps.
PFA said players would have been not left in such a desperate situation had FA stuck to its club licensing deadline of late May.
“The governance failures around the handling of Western United caused significant harm to the club’s players in particular.,” PFA’s A-League report said.
“The club’s ability to participate in the 2025-26 seasons was under challenge by two parallel processes – the club’s attempt to be licensed by FA, and a pursuit of outstanding debts by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
“The two processes are related because FA’s licensing criteria require that clubs can operate without the significant threat of liquidation, which was the remedy sought by the ATO.
“The APL decided season preparations could wait no longer, and announced on September 6 that the club would be put into ‘hibernation’ for the 2025-26 season.
“The removal of a club (even if it is temporary) is obviously a catastrophic outcome for fans, staff, players, and all people involved.
“The timing of this decision, so close to the starts of the new seasons, severely impacted players in particular, due to the reduced opportunities to find new employment.”
“The fact that the licensing decision had still not been finalised more than three months (after the May deadline) shows that FA was either unable or unwilling to enforce its own regulations.”
PFA’s report also suggested that the Australian Professional Leagues, which runs the A-League, also needed to shoulder some of the blame for the plight of United players for rejecting a PFA proposal to allow “modest concessions” to the salary cap and squad regulations.
“The concessions would have given other clubs the option to re-home Western United players without impacting the rest of their rosters,” the report said.
“PFA commends the players and staff of Western United for their professionalism and dedication in the face of extreme adversity.”
Other findings in the report, which is being released on Thursday, include 60 per cent of the 276 A-League men’s players surveyed want the competition run by an independent commission rather than an APL board made up mostly of club owners, as is currently the case.
“Such a model (that currently exists) contains inherent conflicts of interest and does not ensure the board will have the requisite experience or expertise to deliver excellent decision-making and oversight,” the report said
“Players continue to be dissatisfied with the performance of league management and the governance model that sits above it.”
Originally published as Governance failures led to Western United's demise, new players’ union report finds
