Professional Footballers Australia’s annual report into the A-League Men’s competition has revealed significant discontent resides within the A-League’s playing cohort, towards the competition’s administration in the Australian Professional Leagues.
PFA Executive Committee member Jack Hingert has seen the league’s highs and lows through his fifteen completed seasons as a player; his assertion in last week’s report that a ‘lack of consultation’ and ‘absence of transparency’ has led to the breakdown of player’s trust in the APL should be considered significant.
Of the 191 players to respond to the PFA’s non-compulsory survey at the end of 2023/24 (a record participation figure), half expressed dissatisfaction in the APL’s management of the competition, while 27% were ‘very dissatisfied’. Just 11% expressed ‘high-trust’ in the body to drive the game towards improvement.
PFA Chief Executive Beau Busch explains the disappointment stems largely from the initial optimism the cohort felt towards the concept of a club-led administration, which they had backed during Football Australia’s unbundling of the league in December 2020.
‘These findings, relating to the players’ trust in the APL’s management since separation, occur in that broader context. The players went on a long journey with club owners to seek independence, on the basis and belief it would allow the A-League to be more successful’, Busch told Box2Box.
‘The players then went through Covid which everyone knows was a really difficult time; the hope was we’d get through that and there would be a really effective governance model in place, better decision making for Australian football, and to ensure that we talked more about what happens on the pitch, rather than off it.
‘The reality now is there’s been a range of really damaging decisions that have had a negative impact on the players, and under the current governance model they don’t have any meaningful say over them. There’s frustration amongst players that having gone through this journey with the clubs, they’ve ended up with a model that is sub-optimal.’
Separately, now a decade on from Western Sydney’s improbable triumph in the Asian Champions League, Australian clubs find themselves as deep in the continental mire as at any point since joining the Asian Football Confederation in 2006. Central Coast’s AFC Cup win in May, although second-tier, did provide momentary relief and optimism for more success.
Although the Mariners are struggling in the top-tier this season, the PFA’s report does reflect potentially brighter days. The AFC’s structural changes to the Champions League mean more cash up-front for participating clubs (800k US, plus 100k per win), which could extrapolate majorly with the new Club World Cup now at the end of the line.
More money up-front should theoretically help Australian clubs better prepare for the competition than previously, when travel and transport conditions acted as a great impost in pursuit of incentive-based prize money.
‘We’ve seen the strain the ACL puts on players, largely playing for free because of the economics for clubs in the group stages. Clubs had no capacity to invest in the best possible preparation – business class flights, things we fought really hard for for our National Teams – and we found clubs and players carried the burden.
‘We’re really encouraged things have improved this year, and we think it now represents a significant carrot for clubs to be successful in Asia. We want to get to the point where clubs and players are excited to qualify for the ACL, and that qualification has a positive impact on clubs not just on the sporting side, but the financial, too.’