Australia's all-time top goal scorer, Tim Cahill, was famously overlooked by a semi-professional club in Sydney as a young teenager. As football participation rates continue to increase in Australia, the opportunities for ambitious young players remain minimal in a pathway system that funnels to dozens of underfunded semi-professional NPL and a meagre 11 professional men's clubs. This article is a guide to the costs, challenges, and resilience required to navigate through a complicated system that most agree needs funding and reform.
A Football NSW team at the Boys' National Youth Championships in Wollongong back in July. (Image: Football NSW)
Starting early
Most kids kick a football around in the backyard or local park for the first time at age two or three. At age four or five, the next logical step is joining an under 5 or 6s team at your local grassroots club.
Most parents are happy for their child to initially form a team with some friends from kindergarten or primary school, intending to have fun and find their level organically in a safe, nurturing environment.
The number one priority for parents of children at that age is to encourage enjoyment, socialisation, and a genuine love of the beautiful game. From that point onwards, children should be encouraged to work with the ball daily, juggling, passing against a wall, and playing with siblings, parents, or friends.
Prioritise working on fundamentals like coordination, balance, first touch, footwork, close control, dribbling skills, passing with both feet, speed, and shooting.
Grassroots football between Cronulla Seagulls FC and Miranda Magpies FC in the Sutherland Shire Football Association. (Image: Cronulla Seagulls FC Facebook)
It is appropriate to look to further develop amongst the better players in your neighbourhood and adjacent suburbs at seven or eight, so take your child to grading day at your local club and, of course, aim for an A grade.
When kids play small-sided games from under 7s through to 12s or 13s, it is imperative that coaches rotate players and encourage them to try multiple positions to help them develop a better understanding of the game and build confidence.
It would be best to work with coaches who prioritise first touch, ball mastery, passing, and movement both with and without the ball, as well as a possession-based style of play.
Parents should sit down and watch the A-Leagues, national team games, and/or the European leagues with their siblings and foster discussions around different styles, formations, techniques, and positional, individual, and team play.
Registration fees at the local grassroots club level average $180 and usually include a playing kit; the only other costs you should expect at this early age is the cost of a pair of boots at your local sportswear retailer such as Rebel Sport or JD Sports.
Should your child have lofty ambitions and is progressing nicely in the A grade at your local club by age eight or nine, it is well worth asking them if they want to improve more and do some extra ball work sessions at a reputable pre-Skill Acquisition Program (SAP) academy.
AYFI Academy, Nick Rizzo, and Australasian Soccer Academy are reputable academies located in Sydney.
Grassroots clubs in your local association generally only train one or two nights a week, so an extra two sessions a week at a reputable academy with good technical coaches will accelerate your child’s development to be at a SAP/JDL (Junior Development League) level. Academy sessions for that age group generally cost between $30 and $60.
Alternatively, should you or another parent be technically proficient with the ball (perhaps you have prior experience playing), you can assist your child and a few of their teammates for an extra night or two. You can also draw inspiration by accessing many excellent age-specific session plans via YouTube.
When your child approaches nine, take them for a trial at the SAP/JDL level at your closest NPL club.
SAP/JDL competitions involve 9v9 matches on smaller pitches between ages 9 and 12 to fast-track and enhance skill acquisition.
An annual registration at this level costs approximately $1,550 a season. It generally entails three weekly training nights and roughly 25-30 games a season, providing the best pathway into the NPL youth system.
What to look for when choosing a SAP/NPL youth club
When choosing the most suitable club for your child, prioritize ones that demonstrate quality coaching, holistic player development, and concern for player health and wellbeing.
Do your research and check that the club’s values align with fostering a positive, supportive, and non-biased environment. Source a club with coaches who provide structured, age-appropriate training and communicate effectively with players and parents.
Coaches should have a clear and consistent method for monitoring training loads to ensure optimal player development. Parents should look for those who nurture, support, and encourage kids to play out from the back, take opponents on, and ensure players are not fearful of making mistakes.
Ideally, you should register your child at a club where the coaches focus on long-term growth in the sport rather than short-term success.
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Encouraging participation in other sports alongside football is also beneficial, as it fosters diverse decision-making and prevents 'football fatigue'. But rest and recovery are vital, as are injury prevention and rehabilitation.
Most 2024 SAP and NPL youth seasons have finished, with all focus shifting to player retention.
Expressions of interest are currently the focus of the youth football environment. This stage is followed by trials before pre-season at most clubs, which begins mid-November through mid-December. This is followed by a brief summer break. Players usually return to pre-season later in January, ahead of a 2025 season commencement in late February or March.
Retention rates at NPL clubs should ideally be in the 60% to 80% range, but sadly, in Australian youth football, these numbers are usually much lower.
The annual retention rate of players is one of the best ways to determine whether a club is effectively developing talent. If a club is not retaining a minimum of 60 to 70 per cent of players after one year of coaching, then you should question its commitment to fostering growth and developing individual players and teams.
Traditional footballing cultures are meritocracies
In most traditional football countries in South America and Europe, football is a meritocracy. Should you be an elite young footballer displaying the talent and desire to become a professional player, you will stand a good chance of being selected or scouted by a professional club that invests in player development, regardless of your family’s financial status.
Research has shown that a fair percentage of South American, African, European, and even British players emerge from the lower socio-economic regions of their respective countries. Tough upbringings can often breed players who desire to better their individual and family's financial situation.
In traditional European footballing countries, most clubs in the top professional leagues develop players in their academies to profit handsomely from transfer fees, which also cover the costs of most academy players who do not progress to the next level.
Nestory Irankunda's rise to becoming one of Australia's biggest talents may not have happened, as his brothers had to stop playing so his parents could afford his opportunity. (Image: Courtney Pedlar)
In Australia, youth pay to play
By contrast, in Australia, parents must pay for their children to play grassroots and representative youth football across all eight NPL systems in the nation.
Melbourne City and the Western Sydney Wanderers' academies boast the only fee-free programs for under 13s to 23s. The other Australian A-Leagues clubs with academies charge their players annual youth fees. But Brisbane Roar, for example, only enters an under 23s side alongside its seniors in the Football Queensland NPL, whilst Adelaide United only enters a Reserves team into the Football South Australia NPL. However, the Reds' academy is effectively represented at a youth level through the state federation's NTC squads (under 13s, 14s, 16s, and 18s).
The National Premier Leagues (NPL) are the premier state-based competitions for youth in Australia. All of the Australian-based A-Leagues teams have squads that compete in the NPL. The NPL youth comprises the highest-level competitions in each state-based federation in Australia. It features clubs in eight states and/or regions: ACT, NSW, Northern NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia.
In the NPL youth system, most clubs are run like small businesses; it is a pay-to-play system. Clubs generate most of their income via youth and SAP registration fees, sponsorships, club canteens, raffles, golf days, grants, and gate receipts.
The priority focus of most NPL clubs is to field the most competitive senior men’s team possible. The biggest NPL clubs boast a men’s squad budget in the $800,000 to $900,000 range, whilst the smaller teams make do with $200,000 to $300,000 budgets. The teams with the larger playing budgets usually compete for the premiership and championship. But occasionally, a well-coached team with a smaller budget or an A-Leagues academy side upsets the status quo.
Most clubs emphasise a results-driven culture surrounding the success of senior men’s teams. At some clubs, it feels like the chairman or a senior coach’s ego still takes precedence over youth development, although there are some signs that the culture is slowly changing.
Positive changes were forced upon the A-Leagues during the COVID years, with more younger players than ever making debuts, increasing previously neglected revenue streams via vastly improved international transfer business.
The recent announcement that the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Professional Footballers Association (PFA), and Football Australia (FA) will phase out the 'Caceres Clause' as the first stage in a process to review the A-Leagues transfer system, potentially opening the door to transfer fees between clubs across the pyramid soon, is a huge step towards shifting the mindset and culture of prioritising youth development, ahead of solely hunting senior trophies with ill-advised spending across the semi-professional and professional leagues.
Should the National Second Tier (provided it launches) and NPL competitions start following the A-Leagues' example of giving more young players opportunities, that should also slowly contribute to putting downward pressure on NPL youth fees because clubs will be incentivized to develop and retain their players to build new revenue streams via domestic transfer fees.
The current pay-to-play system costs most parents between $1,500 and $3,300 per season for their child to play NPL youth football and $1,550 for SAP/JDL (under 9s to 12s in NSW, possibly cheaper in other states, depending on the club). This system hinders youth development and limits the potential for more growth by turning many families away.
It inevitably means football does not necessarily attract the cream of Australia's junior athletes. Some of the most skilled players are also forced to play outside the main NPL competitions, where they would most likely be developed and progress into the A-Leagues system or age national teams.
Football has the highest participation rates in Australia and is the most popular game worldwide. However, it is only arguably the fourth biggest sport commercially behind the AFL, rugby league, and cricket. The sport receives much less government funding, smaller TV deals, and less corporate sponsorship than those big three nationally entrenched sports.
Unfortunately, other major football codes, like the AFL and rugby league, are much more affordable options for parents wanting to register their children in sports. In football, there are still too many instances where the size of parental bank balances governs skill and development.
“Football in this country is funded from below upwards, rather than money flowing from the top down as per in AFL and the NRL. The reality is it’s been this way for decades because those sports have billion-dollar television deals, and substantial government support, whilst football’s TV deals and government support amounts to a fraction of what those two sports receive," APIA Leichhardt President Tony Raciti said, speaking to Front Page Football.
"I wish that were not the case, but it is, so we must get on with building the sport we love, and that’s what we keep doing. We punch above our weight and do so well as a nation in football, considering the lack of funding and media support. We have qualified for the last five World Cups.
“The growth in participation on the back of the Socceroos and Matildas' World Cup successes has been plain to see with both the girls and boys, but any growth in funding from governments or broadcasters has been on a much smaller scale than the big three other sports, and that’s an injustice because football’s participation rates are so much higher than the other sports.
"Everybody must understand that the fees are what keep the clubs afloat in the current environment. The $3,300 for APIA youth pays for qualified coaches four times a week, a minimum of 120 training sessions a season, not including game day. When you break it down, it ends up being less than $25 a session, and of course, everything else costs the clubs too; we pay for technical directors, coaches, managers, physios, equipment, video analysis, referees, linesman, playing kits, ground hire, lighting, electricity in the sheds, admin; you name it, the list goes on.”
APIA Leichhardt President Tony Raciti. (Image: Gavin Leung)
Raciti's points are all valid; the harsh economic reality for football is that it is stuck with the pay-to-play system for the foreseeable future. The state federations, FA, individual clubs, and parents cannot change that overnight. Unless governments of all persuasions fund football more generously to match the considerable participation growth or governing bodies strike much more lucrative TV and streaming deals and corporate sponsorships, representative youth football will remain largely pay-to-play.
No matter which way you look at it, the current NPL pay-to-play system operates like a small business model. Many clubs and small businesses operate professionally and transparently, with experienced professional coaches, football directors, and systems in place.
Unfortunately, some still do not uphold such standards. There are still widespread tales of nepotism whereby wealthy parents sponsor clubs in return for more game time or a spot in a junior team for their child.
Meanwhile, state and national youth team coaches consult pay-to-play club coaches to determine who should be called for junior state and national teams. Often, most players in the youth national teams come from A-Leagues academies or the bigger NPL clubs.
Whilst many call-ups are justified on merit, many outstanding talents can still go unnoticed in smaller clubs; however, these processes are slowly changing, with more regular state talent identification camps leading to improvement. Talent identification is still widely recognized as an area where Australian football must improve because plenty of cattle are out there.
For young footballers determined to play senior NPL football or aspiring to reach the A-Leagues level, it is a marathon, not a sprint, and like all journeys, resilience and strength of character are required. Stories of parents traversing Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, or Perth three or four nights a week driving for hours to get their child to under 14s training because they were cut from their local NPL club for political or financial reasons, rather than footballing reasons, are all too common.
The potential introduction of transfer fees between clubs across the pyramid soon should theoretically lead to systemic improvements. All NPL youth clubs will be incentivized to develop and retain players and build new income streams by selling talent as they progress through their academies.
Clubs, coaches, and, most importantly, parents and players must grasp that dominating the under 14s or 16s is a tiny step on the lengthy journey towards earning a first senior contract.
Most NPL youth footballers hope to develop into senior semi-professional or professional footballers by age 18 to 22. However, the success rate of making it into NPL senior teams, let alone A-Leagues setups, is low.
Breaking into senior football
The senior footballing journey commences when most players hit the 18 to 22 age bracket and earn their first senior playing contract. It is not until then that NPL players earn a little money to play instead of parents paying clubs for their children to play youth football.
Most NPL clubs generally only sign one or two of their oldest youth academy graduates from their 20s or 23s squad annually, if that.
Most talented players from NPL under 20s squads generally have to drop down a division or two to start earning senior game time at the NPL 1 or 2 level (also known as the State Leagues in some federations) before moving back up as they develop senior experience and the physical and mental strength to compete.
Resilience is vital, and while Australia's NPL system is far from perfect, the cream eventually rises to the top.
The consensus is that Australian youth players are improving technically, coaches are better educated, and funding levels are slowly rising. However, it is still nowhere near the level of the country's Asian neighbours.
Young Australian footballers are receiving more opportunities in the A-Leagues. Hopefully, an NST will be just around the corner to improve depth and help Australia keep up with Asia. However, should the talent pool not grow in the coming years, qualifying for future World Cups will become increasingly difficult.
Australia has still come so far
Recent World Cup qualifying, Olympic, and Asian Cup results across senior and youth tournaments should serve as a substantial wake-up call regarding player development.
Australian football must always remember the lessons learned from the dark 32-year period between 1974 and 2006 when the Socceroos failed to qualify for the men's World Cup.
However, the record number of young players transferring from the A-Leagues into overseas leagues over the last two seasons suggests there are some positive signs of progress in youth development.
However, the game must aim to do better because fellow footballing nations in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) are spending millions, sometimes billions more than Australia, on youth development. If football does not keep agitating for more funding and improvement, it risks falling behind others in the AFC, and national teams will suffer by not qualifying for future youth and senior World Cups, Asian Cups, or the Olympics.
Too many talented young players in their late teens and early 20s walk away from the game, frustrated by the lack of opportunities to play senior semi-professional or professional football, and this trend must be addressed.
More opportunities for young players at the NPL level
Young Australian footballers deserve more opportunities, not less; the national teams and A-Leagues clubs need a bigger talent pool to choose from, not a shrinking one.
NPL competitions need to focus on being development leagues for a future NST and the A-Leagues to increase the likelihood of a more vast talent pool. The FA and state federations must work together and consider mandating minimum quotas of under 23 players in senior NPL squads. A simple reform like that would have an immediate positive effect on fast-tracking development and increasing the depth of the talent pool.
Conversations between the FA, state federations, PFA, and foundation clubs are likely ongoing about fast-tracking critical structural and financial reforms to ensure the NST kicks off. But the bodies must cooperate effectively in doing so. A breakdown in communications will risk further delaying this essential competition, impacting player development for the national teams and leading to Australia dropping down the pecking order in the AFC.
We decided to end this piece with a hint of optimism from Simon Zappia, Melbourne City's Head Of Academy.
"I really believe that the fruits of our free youth academy will begin feeding a production line of Jordy Bos' through to the Olyroos and Socceroos in the coming years, and hopefully, the only other A-League academy that moved to a fee-free model recently - Western Sydney - will also produce more Socceroos, and eventually more A-League clubs will follow suit and there will be a flow on effect," Zappia told FPF.
"I think the NST will also be good for the A-League and build depth."
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