FFA clear-eyed with latest blueprint but vision for women's game is slightly blurred

He has been in the job fewer than six months, yet Football Federation Australia CEO James Johnson had already emerged as the sport’s new visionary.

From guiding football through January’s bushfire crisis and March’s Covid-19 outbreak, orchestrating the movement of the Matildas’ Olympic qualifiers from Wuhan to Sydney and securing Australia and New Zealand’s 2023 Women’s World Cup bid, Johnson’s experience and level-headedness has been a shining light in these troubled times.

Now, Fifa’s former head of professional football is giving us an insight into his own vision for the game. Unlike his predecessors, the governing body’s new boss is a “football person” – an albatross that former CEOs could never quite shake from their necks. FFA’s discussion paper released this week shows it.

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The paper, titled “XI Principles of the Vision for Australian Football,” presents FFA’s 15-year vision for the country’s biggest participation sport, focalised through 11 key issues including a national identity and playing style, competition structures, youth development, a transfer system, coach education, governance models, registration fees and national team success. The enthusiasm with which the paper has been received suggests FFA are finally looking at the game with clear eyes.

A large part of their vision involves women’s football. As the introduction to the 10th principle states: “Women’s football in Australia has made significant progress (underpinned by the success of the Matildas) and continues to present the greatest opportunity for growth in Australian football.

“The desire for Australian football to maximise the opportunity to host the [2023 Women’s World Cup] and leave a lasting legacy for Australian football, particularly women’s football in Australia, only strengthens the case for change and amplifies the opportunity before Australian football for transformation.”

Nobody can accuse FFA of not being ambitious here: by 2035, the governing body aims to see the W-League ranked in the top five women’s leagues in the world; the creation of a second division that runs concurrently with the W-League, necessitating a shift to a winter calendar; a women’s FFA Cup competition; regular participation in global competitions such as a women’s Club World Cup and Asian Champions League; the further development of Indigenous and Paralympic women’s national teams; and the senior Matildas winning Olympic medals and a World Cup.

The vision extends to FFA itself, establishing a women’s football department, implementing the 40:40:20 representation principle across affiliated groups, and appointing women to high-ranking positions – including, one day, CEO and chair of the organisation.

However, it is in the fine print where FFA’s vision for women’s football starts to blur; so scant are details and timelines. One of the main goals, for example, is to increase the number of match minutes for female players. According to Johnson, this guiding principle requires a strategic alignment between domestic and international leagues so that Australian players have as many opportunities as possible to play year-round football, whether they are competing in the state-based National Premier Leagues, the W-League or abroad in the United States or Europe.

But such is the growing gulf in resources, professionalism and competitive standards between these competitions, not all match minutes are created equal. Instead, the quality of match minutes and the environments in which they are earned are making an increasingly bigger difference.

We are already seeing the consequences of this environmental gulf as top players like Sam Kerr, Caitlin Foord, Ellie Carpenter and most recently Steph Catley accelerate away from the rest of the domestic talent pool – the pool that Australia’s competition structure ought to focus on and lift collectively through a fully-professional W-League. Yet such a suggestion is nowhere to be found.

By continuing to wedge the W-League between leagues ‘above’ and ‘below’ instead of striking out on its own, FFA risks more than just widening the talent gap and losing ground (and players) to other leagues moving into fully-professional territory. It also contradicts some of the document’s other principles.

For example, the W-League’s current window between November and March makes aligning the women’s pyramid and conforming to the body’s proposed “national football calendar” impossible. Implementing what the document identifies as an Australian “style of play” among emerging talent becomes more difficult as future Matildas are forced to develop – either wholly or in part – overseas. And community engagement potential becomes limited as W-League players are only visible and accessible to fans for a few months per year.

In other words, the document presents a vision of what women’s football in Australia currently is and a vision of what it could be, but not much else in between.

FFA is still figuring that part out, though. That is, after all, what this “living” document is for: to start a discussion, incorporate feedback and move forward together. And if his first six months in charge are anything to go by, Johnson is sure to lead the game in the right direction.