Capital Football's NPL Review
The removal of a pathway to the NPL for these footballers and clubs strongly goes against recent developments by Football Australia.
In 2024, Football Australia unveiled their National Talent Development Scheme (NTDS), headed by the FA's Chief Football Officer Ernie Merrick, and developed in part by analysis of FIFA's Technical Development Team in 2020.
One of the recommendations of FIFA's analysis was to:
There's always talent out in the sticks. Capital Football have closed off an avenue for talented footballers to fall through the cracks. Not only that, they've further cemented the perception that the NPL in Canberra is of low quality. Moreso after the runaway leaders Canberra Croatia were heavily defeated in the Australia Cup Round of 32 by South Australian premiers MetroStars - a club that actually travelled to the Riverina region for a pre-season competition in 2024 (and actually lost to Yoogali SC).
Even on the girls/womens side - which has no representation in the NPL setup after Wagga City's relegation from Capital Football NPLW - the region has always shown talent.
Tom Sermanni used to regularly hold training camps in Griffith during earlier stints as the Matildas' coach.
Joey Peters, capped 110 times, hails from Leeton. Only 13 other women have been capped more.
The most recent Junior Matildas squad announced for the 2025 ASEAN U16 Championship features two players from Griffith, with both of them needing to have uprooted to Sydney to get to this level.
Sure, in that instance, maybe Griffith hasn't done enough to provide an avenue closer to home for these girls to showcase their skills, but the changes (now ratified) by Capital Football close off any chance of this happening.
It's always been said in the region that Football NSW doesn't care about anything west of the mountains. Is it time for South-Western NSW to have it's own NPL/federation (like NNSW)? Perhaps, but the population doesn't suffice that level of governance.
Is a 'Western Premier League' format for the Riverina the answer? Also a possibility, but then the region will find itself in a position similar to the early 2010's. Griffith probably needs to put their internal politics aside to finally land the plane. It's a large reason why I left Riverina Rhinos and joined Wagga City Wanderers for a year. Capital Football certainly have turned off the lights in the control tower, and that's before the integrity concerns have even been addressed.
In a flurry of recent social media posts, Yoogali SC have condemned individuals for influencing (and implementing) the review process.
On paper, the removal of Riverina clubs was cited in the final review report as:
It also was revealed in this document that Hanwood FC had applied (and been rejected) for multiple years, despite having an even stronger youth base than Yoogali SC, and an extensive women's/girls program as well.
If Yoogali SC were to have been kept in an expanded 10 team competition, there would actually be less travel for clubs (as this would now be a double round-robin, rather than a triple), however the review also recommended a pre-season competition with the Illawarra Premier League take place, which would indeed amount to more travel for clubs than one return trip to Griffith each season for competition points:
In addition, of the 14 remaining Canberra based clubs in the NPL Pyramid, four of them will be relegated from the soon-to-be-disbanded Capital Premier League, with a much more convoluted promotion/relegation process. Despite the review championing the effect promotion/relegation has had on their competitions in recent years:
In an attempt to communicate issues with the review, Yoogali SC and 11 of the 15 other member clubs of the NPL Pyramid of Capital Football signed off an email outlining their issues with the review, asking for the process to be paused until the off-season, and not affecting the 2026 season.
At least one of the 4 clubs that did not partake in this communication process had one current management committee member sitting on the review panel (again - both confirmed via publically available documents and websites), and is now currently in a position to be promoted to the expanded 10-team NPL despite finishing in the lower half of the ladder.
It was also revealed by Yoogali SC's flurry of posts that this email addressed to Capital Football was not passed on to those ratifying the review process, until after the review process had been ratified. A delay of up to one month.
In 2024, Football Australia unveiled their National Talent Development Scheme (NTDS), headed by the FA's Chief Football Officer Ernie Merrick, and developed in part by analysis of FIFA's Technical Development Team in 2020.
One of the recommendations of FIFA's analysis was to:
There's always talent out in the sticks. Capital Football have closed off an avenue for talented footballers to fall through the cracks. Not only that, they've further cemented the perception that the NPL in Canberra is of low quality. Moreso after the runaway leaders Canberra Croatia were heavily defeated in the Australia Cup Round of 32 by South Australian premiers MetroStars - a club that actually travelled to the Riverina region for a pre-season competition in 2024 (and actually lost to Yoogali SC).
Even on the girls/womens side - which has no representation in the NPL setup after Wagga City's relegation from Capital Football NPLW - the region has always shown talent.
Tom Sermanni used to regularly hold training camps in Griffith during earlier stints as the Matildas' coach.
Joey Peters, capped 110 times, hails from Leeton. Only 13 other women have been capped more.
The most recent Junior Matildas squad announced for the 2025 ASEAN U16 Championship features two players from Griffith, with both of them needing to have uprooted to Sydney to get to this level.
Sure, in that instance, maybe Griffith hasn't done enough to provide an avenue closer to home for these girls to showcase their skills, but the changes (now ratified) by Capital Football close off any chance of this happening.
It's always been said in the region that Football NSW doesn't care about anything west of the mountains. Is it time for South-Western NSW to have it's own NPL/federation (like NNSW)? Perhaps, but the population doesn't suffice that level of governance.
Is a 'Western Premier League' format for the Riverina the answer? Also a possibility, but then the region will find itself in a position similar to the early 2010's. Griffith probably needs to put their internal politics aside to finally land the plane. It's a large reason why I left Riverina Rhinos and joined Wagga City Wanderers for a year. Capital Football certainly have turned off the lights in the control tower, and that's before the integrity concerns have even been addressed.
In a flurry of recent social media posts, Yoogali SC have condemned individuals for influencing (and implementing) the review process.
On paper, the removal of Riverina clubs was cited in the final review report as:
However, whilst applications for exemptions were reviewed, Wagga City were given an exemption to compete in the NPL from 2026, but only at a youth level, which is contradictory to the reasoning to remove Riverina clubs initially provided.
It also was revealed in this document that Hanwood FC had applied (and been rejected) for multiple years, despite having an even stronger youth base than Yoogali SC, and an extensive women's/girls program as well.
If Yoogali SC were to have been kept in an expanded 10 team competition, there would actually be less travel for clubs (as this would now be a double round-robin, rather than a triple), however the review also recommended a pre-season competition with the Illawarra Premier League take place, which would indeed amount to more travel for clubs than one return trip to Griffith each season for competition points:
In addition, of the 14 remaining Canberra based clubs in the NPL Pyramid, four of them will be relegated from the soon-to-be-disbanded Capital Premier League, with a much more convoluted promotion/relegation process. Despite the review championing the effect promotion/relegation has had on their competitions in recent years:
In an attempt to communicate issues with the review, Yoogali SC and 11 of the 15 other member clubs of the NPL Pyramid of Capital Football signed off an email outlining their issues with the review, asking for the process to be paused until the off-season, and not affecting the 2026 season.
At least one of the 4 clubs that did not partake in this communication process had one current management committee member sitting on the review panel (again - both confirmed via publically available documents and websites), and is now currently in a position to be promoted to the expanded 10-team NPL despite finishing in the lower half of the ladder.
It was also revealed by Yoogali SC's flurry of posts that this email addressed to Capital Football was not passed on to those ratifying the review process, until after the review process had been ratified. A delay of up to one month.
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- Previous page: Griffith's footballing pedigree
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