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NPL 2025

melbcityguy said:
I'm not being funny but does things like this happen on other sports in Australia?
Click to expand...
Probably not at this level.

Closest I've seen first-hand is the outrage/backlash at a local Rugby League competition folding in country NSW years ago. A mate of mine from one of the towns who lost their only sporting team in that competition folding was a driving force in the past few years at reforming it.
 
NicCarBel said:
Disgusting news out of Canberra this morning:

capitalfootball.com.au

NPL REVIEW - Capital Football

capitalfootball.com.au capitalfootball.com.au

Key summary:
  • Abolishing of 2nd division (Capital Premier League)
  • Expansion of National Premier League from 8 to 10 clubs
  • Removal of Riverina clubs (Yoogali SC and Wagga City Wanderers) from Capital Football
  • Introduce a representative weekend (juniors and first grade)
  • Player payment cap to be introduced into NPL Men and Women
  • NPL M & W promotion/relegation play off introduced
  • CF to engage with FA about developing our own NPL criteria.
Key takeaway from me is this one:

Mostly that the review committee obviously has decided to follow the lead of specific clubs (not named above), to exclude the Riverina clubs. Apparently because they don't like to travel.

View attachment 1882
Understand why they'd say this for youth level (which at the moment was only Wagga anyways) and womens level - as Wagga had already pulled out - but they specifically say why it shouldn't be an issue at Men's / NPL level, and gone and rejected that anyways.

Someone just pointed this out to me that I missed as well. Considering 'travel' is cited as the main reason that Yoogali + Wagga will be removed from Capital Football competitions - this is thrown in as a recommendation:

Sorry.. this gets even more hilarious the more I read into it/discuss locally.
View attachment 1884
For reference - and you all know I'll defend referees until the end of the world - Capital Football pays NPL referees $250 per game
(Assistant Referees get half of that each on top).

Oh, and now I've read how the promotion system works - so convoluted ffs
  • Community League 1 (CL1) clubs need to declare interest for promotion prior to the start of the season. They then have until 1 March to meet NPL club licensing criteria.
  • If the CL1 Premier is not eligible for promotion (as above), there will be no automatic promotion.
  • If the CL1 Premier is not promoted, but the 2nd placed CL1 team meets NPL club licensing criteria, a single-legged promotion playoff will be scheduled after the NPL Grand Final between the 10th places NPL team and the 2nd places CL1 team (first grade only)
  • If both 1st and 2nd in CL1 do not meet NPL club licensing criteria, there will be no promotion/relegation
again - contradicts things they say earlier in the review, because they say:


essentially, no one outside the 10 clubs will meet NPL licencing club criteria ever, so there never will be any of this promotion/relegation




Very clear this is a ploy from clubs who don't want to travel, and have openly said so in the past (from memory - O'Connor Knights, Canberra Olympic) and clubs that have been relegated, and haven't been able to earn their way back in yet (Belconnen United, West Canberra Wanderers, Canberra Olympic). Based off the engagement on social media to this announcement, can probably add Brindabella Blues to either/both of those lists.
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Classy response from the club on this.

 
NicCarBel said:
Disgusting news out of Canberra this morning:

capitalfootball.com.au

NPL REVIEW - Capital Football

capitalfootball.com.au capitalfootball.com.au

Key summary:
  • Abolishing of 2nd division (Capital Premier League)
  • Expansion of National Premier League from 8 to 10 clubs
  • Removal of Riverina clubs (Yoogali SC and Wagga City Wanderers) from Capital Football
  • Introduce a representative weekend (juniors and first grade)
  • Player payment cap to be introduced into NPL Men and Women
  • NPL M & W promotion/relegation play off introduced
  • CF to engage with FA about developing our own NPL criteria.
Key takeaway from me is this one:

Mostly that the review committee obviously has decided to follow the lead of specific clubs (not named above), to exclude the Riverina clubs. Apparently because they don't like to travel.

View attachment 1882
Understand why they'd say this for youth level (which at the moment was only Wagga anyways) and womens level - as Wagga had already pulled out - but they specifically say why it shouldn't be an issue at Men's / NPL level, and gone and rejected that anyways.

Someone just pointed this out to me that I missed as well. Considering 'travel' is cited as the main reason that Yoogali + Wagga will be removed from Capital Football competitions - this is thrown in as a recommendation:

Sorry.. this gets even more hilarious the more I read into it/discuss locally.
View attachment 1884
For reference - and you all know I'll defend referees until the end of the world - Capital Football pays NPL referees $250 per game
(Assistant Referees get half of that each on top).

Oh, and now I've read how the promotion system works - so convoluted ffs
  • Community League 1 (CL1) clubs need to declare interest for promotion prior to the start of the season. They then have until 1 March to meet NPL club licensing criteria.
  • If the CL1 Premier is not eligible for promotion (as above), there will be no automatic promotion.
  • If the CL1 Premier is not promoted, but the 2nd placed CL1 team meets NPL club licensing criteria, a single-legged promotion playoff will be scheduled after the NPL Grand Final between the 10th places NPL team and the 2nd places CL1 team (first grade only)
  • If both 1st and 2nd in CL1 do not meet NPL club licensing criteria, there will be no promotion/relegation
again - contradicts things they say earlier in the review, because they say:


essentially, no one outside the 10 clubs will meet NPL licencing club criteria ever, so there never will be any of this promotion/relegation




Very clear this is a ploy from clubs who don't want to travel, and have openly said so in the past (from memory - O'Connor Knights, Canberra Olympic) and clubs that have been relegated, and haven't been able to earn their way back in yet (Belconnen United, West Canberra Wanderers, Canberra Olympic). Based off the engagement on social media to this announcement, can probably add Brindabella Blues to either/both of those lists.
Click to expand...
Just checking, because I don’t know anything about capital football. Am I understanding this right, that the Canberra clubs don’t want to travel a couple of times per season, but the regional clubs are happy to travel to Canberra every second week? If so, and the federation is backing them, then that is very poor.
 
Keeper66 said:
Just checking, because I don’t know anything about capital football. Am I understanding this right, that the Canberra clubs don’t want to travel a couple of times per season, but the regional clubs are happy to travel to Canberra every second week? If so, and the federation is backing them, then that is very poor.
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That's a bingo.

I don't mind if I publicly name clubs now - but basing off what I've heard/seen in the past, and the engagements on the social media posts announcing this, it's a combination of clubs not wanting to travel (in the past, openly being Canberra Olympic, Queanbeyan City and O'Connor Knights), and clubs that have either been relegated from first tier to second tier, or failing in promotion to the first tier over recent years (Belconnen United, West Canberra Wanderers, Canberra Olympic, Brindabella Blues).

They do say it's mainly the juniors that are unable to travel/be locked out this way - I tend to agree with that assessment. But they've locked out these two regional clubs (and Hanwood - another Griffith club - who they've now publicly saying has applied to join and been rejected on the same basis) on the basis that because they now require SAP linked entities playing in Canberra to play in the NPL, they won't be invited to play from 2026 onwards. Which is a crock of shit to me, because Capital Football purposely split the Senior and Junior premier categories because the local teams couldn't even do this.

If the federation is going to back this, then I would call for Capital Football's exclusion from the NSD. Since they clearly don't want to travel or earn things on merit.

EDIT: Added Queanbeyan City to the “don’t want to travel” list - I got that vibe from them when I was on the bench managing Wagga City in 2019 through the “go back to your farms” and “Canberra doesn’t want you” comments made at their home game that year. In saying that - I don’t think they’re behind this at all, as they’re trying to embed themselves as a proper club - so kudos to them.
 
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NicCarBel said:
That's a bingo.

I don't mind if I publicly name clubs now - but basing off what I've heard/seen in the past, and the engagements on the social media posts announcing this, it's a combination of clubs not wanting to travel (in the past, openly being Canberra Olympic and O'Connor Knights), and clubs that have either been relegated from first tier to second tier, or failing in promotion to the first tier over recent years (Belconnen United, West Canberra Wanderers, Canberra Olympic, Brindabella Blues).

They do say it's mainly the juniors that are unable to travel/be locked out this way - I tend to agree with that assessment. But they've locked out these two regional clubs (and Hanwood - another Griffith club - who they've now publicly saying has applied to join and been rejected on the same basis) on the basis that because they now require SAP linked entities playing in Canberra to play in the NPL, they won't be invited to play from 2026 onwards. Which is a crock of shit to me, because Capital Football purposely split the Senior and Junior premier categories because the local teams couldn't even do this.

If the federation is going to back this, then I would call for Capital Football's exclusion from the NSD. Since they clearly don't want to travel or earn things on merit.
Click to expand...
The word on the street I just heard is the 4 people that drove this review are linked to Canberra Olympic, Belconnen United, Brindabella Blues and West Canberra Wanderers. All from CPL, and 3 all (except for Brindabella) relegated from NPL to CPL in the past 3 seasons.

Says it all really
 
Keeper66 said:
Just checking, because I don’t know anything about capital football. Am I understanding this right, that the Canberra clubs don’t want to travel a couple of times per season, but the regional clubs are happy to travel to Canberra every second week? If so, and the federation is backing them, then that is very poor.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the idea



1747380641894.png
 
I was impressed with Melbourne knights despite the narrow loss to Heidelberg, looked stable with a good gameplan and could have pinched a draw at the end.

Will wait for confirmation tomorrow but im starting to believe we will finish bottom.
 
southmelb said:
I was impressed with Melbourne knights despite the narrow loss to Heidelberg, looked stable with a good gameplan and could have pinched a draw at the end.

Will wait for confirmation tomorrow but im starting to believe we will finish bottom.
Click to expand...
Very interesting table on both ends
 
NicCarBel said:
The word on the street I just heard is the 4 people that drove this review are linked to Canberra Olympic, Belconnen United, Brindabella Blues and West Canberra Wanderers. All from CPL, and 3 all (except for Brindabella) relegated from NPL to CPL in the past 3 seasons.

Says it all really
Click to expand...
Meanwhile, SA is expanding their pyramid. This is their third division, going to be 20 teams split north/south.

www.footballsa.com.au

Elizabeth Downs SC to enter the HPG Homes State League 2 in 2026

The HPG Homes State League 2 competition will comprise of a 10-team North and 10-team South competition following the
www.footballsa.com.au www.footballsa.com.au
 
Tigers FC have gone top of the table with a 3-2 victory over Yoogali this afternoon, with the two teams going goal for goal.

The headline though for me - as Russ Gibbs (Capital Football’s head of communications and lead commentator) eloquently put it - was the monkey on the elephant in the room regarding the recently released NPL review by Capital Football.

Joining Russ on commentary today was his usual partner in crime, current Canberra Olympic NPLW coach, and former NPLM Canberra Olympic and Monaro Panthers coach, Frank Cachia who had some scathing words to say about the review and its recommendations, particularly the exclusion of Riverina clubs from the Capital Football pyramid.

I’m throwing a link to the YouTube live stream below for anyone who wants to hear - but I’ve also transcribed below.



The dot points are directly from Frank - anything not part of a dot point is either me summarising parts of the discussion, or adding my own opinion/message.
  • Well I think it looks very much like they won’t be here next year, according to the report.
  • I guess from my own perspective, and I can only talk about how I feel about it all. I was pretty disappointed to see what unfolded over the last couple of days.
  • I guess my own disappointment probably stems more from just how we’ve gone about it. I think this is just not at the hands of one organisation, or one club, or whatever else.
  • But I look at what we’re trying to achieve in the game, and I hope we’re trying to achieve growth in the game, and I hope we’re trying to have the best possible environment for players to progress to either higher states (stakes?) or different competitions, and I think there’s a few contradictions in that in the way it’s being done.
  • For myself, I was asked about a reaction I put on a Facebook post yesterday. I guess if I could put a disappointed emoji up, I would have done that, but for me, I look at Riverina, and that area, and Wagga and that area, that’s 100 odd players that we no longer have in our competition.
  • If we’re talking about growth, they’re not going to be replaced by local players. Or we’ve got existing players, they’ll just be taking their spot. It’s not going to be 100 new players coming in. It’s over time, but we would have had that anyway.
  • We talk about travel and things like that - We talk about best of the best, and players that want to achieve elite competition, and you know if you’re not prepared to travel to be in an elite competition, are you really fair dinkum about being in an elite competition?
  • You know, I’ve heard rumours that if Canberra United goes ahead next year, and they start an academy, they’re looking at joining the New South Wales NPL2 competition.
  • So, if that comes to be true, why is it ok for us to send teams that will travel every second week to Sydney, but it’s not ok for clubs to travel once or twice a year to either Wagga or Griffith - who have given everything they have got to be in these competitions - and that’s where I get disappointed.
  • That’s not on the feet of the governing organisation. That’s not on the feet of the clubs. But I think what people need to remember is: This sport is for the players. This sport is for the people and the game. And we’ve got to make sure that at the end of the day, everything that we do should be about those people in the game. And I really think we’ve lost about 100-odd people - and their supporters, and their sponsors - to the game.
  • Hopefully there’s been consultation. And if there has, then if anyone has got a problem with that review a go to your club, and ask them. And if they’ve ticked off on this, don’t get upset at Capital Football - get upset at the club as well. And ask, why the decision was made.
Frank was then asked about how they’d go on the field today, given they have just come off their biggest ever NPL win with a 5-1 victory at home to reigning premiership Gungahlin United last week.
  • And that’s a bit of a kick in the guts for Yoogali - they come out after beating last year’s champions 5-1 - and then all of a sudden they read the review.
  • So - look, I’m pretty close to Darren (Bailey - Yoogali SC captain), and I spoke to him during the week after the release of the review, and they were pretty gutted. And I guess, Russ, you know him as well as I do.
  • There would have been some real question marks as to whether it was worth their time to come down here for this game. Because, if they know that their fate has already been sealed - and they’re spending plenty of dollars to get players and officials down here safely every second week - it would be pretty easy for them to just pull the pin.
  • But they’re prouder than that, and they’ve shown they’re such a big group of personalities and characters, and a big club with the way they’ve conducted themselves post that. And I know there’s a few people that have said a few things outside of any official channels from the club - and I guess they would mirror some of the sentiments. But their club itself has done really well not to say anything.

Frank - I’m not sure if you’re reading this - I’m not sure how much of the Canberra football community is on here. I might be the only one for all I know. But thank you for your words. Given the club you are affiliated to - and the rumours surrounding this review - for you to come out and - for lack of more professional terminology - put your balls on the chopping board - is really heartening. Thank you for expressing this from the position you are in, and have with football in Canberra.
 
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NicCarBel said:
Tigers FC have gone top of the table with a 3-2 victory over Yoogali this afternoon, with the two teams going goal for goal.

The headline though for me - as Russ Gibbs (Capital Football’s head of communications and lead commentator) eloquently put it - was the monkey on the elephant in the room regarding the recently released NPL review by Capital Football.

Joining Russ on commentary today was his usual partner in crime, current Canberra Olympic NPLW coach, and former NPLM Canberra Olympic and Monaro Panthers coach, Frank Cachia who had some scathing words to say about the review and its recommendations, particularly the exclusion of Riverina clubs from the Capital Football pyramid.

I’m throwing a link to the YouTube live stream below for anyone who wants to hear - but I’ve also transcribed below.



The dot points are directly from Frank - anything not part of a dot point is either me summarising parts of the discussion, or adding my own opinion/message.
  • Well I think it looks very much like they won’t be here next year, according to the report.
  • I guess from my own perspective, and I can only talk about how I feel about it all. I was pretty disappointed to see what unfolded over the last couple of days.
  • I guess my own disappointment probably stems more from just how we’ve gone about it. I think this is just not at the hands of one organisation, or one club, or whatever else.
  • But I look at what we’re trying to achieve in the game, and I hope we’re trying to achieve growth in the game, and I hope we’re trying to have the best possible environment for players to progress to either higher states (stakes?) or different competitions, and I think there’s a few contradictions in that in the way it’s being done.
  • For myself, I was asked about a reaction I put on a Facebook post yesterday. I guess if I could put a disappointed emoji up, I would have done that, but for me, I look at Riverina, and that area, and Wagga and that area, that’s 100 odd players that we no longer have in our competition.
  • If we’re talking about growth, they’re not going to be replaced by local players. Or we’ve got existing players, they’ll just be taking their spot. It’s not going to be 100 new players coming in. It’s over time, but we would have had that anyway.
  • We talk about travel and things like that - We talk about best of the best, and players that want to achieve elite competition, and you know if you’re not prepared to travel to be in an elite competition, are you really fair dinkum about being in an elite competition?
  • You know, I’ve heard rumours that if Canberra United goes ahead next year, and they start an academy, they’re looking at joining the New South Wales NPL2 competition.
  • So, if that comes to be true, why is it ok for us to send teams that will travel every second week to Sydney, but it’s not ok for clubs to travel once or twice a year to either Wagga or Griffith - who have given everything they have got to be in these competitions - and that’s where I get disappointed.
  • That’s not on the feet of the governing organisation. That’s not on the feet of the clubs. But I think what people need to remember is: This sport is for the players. This sport is for the people and the game. And we’ve got to make sure that at the end of the day, everything that we do should be about those people in the game. And I really think we’ve lost about 100-odd people - and their supporters, and their sponsors - to the game.
  • Hopefully there’s been consultation. And if there has, then if anyone has got a problem with that review a go to your club, and ask them. And if they’ve ticked off on this, don’t get upset at Capital Football - get upset at the club as well. And ask, why the decision was made.
Frank was then asked about how they’d go on the field today, given they have just come off their biggest ever NPL win with a 5-1 victory at home to reigning premiership Gungahlin United last week.
  • And that’s a bit of a kick in the guts for Yoogali - they come out after beating last year’s champions 5-1 - and then all of a sudden they read the review.
  • So - look, I’m pretty close to Darren (Bailey - Yoogali SC captain), and I spoke to him during the week after the release of the review, and they were pretty gutted. And I guess, Russ, you know him as well as I do.
  • There would have been some real question marks as to whether it was worth their time to come down here for this game. Because, if they know that their fate has already been sealed - and they’re spending plenty of dollars to get players and officials down here safely every second week - it would be pretty easy for them to just pull the pin.
  • But they’re prouder than that, and they’ve shown they’re such a big group of personalities and characters, and a big club with the way they’ve conducted themselves post that. And I know there’s a few people that have said a few things outside of any official channels from the club - and I guess they would mirror some of the sentiments. But their club itself has done really well not to say anything.

Frank - I’m not sure if you’re reading this - I’m not sure how much of the Canberra football community is on here. I might be the only one for all I know. But thank you for your words. Given the club you are affiliated to - and the rumours surrounding this review - for you to come out and - for lack of more professional terminology - put your balls on the chopping board - is really heartening. Thank you for expressing this from the position you are in, and have with football in Canberra.
Click to expand...

They can't allow this to happen, someone has to make a stand. Those clubs are gutless wonders, it's literally two x four hour trips PER YEAR!! Yoogali does 88 hours per year and they aren't complaining at all. This fires me up, so damn pissweak from the ACT.

There have even been mumours of Tassie NPL breaking up again into north/south because some players don't like the two hour trips. Would be a total backwards step. I don't think Pignata wants that at all, he actually wants to expand. Some players/clubs need to be put in their place.
 
HappyGuus said:
They can't allow this to happen, someone has to make a stand. Those clubs are gutless wonders, it's literally two x four hour trips PER YEAR!! Yoogali does 88 hours per year and they aren't complaining at all. This fires me up, so damn pissweak from the ACT.

There have even been mumours of Tassie NPL breaking up again into north/south because some players don't like the two hour trips. Would be a total backwards step. I don't think Pignata wants that at all, he actually wants to expand. Some players/clubs need to be put in their place.
Click to expand...
Just quietly, had sent a message to someone in the club, and I don’t think this discussion is over quite yet…

But you’ve hit the nail on the head. At the moment the league structure is 3x round robin. So 3 or 4 teams only have to make the trip once, with the rest twice.

Under the new system, which is just a standard double round robin, the other 9 clubs would only be needing to make this trip once per season. If Wagga was to stay in alnd also be in the league, that would be a second trip, but is only around half the distance from Canberra to Griffith - so is very much a pittance of travel compared to what Yoogali, Wagga, and everyone previously involved with Riverina Rhinos and Griffith FC put in.

It’s an absolute travesty, considering the rumours about the Academy that Cachia touched on today on the broadcast

EDIT: In saying that, it’s not beyond the scope of Capital Football to reverse this. In 2022, CF made the decision during the week between the end of the NPLY regular season, and the first week of the finals, to expel Griffith FC teams (Griffith FC being the replacement for Riverina Rhinos at youth level when Yoogali took over the senior level licence) from the finals - because Griffith pulled the U18s team mid season.

From memory, of the remaining 3 age groups, 2 of them qualified for finals - and the club avoided regulation which was based on a club championship model - with the U18s Griffith team applied as a forfeit for every game.

I think the reasoning that was used to overturn this was that Capital Football had used forfeits to keep the balance, and Griffith would be playing all finals in Canberra regardless of their position.

Granted, Griffith FC was pulled from competition during that offseason as parents in some of the age groups were sick of the politics regarding their travel, and instead opted to field children in local academy teams and make trips for individual tournaments (such as Kanga Cup) as required.
 
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