Football Australia has reported a loss of $15.34 million in its latest financial report, which will result in the axing of 20 per cent of the federations’ staff.
Despite reaching record breaking numbers in terms of revenue at $139,446,000, the losses obtained have almost doubled from last year’s $8.54 million, a significant rise in overall losses since they separated from the APL in 2023.
FA Chief Executive Officer Martin Kugeler told the ABC the continuous losses were harming the federation significantly.
“Two significant losses, and increasing losses year-on-year, is obviously not a situation that is sustainable or acceptable,” Mr Kugeler said.
“An organisational restructure that resizes is to set up the organisation to deliver financial resilience.
“What that means is I had to make obviously very difficult decisions around roles and make a significant number of roles redundant, so we will ultimately reduce the people here working at Football Australia.”
The upcoming staff redundancies set to come into effect to save funds, come off the back of staff wages and benefits rising from $49.82 million to $63.13 million.
Though the specific roles that might be affected have not been specified, fans have started to speculate about about how the cuts may impact the game, especially at the local level with registration fees and support.
Sutherland Shire Football Associations club Marton Hammers member Jarad Avery said FA would be able to find the resources to keep the game in the position.
“It’s a big shock,” Mr Avery said.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen but there are always other ways to try and find money for the game.”
Active participation in football is among the highest in the country, consistently growing in numbers on a yearly basis, with the last reported number in 2025 coming in with 1,938,910 participants.
This strength in the Australian footballing landscape along with the investment into the women’s game as the CEO told The Guardian he is optimistic for the federations future, but admits it will still require attention in underperforming areas such as the money lost from the A-League when they oversaw it 3 years ago.
“While our grassroots participation, football competitions and sporting achievements are very strong, we must reshape Football Australia for sustainability, innovation and excellence,” Mr Kugeler said.
“We are also creating a significant number of new roles to invest in key strategic growth areas where additional expertise and capacity are required.”
The federations’ 22nd Annual General Meeting will take place tomorrow at noon, where the financial losses reported will be further addressed.
