Football NSW will announce the new structure of their female competitions with the much awaited Declaration of Leagues on September 26th, and now that the successful Institute program is no more, Western Sydney Wanderers have made their move. Expectations of a straight swap with the former Institute entity in the top tier NPL1 league have been all but confirmed, and now the journey of assembling a coaching team and a quality playing roster ahead of the 2025 season is taking shape. So, what does that journey look like?
While Melbourne Victory were taking on NWS Spirit, with all eyes on Christie Park hoping for an Australia Cup upset, Western Sydney Wanderers were convening at Football NSW headquarters at Valentine Park to discuss their future direction with the final crop of Institute players. Billed as an informal information session, the hope was to convince the playing roster of 2024 that Western Sydney Wanderers was the obvious destination to continue their upward journey towards footballing success. And it is an obvious pathway, a ready-made replacement, with fabulous infrastructure at Wanderers Football Park and a successful A-League club with a household name in former Matildas coach Tom Sermanni at the helm. The Institute players, all in a state of confusion and stress since their existing pathway was pulled out from under their feet, would surely be able to continue their football journey with the Wanderers.
The result of that session was even further anxiety for the main stakeholders in the game, the players. According to the Football NSW mandate, Western Sydney Wanderers would hold open trials in October, along with every other NPL club. Except every other NPL club would have most, if not all, of their squads already finalised by then. Expressions of Interest had already been fielded via social media, and whilst there was a healthy number of interested players (up to 1,000), the background and history of the players was not part of the EOI form. October would be like a blind audition, with no playing history considered, hardly a guarantee to the Institute players of success at the trial stage. The club had yet to engage coaches, or even a Technical Director, and had not been looking at any players yet. The current coaching staff of the Institute having already committed to other clubs in the NPL scene, there was doubt as to how these key positions would be filled.
So, what is an Institute player meant to do in this situation? Hope for the best? They are already having their heads turned and are seeing their peers sign up for new clubs. Macarthur Rams and Spirit FC could be big winners as players follow coaches and guarantees of top level football in the NPL are made. All the while, the ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy taken by the Wanderers, toeing the Football NSW line of no engagement outside of the trial period in October, looks like a risk that any talented player would be foolhardy to take.
This all comes back to the cloak and dagger manner of the Wanderers entering the NPL Women’s leagues. All NPL clubs have had strict and stringently-controlled criteria to satisfy the requirements of a licence at this level, and that will continue with the new structure of the Football NSW Women’s and Girls Youth League from 2025. How can it be that a club can be admitted into the NPL without a Technical Director or any coaching staff? Have the Wanderers simply been handed a spot in NPL1 because they are a big and powerful club? How does that sit with Blacktown Spartans or SD Raiders, two clubs that could take that spot on merit?
Sydney FC have signalled intentions of joining the NPL sphere too, albeit at a later date, and the confusion and innuendo that is circulating, in the absence of any concrete information or clarification to the initial league restructures, suggests that they will be unable to join until the 2027. A two-year licence period suggests a closed shop in 2025 and 2026, and that’s the way the Wanderers are reading it too. What looks certain though is that the Sydney FC Female Development Squad is set to continue into its second season, and that the new Football NSW Future Sapphires program is going to be a competing program, despite only a brief overlap. Again, where the coaching staff come from is a big question – remember we have 14 new teams already in the NPL2 Girls Youth League, and coaching staff may be thin on the ground coming into 2025. The coaching positions already being advertised require exclusivity, so coaches will only work with Football NSW.
This is an exciting but unsettling time to be a talented footballer in New South Wales. Players who have represented their state and are on their way to national team recognition may have to take a swerve in their footballing careers and do things a little differently from here. Of course the pathway will continue, but it may not be in Western Sydney.