FFV NPL Review

With so many reviews going on across Australia, especially in football, we may see a new position of Review Manager coming up on sportspeople soon.

First of all I would like to congratulate FFV & SBP for undertaking the NPL review as it was most needed, and showed that FFV was aware of the issues at hand.

On reviewing the report, I believe it brought up some very important questions, problems and some possible solutions.

SBP were involved in previous competition reviews 12/13 years ago, which led to the removal of the Super League and several years later the implementation of the Victorian Champions League. (VCL to date has been the most successful implementation as was a model revered interstate but unfortunately the lack of senior sides meant there was no pathway and as such the older age groups fell away in ability) 

I am wondering whether the statistics and reports from these 2 significant changes for Victorian football were looked over as there are several key errors that will not be eradicated under one of the models proposed and from all reports considered the preferred model. 

Some of the reasons for the removal of the Super League were as follows:

1. hoarding of players in teams to win Championships

2. players following coaches to win Championships and leaving clubs without coaches and players the following season

3. high cost of fees as these Super teams would have 8-10 sessions p/w including massage, martial arts, swimming/recovery as well as technical technical etc where as some only had 2. 

4. Poor standard of football, win at all costs mentality as teams wished to get promoted / not relegated

The NPL has managed to solve these problems, although some clubs are starting to charge over the $2200 for specialist coaches, school holiday camps, off season training, overseas tours etc. Often when looking at the past we see the golden moments but if we aren't careful we will repeat the same mistakes. 

Therefore the club based model would be the most appropriate as it would encourage the club to take an overall club approach. A club championship model split between Youth / Senior (see FNSW model) could be used for promotion and relegation between two tiers (NPL 1, NPL2 with 14/15 teams each, or the 3 tier model).

To better allow player retention, FFV needs to introduce trialling periods for each division i.e. all players trial with NPL1 teams between week 1-3, followed by NPL2 week 4-6 etc There have been some attempts to do this in Victoria but they NTC and A-league Youth trials over these period ruined any attempt.A-League, NTC should be allowed to trial during the season prior to the end of season trials but not during the trial period and (Again Review FNSW Model for further information). This means that players will find their ability level without panicking about where and when to trial and gambling for an NPL position. 

The review states that the ratio of NPL players in Victoria is much higher than FNSW and other codes. However this data is skewed as it doesnt take into account the regional association and representative nature of FNSW, Basketball, Cricket and AFL "Elite" youth competitions. Victorian football apart from country areas is not association based and in fact associations such as Melbourne Chinese Soccer Association, Bayside Soccer Association, Victoria Churches Association, VicSoccer, Melbourne Fijian Soccer Association as well as most futsal competitions are not affiliated to FFV in comparison to FNSW where they are.

In reviews such as this it is important that the background and expertise be considered and weighted in relation to particular questions and answers i.e. NPL coaches should have a larger weighting over community coaches who may be disgruntled, in the same way that parents need to have their views considered as a parent in any customer experience areas over stakeholders without children. Otherwise you will end up with a solution that tries to solve many problems but in fact solves none. 

At all stages we need to consider NPLV should be in place to:

- Improve the quality of football in Victoria

- improve the quality of footballers in Victoria

- improve the quality of football coaches & referees in Victoria

- provide quality footballers, coaches and referees to be able to participate at the A-League level and higher 

When making decisions about the NPL competition we should not stray from these key pillars.

Other competitions and programs can be in place for participation, but where clubs and many coaches and associations forget is that retention is all about the customer experience, so we need to get better at customer service. An example of this would be for clubs to charge the customers (players & parents) based on the service they provide (i.e. facilities, level of coaches etc) so if clubs can only afford to hire C & B Licenced coaches they then can only charge $1000 but if they can hire Pro & A Licenced coaches then they can charge full fee. Currently everyone can charge $2200 but the issue is they are not receive the same service.

I would be happy for your feedback - email [email protected]