{"id":684347,"date":"2026-05-21T03:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T03:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684347\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T03:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T03:23:09","slug":"football-australia-posts-record-losses-as-plan-to-axe-20-per-cent-of-staff-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684347\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Australia posts record losses as plan to axe 20 per cent of staff revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football Australia’s losses almost doubled to a record $15.34 million last year, prompting plans to axe 20 per cent of staff at soccer’s governing body.<\/p>\n

The unprecedented loss followed a then-record loss of $8.5 million in 2024.<\/p>\n

In its financial report for the year that ended on December 31, FA detailed its losses despite revenue climbing to an all-time high.<\/p>\n

“Revenues grew to $139,446,000, representing the strongest result since the separation of the A-League and continued commercial momentum and audience engagement across the game,” FA’s financial report states.<\/p>\n

But FA still reported a massive loss, equivalent to 11 per cent of revenue.<\/p>\n

“The net loss \u2026 after tax for the year ended 31 December 2025 was $15,340,000,” the financial report states.<\/p>\n

FA wages and salaries last year totalled $53.25 million, almost $11 million more than in 2024.<\/p>\n

The overall amount of all “employee and team benefit expenses” reached $63.13 million, up from $49.82 million in 2024.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jaclyn Lee-Joe resigned from Football Australia’s board last year but is still owed payments out until 2027. (Getty: Darren Gerrish\/WireImage)<\/p>\n

The financial report, seen by AAP and to be tabled at FA’s annual general meeting next Thursday, also details payments to former FA director Jaclyn Lee-Joe.<\/p>\n

Ms Lee-Joe, who joined the organisation’s board in November 2022 and resigned in May last year, will be paid $810,000 by FA “for services rendered in relation to the PlayFootball registration system”, the report states.<\/p>\n

Lee-Joe was paid $180,000 last year, with the remaining amounts to be paid over this year and 2027.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, FA’s chief executive Martin Kugeler detailed the need for the body to cut one in five of its staff in response to the heavy financial loss.<\/p>\n

Mr Kugeler, who was appointed chief executive in January, said the cuts would not impact the flagship men’s and women’s senior national teams.<\/p>\n

But Mr Kugeler said FA planned a “significant reset and restructure”.<\/p>\n

“Two significant losses, and increasing losses year-on-year, is obviously not a situation that is sustainable or acceptable,” Mr Kugeler told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“An organisational restructure that resizes \u2026 is to set up the organisation to deliver financial resilience.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

He said the restructure would mean “a net reduction of over 20 per cent” of staff.<\/p>\n

“We are where we are: great on the football side, delivering success, qualifying for the World Cup,” Mr Kugeler said.<\/p>\n

“We’re not where we need to be on the financial side, and that’s what we have to address.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football Australia’s losses almost doubled to a record $15.34 million last year, prompting plans to axe 20 per…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,1999,44067,329908,80334,329907,44,13198],"class_list":["post-684347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-finances","tag-football-australia","tag-jaclyn-lee-joe","tag-losses","tag-martin-kugeler","tag-news","tag-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}