The Chairman of the Australian Association of Football Clubs (AAFC), Nick Galatas, has spoken exclusively to The Greek Herald about the association’s plans for 2021.
Mr Galatas lists these four initiatives:
- Member Federations across Australia relating first to the pausing of football with COVID in March and then efforts to resume across Australia with different results based on government attitude and COVID in each state;
- Consulting Football Federation Australia (now Football Australia) on the XI Principles draft before the final document;
- Working on the national NPL review initiated by FA before it was suspended by COVID;
- Working on the National Second Division, including: (a) Convening over 60 interested NPL Clubs nationally; (b) Establishing a Partner Group of more than 30 NPL Clubs nationally to develop and represent the AAFC position on the NSD to be introduced by FA; (c) Developing the position through detailed meetings of subcommittees of these clubs, appointing a Consultant MI Consultants to assist with the preparation of our report; and (d) Finalising a preliminary report to be released in January before our final report to follow in March/April.
Mr Galatas says that now the “unbundling” of the A League from FA is complete, “we expect FA to move to implement a National Second Division to start as soon as possible.”
“It is a measure contained in the FA XI Principles. We will work with FA to introduce the best possible NSD as soon as possible,” Mr Galatas tells The Greek Herald.
“It has been a very busy and intense year involving a lot of work by our volunteer board and conducted remotely in very challenging circumstances and without the pleasure of watching our teams play, mixing with our friends, sharing great food and a drink at the fantastic grounds of our passionate clubs.”
