Despite year-on-year growth in the numbers playing the nation’s most popular club-based participation sport, some parents are turning their back on the game with junior fees at a number of the 200-plus NPL clubs sometimes exceeding $2,500 a year.
It has been asserted that these fees are often used, in part, to pay wages - whether declared or under-the-table - to senior first grade players.
Johnson, a former player at Brisbane Strikers in the old NSL and a one-time Australia U-17 international, is better equipped than most to understand the complexities of a conundrum which has become one of the game’s hottest topics.
Finding and ultimately rolling out a more sustainable and equitable funding model is one of his most compelling priorities as he looks to regenerate and reshape football - not least its finances - across multiple fronts.
“If you ask 100 stakeholders or football fans across the country what are the top five issues in the game right now almost all of them would put registration costs up there as one of them,” Johnson told The World Game.
“In my personal view, looking at the registration fees and the cost of playing football is something that needs to be looked into as a matter of urgency.
“I want to work collaboratively with our stakeholders, in particular State and Territory Member Federations, to fully understand and assimilate all the facts and figures surrounding this, and come up with agreed solutions.
“Time needs to be spent not just looking at what the problem is, in terms of the cost of registrations, but to try and understand, scientifically, exactly what is driving it.”
After almost a decade overseas as a football executive - two years at the AFC in Kuala Lumpur, six in Switzerland at FIFA and a year in the UK at the City Football Group, Johnson knows all about working in territories where the cost of playing the game is often far less than the figures charged in Australia.
And Johnson is committed to an in-depth analysis: from council fees for fields, to clubs’ pay-for-play structures (including their academy programs), the Skills Acquisition Program for juniors and the role played by the member federations who charge licence fees to the clubs.
“We need to look at not just the cost, but where and how the funds are dispersed, to really understand what is causing these registration fees at the semi-elite level to be at the extreme end when you compare us to other countries around the world,” he added.
“If we don’t properly understand the problem then the antidote we use to treat it might not be the right one.
“So we want to get the diagnosis completely correct.
“Why are we looking into this? Because we don’t want these fees to be a barrier to youngsters playing the game.
“The vast majority of players at grassroots level get great value for money, when you consider the hours on the field every week, playing and training for six months of the year.
“Football should be available to all, no matter at what level, grassroots or semi-elite.
“We want to see more boys, more girls, more adults and more elite athletes playing football. It’s as simple as that.”
