2 weeks Ago By Vince Rugari
There is no greater honour for a grassroots football team in NSW than participation in the annual Champion of Champions tournament at the end of the season. Since 1968, it has pitted the champions in each of the state’s 34 associations and branches against one another to crown the best team in each age group. The Bankstown Sports Strikers under-18s women’s team won’t be able to play in the NSW Champion of Champions tournament this year, even if they qualify, as they did last year.
Credit: Steven Siewert The Bankstown Sports Strikers earned the right to play in the under-18 women’s tournament last year and came up short. But a new season is here, and the aim is to have another crack. Or at least, it would have been.
Instead, they and approximately 55,000 other participants in NSW are frozen out of that tournament, and others, through no fault of their own. The reason? Football Australia has rolled out a new national registration platform, called PlayFootball 2.0, through which every player, coach, referee and club in the country must enrol to be able to take part in the game in 2025.
But PlayFootball 2.0 is proving so problematic for some users, and the volunteer workforces who make local clubs tick, that three associations have refused to use it: the BDAFA, Football Canterbury and Central Coast Football (CCF), encompassing more than 50,000 participants. In response, Football NSW is, with FA’s support, withdrawing “benefits” for those associations, which means clubs within them are frozen out of all FNSW competitions and award.
Read the full story here Here’s the official team sheet: The big news: there’s no Juan Mata at all for the Wanderers, as expected, after that hamstring injury he picked up in last week’s win over Brisbane Roar. Otherwise, they’re pretty much full strength, with new signing Socceroo Alex Gersbach - the former Sky Blue - on the bench and in the mix to make his debut for the club. For the home side, it’s close to full strength - but their new recruit Alex Grant won’t be ready for this one, nor will Aleks Popovic, so it’s Rhyan Grant and second-gamer Kyle Shaw in the centre of defence once more.
Douglas Costa, meanwhile, is named among the substitutes. G’day everyone. Welcome to our live coverage of tonight’s third and final Sydney derby of the A-League Men season.
It’s Sydney FC at home to the Western Sydney Wanderers at Allianz Stadium. Kick-off is at 7.35pm AEDT, and we’ll bring you all the action as it happens.
I’m Vince Rugari, I’m at the venue and I’ve been looking forward to this all week. Should be a beauty of a match. Team news coming up in a second.
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