Granville & District Soccer FA Announce X-League

In exciting news, Granville & District Soccer Football Association has announced the new creation of a top tier local Men’s Seniors competition the X-League kicking off in March next year.

Looking at playing twenty-two rounds of football competition each and every Friday evenings across the Granville Association, there are a number of exciting initiatives that the organisers have thrown into the mix making this one of the most appealing local Senior Men’s competition across NSW.

These include:

• Livestream Broadcast & Commentary of ‘Match of the Round’
• Local officials and talent officiating matches
• 2 Leagues (X-League 1 and X-League 2)
• 12 Teams in each league
• Single Team format of up to 20 players per team
• Promotion and Relegation
• Prize Money for Premiers and Champions
• Season Launch Party with special guest
• End of Season Player & Team Awards Evening
• Entry into Australia’s oldest knockout competition “The Cottam Cup”
• NPL Opportunities
• ‘Match of the Round’ played at the legendary Melita Stadium home of the Parramatta Eagles FC

Granville & District Soccer FA’s General Manager Scott Sadler was looking forward to the new challenge with this new concept that was struck up with a few local and passionate Club administrators wanting to promote, collaborate and deliver new ways of getting more people interested with the world game.

“Back in May, myself and Joe Bacha (Rydalmere FC’s First Grade Coach) met at café to catch up and chew the fat over the state of play of GDSFA football. As many will know it’s not been an easy ride for them over the last few years, and Joe wanted to bring some of his observations and ideas on how we could improve our Men’s Premier League given we had gone from having 10 teams in 2020 season and reduced to 6 in the 2021 season.

“Rydalmere FC have shown great character in rebuilding their club culture and in turn they have seen the fruits of their labour with a fantastic facility being constructed. We started to get some ideas down on paper and the ball was rolling, but Covid lockdown reared its ugly head for round 2 and so we got stuck into battening down the hatches and trying to focus on getting some sort of season played. Sure enough we had to turn that idea off, and focus on 2022.

“Undeterred, Joe picked up the baton and rallied the troops, Danny Rizk (Holroyd Rangers) and Zac Farrah (Granville Waratah) along with several other club delegates dipping in and out and getting involved along the way. A working group was formed, and the brainstorming sessions commenced every Wednesday, and still ongoing looking at how we could make the Men’s Premiership Competition more viable and inclusive for all clubs to get involved.

“It has been great to watch the clubs coming together and collaborating on ideas, and between them they have come up with the concept of the X-League.”

Even though the league will be open to Men’s for the 2022 season, the Association has stated that plans are underway to offer this league concept towards the Women and Youth clubs in the football mad area.

“We are definitely looking at expanding in both the Women’s and Youth sectors once we get the Men’s off the ground in 2022 as that has always been our intention.

“GDSFA is the OG of football within Australia, we may not have done everything right along the way, but we have helped to shape football in some way shape or form.

“With the X-League, we are wanting to offer grassroots football a high standard of football for a very competitive membership fee, giving value for money for each player involved.”

Away from the X-League, Sadler stated that Covid had derailed the sport and its clubs as it did in 2020 but was looking ahead with the Association hoping to announce many more exciting new opportunities in a bid to promote Football to the masses.

“Our membership numbers remained the same as previous seasons, but I am sure most associations like GDSFA were impacted by the restrictions and lockdowns, however the Community have remained strong and positive by supporting one another in one way or another. Experiencing this makes me feel incredibly proud to be the General Manager of this Association and I am sure like me; everyone is relieved that we are now able to return back to some sort of normal routine and here’s to looking forward to the 2022 season.

“There is a lot going on behind the scenes, but to name a couple of projects we are working on are:

• Recruitment of our Community Coach Development Manager
• U6 & U7 Girls Only Competition
• Launching our Game Leaders Program for a second year, and supporting our first season cadets go on to do their Level 4 Referee Badges
• Community Coaching Coordinator Program
  • Minis & Youth Coaching Program
  • Female Only Development Only Program

“We are doing a lot of around governance and our process/procedures part but this is behind the scenes that will make a difference to our volunteers who do the day to day operations for their clubs.”