Girls Youth League completes first Club Standards and Benchmarking Framework assessment cycle

Football NSW is proud to release the findings of the 2025 & 2026 Girls Youth League Club Standards cycle.

Girls Youth League Clubs experienced the first cycle of the newly introduced Club Standards & Benchmarking framework during the 2025 & 2026 seasons, changing from the previous Club Championships model that had existed across the Girls Youth & Women’s Senior Competitions.

The Club Standards & Benchmarking framework is the Football NSW benchmarking, quality assurance and club support process to provide better services for our players, coaches and Clubs across the state by empowering improved football environments.  At the heart of the Club Standards are three themes that Football NSW strives to deliver; Accountability, delivery of Best Practice and the ongoing Capability Building of Club Technical staff.

Each Club at the conclusion of the 2026 season has received a Club Standards & Benchmarking Assessment score out of 100, based on the publicly available Club Standards & Benchmarking Framework Information Pack. These assessment scores were utilised to determine the composition of the Girls Youth League One and Girls Youth League Two competitions in the 2027 Declaration of Leagues.

Clubs were evaluated across four components; Football Criteria, Technical Qualifications, Progression and Retention, and Club Championships.

Within the Football Criteria component Clubs were evaluated on their off-field Club operations via evidence submitted during the season and its ‘on-field’ Delivery.

The ‘Planning’ aspect of the Football Criteria component outlines the Clubs Youth Development Plan, Football Operations, Player Services and Coach Development. This component on average scored 65%, with the top score reaching 90%.

Arguably the most important aspect of the Clubs impact on its players is the environment at Training & matchday, known as the ‘Delivery’ component. Throughout the two-year period Football NSW Technical Advisors visited the Club five times to evaluate the Clubs environment, their coaches and the programs alignment to their Planning submission as outlined above. On average Clubs scored 61%, with an impressive showing from the top 7 Clubs all scoring above 74%.

“The completion of the first Girls Youth League Club Standards cycle represents an important milestone for both the competition and its clubs. For the first time, clubs have been assessed against a broad range of measures that extend beyond on-field results to evaluate the environments, structures, technical leadership, and processes that support player and coach development,” said Football NSW Club Technical Development Manager, Neil Mann.

“The commitment shown by clubs throughout the process reflects a shared ambition to provide high-quality football environments. The outcomes highlight areas where clubs are performing strongly while also providing valuable insight into where future investment and focus can have the greatest impact.”

“As the first Girls Youth League Club Standards cycle comes to a close, clubs now have a clearer understanding of the strengths within their programs and the opportunities available to further enhance and build upon the experiences and pathways they provide for players and coaches.

A major shift of the introduction of the Club Standards was the change in emphasis of the Club Championships on League positioning year-on-year, with this component reduced to 24% weighting of the overall Club Assessment score. This change aligns with global best practice of youth development environments with the aspiration to change behaviours and mindset by encouraging Clubs to focus less on the short term, immediate performance of its teams, and greater emphasis on the long term, individual development of players.

Pleasingly, Clubs have mirrored their investment and commitment shown in the Girls JDL programs in their appointment of technical staff, with an average rating of 67% and four Clubs achieving 83%+. This prioritisation is the foundation to a safe, development focussed environment within Clubs and Football NSW applauds all Clubs above the average for their commitment to its players.

Within Girls Youth there is a large emphasis on preparing players for the game in the future and as the players progress through Club programs those opportunities materialise in the form of opportunities in the Talent Support Program (TSP), Future Sapphires and the Football NSW State teams. As players enter the Under 15 & Under 16 age group they may be identified for Football NSW talent identification programs with the eventual goal of selection within the Football NSW Emerging Matildas (and Socceroos) Championships. Thess opportunities form part of the National Team talent identification journey, with Football Australia staff directly involved in Football NSW program enhancement to ensure we provide the best chance for NSW based players to be represented in the Under 17 Junior Matildas squads. On average, Clubs scored 50% within the Progression & Retention component, with three Clubs reaching 75%.

“The Girls’ Youth Leagues have experienced the first cycle of our Club Standards framework and we are proud at the reaction of the Clubs and their embrace of the new system of meritocracy. Change is never easy, particularly within sports, when for a long time the metric for success has been a simple ‘win or loss’ scenario. The new merit-based system rewards Clubs for their focus on long term development of their environment through various objective measures that will contribute to players gaining a challenging and enjoyable experience,” said Edward Ferguson, Football NSW Head of Football Development.

“The scores that have been produced are reflective of a committed system and one that is aspirational and competitive. Our aim is to expose more players to better environments across the landscape and through the Framework this is step one of that journey. We have seen the transformation within the Girls JDL environments with a significant improvement across the landscape and anticipate this will be the same in 2028 when our next GYL Report will be due.”

“I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the Club, its committees, its staff and its coaches, for embracing the challenge and without a doubt, delivering an improved experience for its members. With your energy and dedication, Australian football has the ability to reach the potential we all know it has – thank you and well done”.