03/09/2026
DAY 023 OF POSTING EVERY DAY UNTIL THE FUTURE OF ILLAWARRA FOOTBALL ISN’T DECIDED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.
Football has participation numbers in this region that should give it serious political weight.
Yet we still struggle with basic facility problems, major clubs without suitable homes, and a regional game that has never really had the infrastructure base its size would suggest.
At the same time, governments have shown they are willing to commit very significant public money to major infrastructure projects attached to professional sporting organisations in other codes.
Some of that may be because football simply does not carry the same political favour as some other sports.
But football also has to ask whether we have done enough with the scale we already have.
Have we built a clear regional infrastructure case around what our numbers actually represent, what is currently holding the game back, and what better investment would change?
Because if the answer is no, then simply pointing at participation figures is not enough.
The harder question is whether Illawarra football has been organised, ambitious and coherent enough to turn those numbers into something governments find difficult to ignore.
