Occurred in March & June of this year, and previously in July 2025.

Club is adamant they're in a strong financial position despite these instances. Apparently it's been caused by timing issues

Just Glory things...

Credit to Ben Smith

Australia and New Zealand have expressed their support

Central Coast Mariners are pleased to announce the signing of another talented young player, as 17-year-old striker Luke Becvinovski has joined ahead of the Isuzu UTE A-League 2026/27 season.

A dynamic forward player with a dangerous left-foot, Becvinovski joins the Mariners after a number of prolific seasons in Melbourne City’s academy system, impressing through multiple age groups, and arrives on the Central Coast as another highly regarded young talent to strengthen the club’s squad for the season ahead.

Becvinovski has also represented Australia at Under-17 level and previously represented Victoria at the Emerging Socceroos Championships, highlighting his status as one of the country’s most promising young attacking players

His signing further displays our commitment to identifying and developing elite Australian talent, providing players with the opportunity to progress their careers whilst contributing to the Mariners’ long-term success.

Sporting Director Matt Simon emphasised this as he commented on our newest recruit:

“Luke is another young player that we are excited to add to our squad, aligning with our recruitment strategy.”

“His performances at Academy and International level show that he is a promising young striker with an excellent left foot and strong attacking instincts.

“We strongly believe in Luke’s potential, and we’re excited to help him continue his development in a Mariners shirt.”

A reminder you can meet Luke and the rest of our Isuzu UTE A-League 2026/27 squad at our open training session TODAY at Mariners Centre of Excellence, Tuggerah, from 10:15am.

Was on loan at Harrogate Town last season

https://www.acmilan.com/en/news/articles/media/2026-07-15/official-statement-max-vincenzo-anastasio

:)

So first of all this is not a whinge about fairness - if you're good enough, you'll win enough, so I'm not going to say this is going to cost Glory the season or anything.

But while I understand that there will be logistical reasons why the good old HAHAHA format can't work for fixtures in this day and age, I still find this fixture list absolutely insane.

I haven't looked, but are other clubs dealing with similar massively unbalanced home and away trips? It seems mad to me.

It appears that the World Cup has shone a light on the affordability of soccer in the US. Clearly, we have some issues with affordability of the game in Aus.

What are your thoughts on private academies at a junior level? It seems that every club, even community ones have made agreements with these academies. Many seem like scams and they appear to have stretched out costs to play the game for juniors at a community level.

South Melbourne play year-round in the semi-pro NPL and Australian Championships - are their players only paid ‘professionally’ (as in full-time contracts) during the OFC Pro League season? Does Auckland’s OFC-only squad still get paid year-round?

UPDATE: My referee mate is apparently nowhere near as tuned in as he thought! Ref for the final is Slavko Vincic of Slovenia (apparently Slovenia wasn’t too “UEFA” for Argentina), while Jesús Valenzuela of Venezuela gets the “best of the worst” 3rd-place game.

This is going to sound a bit "trust me bro" rumour mill stuff, but I was chatting to a ref mate who's really tuned in to all of the bickering/infighting/politics between the countries, confederations, and FIFA that goes on about referee assignments. But yeah as per the title, Faghani is a pretty good chance for doing the WC Final.

Fifa sees him as AFC's top ref and a fairly safe pair of hands - he did the Club World Cup Final two years ago so he's done big games, and Fifa were overall happy enough with his performance in the England-Mexico game. He absolutely should've spotted Quansah's red card without VAR intervention (note that "getting called to the monitor by VAR to review something obvious" is considered a mistake by FIFA and usually gets you sent home), but he managed to keep a lid on what could've been a pretty volatile situation (Mexico at the Azteca and all that).

Anyway, my mate was saying the referee assignment for the final will basically be decided by the second semi-final result tomorrow. If Argentina make the final, there's a pretty decent chance it'll be Faghani reffing, as neither Argentina/Spain will accept a UEFA/CONMEBOL ref. (If England make the final somehow, it'll likely be Claudio Sampaio of Brazil taking charge).

https://xcancel.com/apialeichhardt/status/2077025390175129700