Cricket and soccer are two of, if not the biggest national sporting codes in Australia.
Yet the governing bodies of both have recently been in the news for their financial difficulties.
How can it be these two dominant codes are struggling?
Major sports, major problems
Football Australia (FA) recently announced it will cut around 20% of its workforce, following a loss of more than $15 million. This has raised concerns about organisational performance.
But the financial detail suggests something more structural.
In 2025, FA generated record revenue of approximately $139 million, yet reported a net loss of $15.3 million – about 11% of total income.
This follows a deficit of $8.5 million the previous year.
Revenue has been rising but financial stability remains elusive, a pattern also evident in Cricket Australia (CA).
CA reported around $455 million in revenue and an operating surplus of $109.6 million in 2024–25. However, after distributing roughly $120 million to state associations, it recorded a net deficit of about $11 million.
This highlights how large revenues in sport do not necessarily deliver financial strength.
In many governing body models, revenue functions less as retained capital and more as a redistribution mechanism to support leagues, grassroots systems, pathways and national teams.
Revenue growth without financial stability
At first glance, both organisations appear financially strong.
FA has expanded commercial partnerships and participation while CA has benefited from increased attendance and broadcast income associated with major international series.
However, much of this revenue is cyclical, particularly in cricket where income fluctuates with international scheduling, while soccer revenues remain exposed to changes in participation patterns and media markets.
This suggests FA’s high fixed costs relative to variable costs are limiting profitability.
Much of FA’s cost base is now structurally embedded: national team investment, women’s soccer expansion, technical infrastructure and participation systems. These create recurring expenditure that is difficult to reduce quickly without damaging sporting or political objectives.
On the expenditure side, both organisations face relatively inflexible cost structures. FA’s employee and team-related expenses increased to more than $63 million in 2025, up from about $50 million the previous year.
Wages alone rose by roughly $11 million over the same period.
CA faces comparable pressures. Total expenses rose to nearly $346 million, with player payments exceeding $133 million – representing the largest category of expenditure.
While CA generated a substantial operating surplus, much of that cash flow is redistributed via state funding arrangements, player payments and system-wide commitments.
In practice, CA functions more like a financing institution for the broader national cricket economy.
What the financial data actually show
FA’s revenue increased from $124 million in 2024 to $139 million in 2025, yet its losses expanded from $8.5 million to $15.3 million during the same period.
This divergence reinforces earlier evidence that expenditure growth, particularly in labour-intensive areas, is outpacing revenue, reflecting cost pressures within the system.
These costs appear structurally embedded, which means they can’t be easily reduced in the short term.
FA has also been affected by the A-League’s own turbulent finances.
While FA is the governing body for soccer in Australia, the A-League is independent. FA does not directly cover the league’s losses but does support the A-League by allowing it to retain money it might otherwise have owed.
This is because a financially stable A-League is critical to the health of the entire soccer system, including player development, national team performance and the sport’s commercial viability in Australia.
CA’s position reflects a different structural constraint. While the organisation generated an operating surplus of $109.6 million, distributions of around $120 million to state associations effectively absorbed that surplus, resulting in a net deficit.
This financial uncertainty led CA to recently investigate raising money by selling some or all of its Big Bash League teams to private equity. However, the move was quashed by the states.
Read more:
Cricket Australia’s Big Bash cash grab is rejected – but there are better options on the table
Governance constraints and contested reform
Australian sports’ governing bodies are increasingly caught between globalised cost structures and comparatively limited domestic market scale. Many remain dependent on cyclical broadcast markets and concentrated domestic audiences.
These structural pressures are made worse because FA still has financial obligations tied to the A-League. But anticipated A-League revenues have not been fully realised, transferring financial strain onto the FA.
CA provides a comparable example, where proposals to restructure commercial arrangements, such as the proposed Big Bash equity sales, have been constrained by stakeholder resistance.
Together, these cases illustrate how federated governance structures constrain financial adaptability, creating structurally embedded pressures in which cyclical revenues and rising cost bases generate financial strain even during periods of growth.
