Football Australia will undergo a significant "reset and a restructure" after new chief executive Martin Kugeler flagged that the organisation is set to experience another record financial loss.
Nearing the end of his first 100 days in the role, Kugeler revealed to football media on Tuesday that the federation would lodge a greater loss than the record AU$8.5 million deficit from last year at its coming annual general meeting and that he had identified multiple gaps in the organisation's structure, as well as a misalignment with its overall strategy.
"It's obviously not a situation that is sustainable or acceptable," said Kugeler. "What both of those things triggered is for me to look at the structure and force me to undertake a reset and a restructure of Football Australia, to operate within our financial means and be set and have resources and capabilities that support our strategy.
"What we will deliver by that is an organisational restructure that resizes the organisation and will enable us for greater innovation, sustainable growth, and investment into our game."
Football Australia called an all-staff meeting on Tuesday morning to inform them of the impending restructure, with individual conversations with affected staff set to conclude by Wednesday.
While some roles will be combined and new ones created, the net overall reductions in headcount are expected to reduce the size of the organisation by over 20%.
The job losses follow on from a round of departures in a round of "right-sizing" following last year's annual general meeting, which Kugeler described, when pressed, as being more focused on the senior leadership team. This new round, he said, would focus more on creating an overall smaller organisation.
"Those decisions I never take lightly, we never take lightly," said Kugeler. "The redundancies that we're doing are no reflection at all on the contribution and the effort and the capability of each individual. These are decisions that we have to make because of the restructure."
Kuguler acknowledged that the repeated deficits showed Football Australia hadn't capitalised on a home Women's World Cup or Women's Asian Cup as well as they should have, leading him to identify efforts to improve product and innovation capabilities, as well as engagement with participants, as a new key pillar.
With both the Socceroos and Matildas set to be in action in the coming weeks, he also said that they, as well as junior international sides, would not be immediately affected by the changes, nor would Football Australia-run tournaments such as the Australia Cup, Australian Championship, or Emerging Championships.
And while there will be same changes to the structure of the department working under executive director of football Heather Garriock, he said that the coming revisions to the business wouldn't affect the organisation's hunt for a new head of men's and women's football that would sit under Garriock, nor their efforts to ink Socceroos boss Tony Popovic to a contract extension following the conclusion of his deal after the World Cup.
"Around the football side, preparations and the national teams are not impacted by what we're doing," he said. "There will also be changes in Heather's team ... she will also reshape that team, but that doesn't impact the national teams directly, but it also doesn't impact the tournaments that we are looking after."
The executive did acknowledge, however, that there would be a greater emphasis on commercialising its properties in future iterations.
Hahn's three-year naming rights sponsor deal for the Australia Cup is set to end next year, while the Australian Championship, Emerging Championships, and the country's National Premier Leagues are without naming rights sponsors.
"What we want to do with those tournaments is have more commercial success," said Kugeler. "I don't think we are capitalising commercially on the success and the audience."