Two teams will join the Football South Premier League this year.
Queenstown AFC returns, while the newly formed Southland FC will expand the league to nine teams. Queenstown had shown its value last year in the Chatham Cup, beating Roslyn-Wakari and taking a locally dominant Caversham side to extra time. Meanwhile, Southland will essentially act as a representative team and be run by Southland Football, drawing on players from its region to provide a pathway to a higher level.
"One of the first things we did when I came to Football South was get the Premier League clubs together and did a bit of a brainstorm about what the local competition at the pinnacle side would look like in two to five years’ time," Football South CEO Chris Wright said.
"The consistent things that came up were being more presence in the community, getting a higher media following, getting more supporters to the games.
"In particular to raise the profile and level of quality was to get more teams involved. We’ve had this tricky issue the last couple of seasons where we’ve had a bye. Seven [teams] is really not enough for a premier league. So although we’re at nine now, which still leaves a bye, it’s obviously a better situation because there’s more teams."
He was confident the teams would be valuable additions to the league and said it was something the federation would like to implement in South Canterbury as well. It would offer support to ensure the teams were sustainable long-term. Benefits would go beyond providing an opportunity for players, as more referees and coaches would get exposure to a higher level, too.
The travel factor would not act as a hindrance, as costs were equalised among the clubs.
Wright said the rest of the clubs had begun working towards the new season as well and were all excited about the inclusion of the new teams.
"I think all the clubs in the league are excited about the coming season and are at work trying to get their teams in good shape to be competitive.
"You can go a bit off last year, but until everything kicks off you’re never really sure where teams are relative to each other.
"So it’s going to be quite interesting to see how that plays out and whether there’s a bit of player movement and coach movement, we don’t know."
