The Australian Professional Leagues, commonly abbreviated to the APL, and sometimes referred to as the A-Leagues, are the governing body for the

A-League Men A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

A-League Women A-League Women (known as the Liberty A-League for sponsorship reasons), formerly the W-League, is the top-division women's soccer league in Australia. The W-League was established in 2008 by Football Australia (then known as Football Federatio ...

A-League Youth A-League Youth, formerly known as the National Youth League and Y-League, is an Australian national soccer youth developmental and under-21s league, founded by Football Federation Australia and now run by the Australian Professional Leagues. Th ...

and

E-League ''ELeague'', shortened as ''EL'', and stylized as ''ΞLEAGUE'' is an esports league and American television show that airs on TBS. It was announced in September 2015 as a partnership between Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG. Th ...

. Since their formation, they have been mostly independent of

Football Australia Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only esta ...

, but remain under their umbrella.

History

On 31 December 2020,

announced the Australian Professional Leagues would be unbundled from the rest of the governing body, taking over the operational, commercial and marketing responsibilities, although Football Australia would still maintain disciplinary and integrity matters, club, player and official registration, transfers and match scheduling. Ahead of the 2021–22 season, the APL rebranded various aspects of the professional leagues: * A-League became

* FFA Cup became Australia Cup, due to the FFA no longer controlling the competition. * W-League became

* Y-League became

In addition to the renamings, the logos of the Men's, Women's and Youth league were changed to reflect the new identity of the league. The Australia Cup logo was retained, although with the name change being reflected. The change drew some criticism from social media, with fans saying that the new logo was "lazy", whilst some pointed out the resemblance to the logo of South Australian company ''Adelaide Building Consultants''. Others praised the rebranding as it brought the Men's and Women's competitions under the same brand.

2022 Grand Final decision

On 12 December 2022, the APL announced that the 2023, 2024 and 2025 grand finals would be hosted in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, an announcement that was met with universal backlash from fans of all teams, former players and active support groups.

Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory e ...

and

Wellington Phoenix Wellington Phoenix Football Club is a professional association football club based in Wellington, New Zealand. It competes in the Australian A-League, under licence from Football Federation Australia. Phoenix entered the competition in the ...

both released a statement after the announcement, saying that "they will always prefer to play any grand final that they earn the right to host, at their

home ground In sports, home is the place and venue identified with a team sport. Most professional teams are named for, and marketed to, particular metropolitan areas; amateur teams may be drawn from a particular region, or from institutions such as sch ...

Western United Western United Football Club is an Australian professional football club. The club is based in the western Melbourne suburb of Truganina, the club aims to represent western Victoria, incorporating the western suburbs of Melbourne; the region ...

released a statement, saying that they "do not support the grand finals being held in Sydney".

Adelaide United Adelaide United Football Club is a professional Association Football, soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under North American professional sports league organization#Systems ar ...

winger

Craig Goodwin Craig Alexander Goodwin (born 16 December 1991) is an Australian professional soccer player who plays for Adelaide United and the Australian national team. He is Adelaide United's all-time leading goalscorer. Club career Early career He start ...

appeared in a video promoting the Grand Final, saying "they're (Grand finals) everything you dream of as a kid", however he has stated that he does not support the decision to host the grand final in Sydney.

References

{{E-League Soccer governing bodies in Australia 2020 establishments in Australia Sports organizations established in 2020 Organisations based in Sydney