NZ Football - Overview

New Zealand Football has unveiled Whole of Football 2.0, evolving the way football and futsal are delivered to the more than 176,000 players who take part in Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest team participation sport.

To support the introduction, McDonald’s, community football’s biggest supporter in Aotearoa New Zealand, will contribute close to $500,000 worth of new goals to clubs across the country, enabling more players to take part in the game.

Following a three-year period of analysis, Whole of Football 2.0 has been introduced to further evolve how the game is delivered.

Among the changes are updated game formats and structures designed to foster a lifelong love of football and prioritise skill development from an early age.

Research shows that playing smaller formats of the game for longer significantly increases involvement in the game and touches on the ball for players which accelerates skill development, and better prepares participants for the transition to 11 vs 11 football a year later at the U14 age group.

New Zealand Football’s own research, based on piloting the framework, shows that by going through the new Whole of Football 2.0 player pathway, players on average will accumulate over 3,800 more touches of the ball with goalkeepers more involved in the game, accumulating over 1,300 more goalkeeper actions.

Changes in the coach and referee development pathways center around, removing duplication, providing more learning for those operating in the junior space, aligning learning outcomes across football and futsal, and continuing to develop digital tools to connect and engage with our volunteers, coaches and referees. A specific focus on attracting and supporting females through the provision of female only coach and referee courses/pathways should be a priority to ensure the gap between male and female leaders in the game is reduced.

Player development programmes, quality of coaching and quality of officiating are all identified in Sport NZ’s Voice of Participant survey as key drivers that impact player experience. It is vital that we improve our coach and referee development systems to better support the education of the coach and referee community to have positive impacts on our playing participants.

NZF and federations acknowledge that changes to the WOF guidance will impact clubs and mean adjustments to how clubs deliver junior football across the country. We know that these adjustments take time and have attempted to provide a long lead in time to implement the changes.

Implementation timelines will follow the following principles:

Regionally led implementation
Begin implementation as early as 2025
Finish implementation by 2027

The majority of federations are implementing changes for the 2026 and 2027 football season.

Please contact your local federation for information about regional implementation timelines.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

With smaller team numbers, we’re going to need more pitches to accommodate the increased number of teams but we don’t have the space for more pitches.

While there are an increased number of teams and therefore pitches, the actual green space needed to accommodate the pitch sizes has reduced with the new guidance. E.g. With U13 now being 9v9, you could play 2 games across half a full sized field with 36 players playing whereas under the previous guidance of 11v11, the same field would only accommodate 22 players. Federations and Clubs are encouraged to examine their current pitch set up to best utilise the field space they have.

What happens to dual age bands (e.g. U11/U12 that currently plays 9v9 but now plays 7v7 and 9v9 respectively) with the updated guidance?

Federations are encouraged to review the age groups that they currently dual age band to either change to single age band where appropriate or alter dual age banding to align with the new format progression, i.e.U10/U11 would be 7v7 and U12/U13 would be 9v9.

Who’s responsible for the cost of goals needed for the change in formats?

There will be centralised funding support from NZF and partners that will be distributed through our federations. This, however, will not cover 100% of the goal need costs and federations will work with their clubs and regional partners on ongoing options to support the change.

What type of goals are available?

NZF and federations are working with suppliers to ensure there is a range of goal types (including, portable, in-ground) and goal materials (including, aluminium, steel, plastic) so that federations and clubs have options that meet their local needs.

Will the retreating line be a part of the regs for U13’s?

Yes, the retreating line will now extend to include the U13 age group to prepare players for the current goal kick rules in the 11v11 game.

What does this mean for the Talent Development Programme (TDP) and Skills Centre (SKC) programmes?

NZF will undertake a project of work during 2025 to evolve the TDP and SKC programmes in line with the updated WOF 2.0 guidance as well as NZF’s High Performance and Talent Plan.

How do clubs store the additional goals that are needed?

Goal storage is approached in many different ways across the country. We encourage clubs to meet with their federations and councils if goal storage is an issue to come up with regional and local solutions.