South Melbourne President, Nick Maikousis (centre) with CEO of Football Australia, James Johnson (far left) at the launch of the NST in late 2023. Photo: Provided by Brett Costello/Football Australia.

South Melbourne President, Nick Maikousis (centre) with CEO of Football Australia, James Johnson (far left) at the launch of the NST in late 2023. Photo: Provided by Brett Costello/Football Australia.

Football Australia will hold a meeting in Sydney with representatives of the eight inaugural members of the National Second Tier (NST) today, to discuss the future of the competition.

The meeting, confirmed by South President, Nick Maikousis speaking to 3XY Radio on Sunday night, is the latest step in the long-drawn out process towards the now optimistic launch of a full home and away NST in early 2025.

It comes more than a month and a half after Football Australia’s own scheduled completion of the expansion process, to find the two or four additional teams to join the first year of competition. The results of this process are yet to be publicly revealed by FA.

However, it is believed that this search has been unsuccessful, with the combination of a lack of suitable teams and the prospect of playing a larger role in the financially troubled A-Leagues on the part of FA, making the launch of a full home and away season next year increasingly unlikely, according to a report from Vince Rugari in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Such rumours were met with a strong response from South Melbourne as one of the eight inaugural clubs, when they released an open letter to the football community last Thursday.

“Our journey has not been without its challenges. Our attempts to join the A-League have been met with disappointment on three occasions, despite our rich history and undeniable contribution to Australian football,” the letter read.

“These setbacks have not been due to a lack of capability or vision but rather biases against our storied background and flawed expansion strategies that overlooked the essence of what makes a football club truly great.

“We continue to advocate for the commencement of the National Second Tier in 2025, a platform where our historic club can once against showcase its prowess and contribute to the growth of Australian football.

“South Melbourne FC along with the other NST Foundation Clubs went through an extensive RFP & submission process, as well as provide a $500,000 Bank Guarantee based on the understanding & assurances that we would be establishing a standalone home & away division.

“The National Second Tier in 2025, is our opportunity to finally unify the game and complete the Football pyramid.”

Without initial promotion and relegation, it is impossible for the NST to truly unite the Australian game entirely, but the idea of potential unification in both a structural and social sense, has been a large selling point of the league.

The NST was supposed to unite Australian football and connect the community, instead it is causing greater division than ever before.

“We will do what we need to do, whether it’s legally [or] politically, to make sure that the wrongs that have been undertaken, performed, written over the last 20 years don’t continue. Enough is enough,” Maikousis said to 3XY.

“The Victorians are on very much the same page, 100 per cent.

“Can you imagine a governing body that potentially will ignore the will of most of its clubs around right across Australia, to what, either protect the member feds or protect A-League franchises? And that’s what we’re talking about here.”

Football in Australia has always been fractured, but somehow, somewhere along the line of this NST process, what was supposed to be a unifying force has between twisted and mangled into further disharmony.

This meeting of the clubs and FA will be pivotal to determine if anything at all can be untangled.

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