Stephen Conroy takes on A-Leagues Executive Chair role as Commissioner Nick Garcia departs

Australian Professional Leagues (APL) Commissioner Nick Garcia has departed his role with current APL Chair Stephen Conroy to take charge of the A-Leagues of the competition.

Widely described as a “surprise” Garcia’s mid-season departure, effective immediately, sees Conroy, a former Federal Senator, take control of Australian football’s struggling domestic competitions.

The APL confirmed Conroy’s new executive role this evening, with a “mandate to complete transformation of organisation”.

The statement, which didn’t mention Garcia, advised “the board of the Australian Professional Leagues has been driving a comprehensive organisational transformation throughout 2024 to strengthen the future of Australian men’s and women’s professional football.

“With significant progress made both on and off the field, the board has unanimously asked chairman Stephen Conroy to take on an executive role to lead the final phase of this transformation.

“As executive chairman, Conroy will oversee the optimisation of APL’s operations. Once this process is complete, he will return to his non-executive role.”

Arriving at the APL around the same time as Danny Townsend departed as Chief Executive, Conroy and Garcia oversaw a period of austerity-forced restructuring after arriving at the league, the budgetary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and ill-fated investments such as KEEPUP resulting in a wave of redundancies at the league in 2024.

Garcia, who only recently returned from representing the A-League at the Women's League Forum in Spain, had been quoted in an APL release as recently as Wednesday morning, highlighting an increase in the number of minutes played by young players as well as a 14% year-on-year increase in the A-League Men's average crowds and a 15% year-on-year increase in free-to-air television ratings.

The change comes at a challenging time for the A-Leagues with the competition to remain on 13 teams for at least another season as the new Canberra team’s entry into the A-League Mens competition has been delayed until the 2026/27 season.

In turn, this creates uncertainty around the established Canberra United A-League Womens term.

In addition, there is doubt about the Central Coast Mariners' ownership while League-wide austerity saw it cut central distributions to clubs by nearly 75% following the end of last season, falling from nearly $2 million for the 2023/24 season to just $530,000 for the 2024/25 campaign.

This month has also seen APL Chief Commercial Officer Ned Negus depart after a year in the role.

Images: Stephen Conroy (top, credit: Chellwood Advisory) and Nick Garcia (below).