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ustralian football has revealed its new vision as the men’s, women’s and youth leagues will be unified under the “A-Leagues” banner.

The new A-Leagues season will kick off on 19 November, 2021, for A-League Men and 3 December for A-League Women.

As part of the change, the A-league will also move to a unified social media channel for men’s and women’s football on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

They will also launch a new A-Leagues website for fans to access a single destination for the game and increase women’s football’s reach and profile.

In the next few months, the A-Leagues will reveal a new digital platform to become the home of football in Australia and continue to showcase Australia’s best-emerging talents.

Australian Professional Leagues chief operational officer, Ant Hearne, said: “We know our fans live and breathe football, so we want to create the best possible experience in the stadium, at home, on the move, through gaming or fashion or food- however, fans want to connect with football, we will deliver.”

A-Leagues managing director, Danny Townsend, added: “It’s not men’s football, or women’s football.”.

“We’re committed to growing the game in Australia – for everyone.

“That means delivering a world-class experience on and off the pitch and inspiring the next generation of A-Leagues superstars to fulfil their highest potential.

“This is just the beginning of our ambitious, long term vision for the growth of football in Australia,” Townsend said.

This new format comes as an ABC Four Corners investigation looked at the history of two A-League club owners, claiming the club’s are responsible for “sportswashing”.

Looking at Melbourne City, who is part of the City Football Group, owned by Shiekh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, Amnesty International Australia chief executive, Sam Klintworth, said the ownership uses sport as a means of distracting from other issues.

“People associate sport with positivity, with achievement, with prowess and athleticism, with achievement, and this can be used in what we call sportswashing,” Klintworth said.

“And sportswashing, essentially, is taking that positive attribute that’s associated with sport and using it to improve your reputation.

“So essentially that can be leveraging off the glamour, the access, the universal appeal of sport to improve your brand, to disguise or divert away from human rights violations,” he said.

The report also looked into the ownership group of Brisbane Roar, the Bakrie Group, who is primarily invested in mining and media industries, owning the club through an Indonesian holding company.