The Wagga City Wanderers have filed for an exemption from Capital Football exclusion after a recommendation by the governing body board suggested both Wagga City and Yoogali FC should be removed from its leagues. Photo: Wagga City Wanderers.
Wagga Wagga’s premier soccer club, the Wagga City Wanderers, has officially filed for an exemption so that all its teams remain in Capital Football-based leagues.
Earlier this year, the board of Capital Football, the ACT’s governing body for football/soccer, released a recommendation that its Riverina clubs – Wagga City and Yoogali – not be invited back for 2026 competitions.
Wagga City has been playing under Capital Football since 2019, while Yoogali has won Capital Football’s second-division title, the Capital Premier League, as recently as 2023.
Wanderers president Tim Cooper said the reason the club was told it would not be invited back was the amount of travel teams faced.
“It doesn’t make sense to us, and it also doesn’t make sense to a lot of opposition as well,” Mr Cooper said.
“We’ve had a number of clubs also share that same viewpoint. This year in our youth programs, we’re travelling 13 times versus one time for an opposition team.
“The lion’s share of the distance is always worn by our players and our parents. And on top of that, we have a number of players who travel from further away than just Wagga.
“Their distance to travel is even further to Canberra. But they don’t complain. They know that it’s an opportunity that improves football and is the most competitive competition that we can play. So we’re happy to make that commitment.”
Mr Cooper said before making trips to Canberra to join Capital Football, the Wanderers would have to travel up to six or seven hours to compete in Sydney-based leagues.
“The way that we see Wanderers is as a stepping stone and a pathway club,” he said.
“We know that the players who want to make it and are capable of making it won’t do that from the Wanderers, but the Wanderers will be an important pathway for them to have the opportunity to be exposed and then to go on to better opportunities.
“By excluding us, all this does in regional New South Wales is take away any development opportunity locally, and it will require people to either look down to Victoria or up into Sydney to actually participate in representative competitions, which is a requirement to develop really good players.”
The Wanderers’ committee members were told it looked likely that only the junior teams would be invited back, should the exemption be accepted.
Mr Cooper said this had caused concern for many of the club’s juniors.
“We want to provide that full pathway, so it starts at youth up through to seniors,” he said.
“Having only the youth in the competition is a step forward from where we were when the review was first released. However, we want that full pathway.
“We want to progress from development all the way through. We also want to be able to give some more information to our members now to understand what next year looks like.
“The anxiety and the fear of players and parents are being shown to us each week, where we’re getting concerns from parents as to what they do for future seasons.
“So we’re really keen for an answer, and we’re keen for a positive answer, just so we can start to support the regional players.”
Capital Football’s decision on the Wagga City and Yoogali clubs will be determined on 17 July. Mr Cooper said the Wanderers were already looking for a plan B in case their exemption request was declined.
“We’ve had some plan Bs and Cs that have been thrown around, but our plan A is to remain in Capital,” he said.
”So, if that doesn’t happen, we will try and find ways to continue to promote player development in the regional areas.”
