The theme of the December edition of PLAY ON e-magazine is '2020 Vision'. 12 writers have their say.

Wow. 2020. What a year it’s been in so many ways for so many people.

Around the world, in Australia, and in football, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an indelible impact.

International tournaments postponed. Seasons interrupted. Seasons completely wiped-out.

In Australia, we welcomed a new CEO to Football Federation Australia in James Johnson, a man with experience working in the PFA, the AFC, FIFA and the City Football Group – and a former player to boot. A pretty impressive football CV who is a stark contrast in background to the previous incumbents.

At the recent Football Writers’ Festival (of which Fair Play Publishing is the founding organisation), Johnson said that he wanted the job so he could “change football, not manage it”.

However, the one thing that has occurred in Australian football in 2020 that is truly, potentially game-changing is the co-hosting with New Zealand of the 2023 women’s World Cup.

While there is no doubt that we will put on a great event, expertly managed, the challenge is to make the most of the opportunity.

Having the focus of the sporting world on Australia and New Zealand for five weeks in 2023 is terrific from many perspectives, but being hosts of a major world event needs to have greater long-term benefit than feeling good about ourselves and enjoying the ‘circus’ while it’s in town.

With the theme for this edition of PLAY ON being ‘2020 Vision’ it’s no surprise, therefore, that we have a number of contributions on women's football: the Matildas in action overseas, how to bridge the performance gap in the women’s game, a dad’s perspective of his daughter’s trials, and the need to have a ‘girls’ club’ mentality.

It is also a critical time for the A-League, so we hear about the plans for the two new A-League clubs, Western United and Macarthur. Actually, let’s correct that. Writer Ben Somerford was only able to speak with Western United as Macarthur’s chairman refused to speak with anyone involved with Fair Play Publishing! Let’s hope the poor dears in Campbelltown become less precious, as they will need to be if they are going to pull their weight in terms of advancing the competition and helping to pull it up by its bootstraps from the nadir in which it currently finds itself.

City Football Group’s Simon Pearce and Sydney FC’s Danny Townsend made it clear at the Football Writers’ Festival that if clubs didn’t perform on or off-the-field, they would be held accountable for it by the other clubs. (I wrote about this here).

We also have opinion pieces on the ‘imperfect science’ of identifying football talent and on James Johnson’s much-quoted XI Principles – which one FFA insider described as “not really principles but statements”; a fun re-wind of some big football matches if VAR had been in place at the time from Matthew Hall; a look at mental health in football; and two overseas stories – one involving an Australian at Ebbsworth United and the other from a very happy Scot!

We hope it gives you plenty of reading for the coming holiday break.

To all our readers, all the best for a Merry Christmas and Happy 2021. We wish you and your families and friends the best of festive seasons and for a New Year in which all of us bounce back brighter, bigger and better than ever.

We hope that’s the same for the game we love too.

Purchase PLAY ON as a PDF or via ISSUU for $5.99 from here.