As the 2023 season commences and the transition to Squadi continues, Football Queensland acknowledges and appreciates the work of clubs across the state, the vast majority of whom with the support of club registrars and volunteers are fully set up and active in the Squadi platform.
To provide some context on the current scale and demands of our game, Football Queensland has recorded significant early participation growth with a 20% increase in participation statewide and a 19% increase in women and girls’ participation across Queensland.
Following the launch of Squadi, almost 100,000 users have been onboarded within the platform. As part of this process and as clubs and participants familiarise themselves with Squadi, FQ’s Squadi implementation and support team has been processing 1,249 support tickets, with 100 tickets currently remaining. We ask for your continued patience as we work through these remaining tickets in the coming days.
Whilst 1,249 support tickets is a relatively low number in comparison to the large number of platform users, support ticket volume has dropped significantly over the last seven days as users become more familiar with the platform.
Despite strong participation growth recorded statewide, Football Queensland is continuing to manage a number of ongoing challenges in relation to draws and fixturing.
In recent weeks, previously nominated teams have withdrawn from across Queensland competitions for various reasons, primarily resulting from the misalignment of participation expectations and traditional team formations across clubs. Since nominations for community competitions have closed, close to 200 previously nominated teams have withdrawn from across the Metro leagues alone.
The late withdrawal of such a large quantity of teams has had significant impacts on the delivery and publishing of draws, with over 100 redraws required simultaneously and causing immense resource load. FQ is very much aware of the consequential impacts this has had on clubs and participants who we thank for their patience and understanding as we manage these challenges.
Football Queensland is reviewing and will evolve and improve pre-season processes in the future to limit the impact of late team withdrawals, including processes relating to team nominations and grading which will occur, in their entirety, through Squadi from 2024. This represents one of the critical reasons for the transition to Squadi as we continue to manage the nominations process and subsequent impacts on the game.
As confirmed in previous communication to clubs, all Metro and Advanced competitions will officially transition to the Squadi platform for the submission of team sheets from Monday, 20 March. From this date, Squadi will be in full deployment and will become the single source for team competition and integrity.
Following the full transition to the Squadi platform, clubs and participants at every level of the game will benefit from an improved football experience with access to the integrated competition management and registration system. Once implemented, the streamlined operational functions will ultimately reduce workload of club volunteers through the removal of unnecessary duplication.
A range of resources including participant and club guides, app videos and troubleshooting Q&As remain available to access on FQ’s Squadi Hub.
Enquiries relating to platform functionality should continue to be directed to the TAWK Help Desk available in Squadi, while any other queries should be directed to tickets@football-queensland.p.tawk.email