Young futsal starsto shine at nationals

BALLARAT Futsal Club will be represented at the 2025 Football Australia National Futsal Championships to be held in Melbourne in January.

Open player Josh Burgess, and 15 girls players Sadie Smith and Madeline Hawker will be on the Victorian team for the competition at the Melbourne Sports Centre in Parkville, which will be the most prestigious Australian futsal event of the year.

They have all been Futsal Ballarat Academy program athletes, and director Dermott Tebb said the club is extremely proud of the trio.

“It is great to see Sadie, Maddie and Josh being recognised as outstanding players not only in Ballarat but in Victoria,” he said.

“We are so proud of Sadie, Maddie and Josh. To be selected for your state to compete at a national tournament is an outstanding achievement and I know the three of them will do the club, the sport and their families proud.”

The Football Australia National Futsal Championships bring together the nation’s best players on state teams. The Ballarat crew was selected from trials in Melbourne.

The championships are the only FIFA-recognised national futsal tournament in Australia.

Burgess will be part of the Open Men’s Disabilities Division.

“I feel very proud to have been picked for Victoria,” he said. “It’s exciting to play in a national tournament and I’m really looking forward to giving it my best.

“We have a great team and we want to go one better this year and take out the title.”

Hawker won the National 13s Division Championship as part of the Victorian team last year.

“It’s great to be selected for this tournament; we have a quality squad and I’m really excited to have the chance to compete for another national title,” she said.

Smith said she was happy to have been given the opportunity to go up against the best players in Australia.

“I’ve worked really hard on my game in Ballarat, and I can’t wait to show what I can do on the national stage,” she said.

One hundred representative teams are expected to descend on Melbourne for the tournament.

Futsal Ballarat aims to encourage women like Smith and Hawker at all levels of the sport, and a huge number of young girls have flocked to the sport since the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the meteoric rise of the Matildas.

The club takes part in Football Victoria’s Female Football Week annually.