Today marks an incredibly exciting and significant moment in the history of the Manly Warringah Wolves. The AFL has today announced the establishment of the Sydney Football League (“SFL)” which is an elevated competition for Australian Rules Football in New South Wales. The SFL will commence in April in 2027.
We are extremely proud to announce that our great Club, the Manly Warringah Wolves have been awarded a full licence to compete in the SFL.
As many of you know, for many years, the Wolves have been working very deliberately to build a Club that is capable of competing at the highest level of community football in NSW. In particular, your Committee has been focused on elevating its standards off the ground as much as our coaches and players have on the ground.
While we have been growing at an exponential rate over the last few years, our ambition has never been simply to field more teams or win more games. We have been working hard to not only build a Club that we are proud of and who welcomes all, but have also been focusing on building the right programs including pathways, coaching, governance, financial stability, stakeholder management and facilities that, with our amazing Club culture, would ensure that, if and when the AFL established an elevated Sydney competition, the Wolves would be ready and the Northern Beaches would be represented.
Over the past 12 months in particular, we have worked closely with the AFL as it developed its vision for an elevated competition in Sydney. We have strongly supported that vision because we believe it is an important step forward for AFL in NSW. We hope that it will provide stronger pathways for players, coaches, umpires and officials, raising standards across the game and giving our best footballers the opportunity to play genuinely higher level football in Sydney.
What is the Sydney Football League?
The SFL will sit above the existing AFL Sydney community competitions and will consist of four SFL competitions being:
• Senior Men
• Senior Women
• Under 19.5 Men
• Under 20 Women
Following an extensive tender and assessment process, the AFL has awarded nine SFL licences across Greater Sydney. We are incredibly proud that the Wolves are one of those nine clubs and, importantly, that we have been awarded a full licence across all four SFL competitions:
The inaugural nine clubs are:
• Manly Warringah Wolves
• North Shore Bombers
• Pennant Hills Demons
• East Coast Eagles
• Sydney University
• UNSW Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs
• UTS Bats
• St George Dragons
• South West Sydney Blues
The new league will regulate player payments and will have its own branding and colours.
In other exciting news, the SFL Match of the Round will be lived streamed via Kayo.
AFL Sydney Competition
Importantly, AFL Sydney will continue to operate its community competitions.
More significantly for us, the Wolves will remain a Club for all players and team. We wish to emphasise that the Wolves are, and will always be, a Community Club and while we are excited to be a part of the new SFL, we will always be a Club dedicated to ALL of our players and teams.
Every single player and coach as important as every other member of the Wolfpack, no matter which team you are playing for.
We will continue to support our AFL Sydney competition teams: these teams are the lifeblood of our Club and continue to remind us what footy is all about: passion, fun, connection and teamwork.
What this means for the Wolves
Being awarded a licence is recognition of where our Club is currently at, but it also sets a new benchmark for what we must continue to be. There is a great deal of work ahead of us between now and April 2027, and in fact ongoing. We will share much of this work with you as it evolves.
Thank you everyone!
I want to take this moment to thank every single member of the Wolfpack, from the inception of the Club until now. Being granted a licence is because of all of you who have built this Club and contributed to what the Wolves are today.
This honour also belongs to our junior clubs and the broader Northern Beaches football community. One of the things I am proudest about when I speak to other people in Clubland is how our Club works with and recognises the importance of our four feeder junior Clubs, the Balgowlah Suns, the Forest Lions, the Manly Bombers and the Pittwater Tigers. We do not take our junior pathway for granted. Now one of the things we are most excited about is being able to show young footballers on the Northern Beaches who hold the highest aspirations that there is now a clear pathway from junior football through to the highest level of football right here at home. For those players who want to focus on footy for fun, social connection and fitness, we hope that the Wolves will always be the club of choice.
We have been required to keep this announcement confidential while the AFL completed its process, so we are absolutely thrilled finally to be able to share the news with our Wolfpack. For now, though, we should all be so proud of how far this Club has come and incredibly excited about where we are going.
https://play.afl/nswact/news/sydney-football-league-frequently-asked-questions
https://play.afl/nswact/news/sydney-football-league-established-nsw-premier-competition-2027
