Hockey Australia welcomes the release of the Crawford Report

Hockey Australia welcomed the release of The Future of Sport in Australia report and will now take some time to fully consider the report and its implications for sport in Australia, and specifically hockey.

Hockey Australia Chief Executive, Mark Anderson said that he is pleased that hockey has been recognised as a sport which is part of the national psyche and a sport where our performance on the national and world stage is important to our sense of success as a nation.

“There can be no doubt that the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos are two of Australia’s favourite sporting teams. Both teams have a superb history of success and their record speaks for itself having won multiple medals at various events including the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Cups and Champions Trophy tournaments.

The Kookaburras are regarded as one of Australia’s most consistent Olympic teams as they are the only team to have won a medal at each of the last four Olympics. The Hockeyroos have also reached great levels of success including three Olympic gold medals and being recognised as Australia’s team of the year five times. Both national teams play a pivotal role in our sport,” said Anderson.
We need to ensure our teams’ continued success.

It is positive that the review is not recommending a reduction to elite funding. However, we also need to consider our international competitors current position. One of our Olympic competitors, England Hockey now has a budget which is significantly more than Hockey Australia’s budget for our current program.


The International Hockey Federation (FIH) ranking currently has Australia’s men’s team ranked 2nd and England 8th. In the women’s program the gap is only two places in favour of Australia over England. The reality is that funding will play a crucial role in this gap either widening or decreasing between Australia and the world’s best nations.

As a result we look forward to working with the relevant stakeholders to ascertain how future funds and our national system can be maximised to give our teams every chance of future success.

Hockey Australia is extremely supportive of the concept of sport needing to embrace both the elite and the grass roots levels. The development of hockey at the grass roots level is a critical part of Hockey Australia’s planning. Hockey Australia would welcome additional resources to expand our grass roots level development, however Anderson says this cannot be at the detriment of hockey’s elite programs.

“We are a great participation sport and would be supportive of plans to encourage greater participation across all age groups. Our international players have been great role models for young participants to look up to due to their tremendous success at the elite level.

Planning for future success at both the elite and grass roots level will ensure we remain as one of the world’s best hockey nations,’ said Anderson.

Hockey Australia’s current direction is supportive of the reviews findings to build the capacity and accountability of National Sporting Organisations. Hockey Australia has established a collaborative working environment with our State and Territory partners and is continually building the capacity of our executive team and staff to ensure that we have every chance of attaining off-field and on-field sustainable success. We welcome the endorsement of the role of NSOs and look forward to working with all of our key stakeholders to ensure that we maximise our effectiveness.

Hockey Australia acknowledges that we must have a ‘whole of sport’ response to the the Future of Sport in Australia report. We look forward to working with the Federal Government, all sports and key stakeholders as we consider the report and more formally responds to the findings.