Capital Football is the trading name for the ACT Football Federation Incorporated, the state governing body for soccer in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), but also has affiliated clubs based in surrounding areas of New South Wales. It is affiliated with Football Australia, the national governing body.
History
Capital Football was founded in the 1960s as the ACT Soccer Federation Incorporated. The organisation replaced the defunct Federal Capital Territory Soccer Football Association which controlled soccer in the ACT between 1926 and 1932 and the Federal Monaro District Soccer Association which lasted two years (1932–33). The Great Depression and World War II saw soccer all but disappear in the ACT with no new federation established and the odd team playing infrequent matches in NSW. Following the conclusion of the war new migrant communities settled in Canberra and founded clubs such as Juventus, Olympic, Croatia and Hungaria. These clubs formed the backbone of the new ACT Soccer Federation in the 1960s. The new federation and the clubs adopted a policy in 1960 to remove ethnic names but by 1966 this policy was abandoned and ethnic names returned. The ACT Soccer Federation continued to serve as the state federation body of the ACT under the trading name Soccer Canberra until 2005 when the organisation went through a restructure and rebranding in accordance with the new national rebranding set down by the new national federation, Football Federation Australia (FFA). The organisation's name changed to the ACT Football Federation Incorporated and it started trading under the guise of Capital Football.
In 2008, then Capital Football CEO Heather Reid was instrumental in securing Capital Football a W-League franchise licence from FFA, the only licence given to an entity not associated with an A-League team. Capital Football established Canberra United FC to compete in the inaugural W-League season in 2008-09. Canberra United finished the season in third place behind Queensland Roar and Newcastle Jets before going on to win their semi-final against the Jets 1-0 and losing the grand final 0-2 against the Roar.
2 April 2015, it was reported that Capital Football's membership numbers had swelled to 12,500 players after recording membership numbers of 10,512 in 2013 and 11,655 in 2014. The steady increase in numbers caused Capital Football to enter into regular talks with the ACT Government regarding identifying new playing grounds as the number of players and teams had reached a breaking point.
