James Johnson Talks Transformative Leadership and Taking The Matildas to the Next Level

The Football Australia CEO prioritises principles, transformation and incentivising the Matildas to keep winning (on and off the field).

Current role: CEO, Football Australia Tenure Four-and-a-half years
Previous roles: Senior vice-president external affairs, City Football Group; head of professional football, FIFA; director of international relations and development, The Asian Football Confederation.

How do you define good leadership?

The leadership I’ve always thrived in is transformative. By that I mean setting the direction and being clear on where we are going. At Football Australia, we developed XI Principles For the Future of Australian Football, which is a clear vision, and then empowered people within the organisation to get on with the task. I try to motivate and inspire as opposed to force.

Australia is such a great sporting nation but that also poses challenges for you, doesn’t it? There are just so many options.

I would go as far as saying that this is as competitive as it gets when it comes to different sports. We might not have the market size of the United States but the fact that we have five or six sports that are competing week in, week out is a unique challenge for Australia. But people love to play our sport and you see that through the participation numbers, particularly with young girls. Our participation numbers post last year’s Women’s World Cup – and the Matildas mania across the board – show about a 20 per cent increase. That’s huge.

Can I take you back to 2020? The organisation was losing money hand over fist and football was fighting to get any recognition. What was appealing about the top job for you?

There are two ways to look at it. You can look at it like it’s a mess and you don’t want to touch it or you can see it as an opportunity to really roll your sleeves up and make change that you couldn’t ordinarily make. So that was what was appealing. One of the questions the board asked me was, “Do you believe we can win the hosting rights for the Women’s World Cup [in 2023]?” I knew that if we were able to land it, it could really be a game changer for the sport. So that’s why I took the job.

Everyone has moments of “Can I do it?” How do you gee yourself up in those times?

I’m very focused on principles. When things get complex, I like to go back to those principles because it reminds me why we’re doing something. One of our principles of the business is to build the brand of the Matildas so sometimes that means making tough decisions. During COVID, we had to stand down 70 per cent of our staff but we never stopped paying the Matildas. Being very focused motivates me. It’s about purpose.

One headline last year decreed that women saved Australian football. Is that an accurate summary?

In a nutshell, yes. It’s not rocket science. If you’re promoting your brands to double the audience, it makes business sense.

When you have momentum on your side as you have with the Matildas, how do you avoid squandering opportunities?

The opportunity has always been building a community – we’re building a team that people really care about. How do we then monetise that audience or those communities, which allows us to bring dollars in the door that we can reinvest in the team on the pitch and the brand off the pitch? When I saw the Matildas play live for the first time [in 2020], they spent an hour after the game signing autographs and giving away shin pads. That bond between them and the community was genuine. I knew that if we could broaden that community, the dollars would start coming in.

You wrangled sponsorship dollars from some very high-profile brands, such as Qantas and CommBank, at a time when football was not flying high. How did you manage that?

We put together our XI Principles and we created a narrative that we believed in, which was to build the Matildas to be the biggest brand in the country. We didn’t have the evidence to back up the vision but people believed in what we were doing.

And is there pressure on you to deliver a similar program for the men? How do you revitalise the Socceroos?

The Socceroos brand is about connecting to the rusted-on football fan. That audience has followed football for a long time so we’re really talking to two different brands and that’s unique in itself. I think the Socceroos will organically grow as the team performs better on the pitch.

You succeeded another lawyer, David Gallop, as CEO of Football Australia. David once told me that his legal training eally helped him as a CEO. Is that the case for you, too?

It definitely helped. But whether it was the AFC [Asian Football Confederation], FIFA [Fédération Internationale de Football Association] or even Football Australia, I was very young for the roles I was taking and I was thrown in the deep end. I was learning skills on the job, almost like learning to fly a plane while you’re building it. So it’s the direct experience on the ground that has helped me professionally progress more than, say, my legal training. In sports, what’s important is being able to generate revenue and grow very quickly. So the more you can invest in high performance, the better the performance will be and the easier it will be to build the brand.

What do you think corporate Australia can learn from sport?

People care about sport. That’s the difference. Purpose and emotion are central. People put so much time and effort into it because it’s something they really care about – it’s not just a job.

Would you describe yourself as an extroverted or introverted leader?

I don’t know if I’d be black and white about that. I’m very comfortable being the spokesperson of the organisation – and that’s not just about the good stuff. So if we have issues like match-fixing or Sam Kerr [who has been charged with racially aggravated harassment of a London police officer], I have no problem getting on the front foot and in front of the media. But I’m not the loudest in the room. I listen as much as I speak.

You grew up in Rockhampton and played football at the local club so you’ve done your fair share of sausage sizzles. What is the opportunity now for community sport?

Community sport is pure and it’s meaningful. You can learn in an environment that’s clean and healthy and develop relationships that extend beyond the period that you’re there. My values really started to develop in club football.

The first pillar of your strategic plan, Legacy ’23, which garnered almost $400 million from the government, focuses on participation and community. What’s your greatest challenge when it comes to modern-day communities?

We have a real issue with facilities across the country. We’re talking about not having enough grass for young girls and boys to play football on or not having gender-neutral facilities at clubs throughout Australia. Because of the lack of facilities, there are clubs that are turning children away from playing football. All community sports have challenges but when it comes to facilities, we’re in the most difficult position simply because the base is so big and our participation numbers are growing so quickly.

So what can you do about that?

Most of the funding that has come in has gone to investing in community facilities but we have a gap of $2.9 billion. We’ve lobbied very hard to bring back the AFC Women’s Asian Cup [in 2026], which we were awarded. It’s not just about putting on a great month of football. Like we saw with the Women’s World Cup, there’s a broader objective to use the competition to drive change and as we develop our next program, the heart of it will be community facilities.

You’ve negotiated a new pay deal for the Matildas that incentivises them to help promote the sport and go beyond what they do on the pitch. Is that a first for Australian sport?

Yes, it’s a unique agreement. My thinking was that if we’re going to continue to grow as a business, we need the players to be invested and accountable to the business – and for the business to be accountable to the players. That was the starting point. So how do we create a system that incentivises players to do more commercial work or to make sure they uphold the brand? In football, you get certain windows where you can use the players to do commercial appearances but I felt that if we could incentivise players to go over and beyond just those windows and compensate them for that, it’s good for us and it’s good for them. The more revenue we generate, the higher percentage the players get.

How important is it for you to look around the corner and predict what’s next?

You need to look around the corner. It’s about finding the balance between allocating time to react to issues – and we have to react to issues in football because there’s always a crisis, from a poor referee decision to a player getting themselves in trouble – and forward planning. That allows you to map out potential problems.

Is the athlete voice something that you encourage?

It’s 2024 and players have platforms. They want to be good community role models. Our approach has been to try to provide our players with evidence, facts and figures so they have balanced views on issues. That alignment between the players and the organisation is crucial.

Do you thrive in a crisis?

I always try to look at the opportunity in the crisis. It’s hard sometimes because you see something that’s very ugly but as soon as you can detach yourself and say, “Okay, where can you find the opportunity to actually improve our brand or grow our revenue from this crisis?”, the mentality shifts and it goes from negative energy to positive energy.

You played for the Brisbane Strikers but in 1999 you missed out on the World Cup due to injury. How did that experienceshape you as a leader?

One thing I learnt from that was effective role playing. In that Under-17 team, I was like the 12th man. My role was really about giving leadership and creating a positive culture. I showed up on time and did all the little things that contribute to a high-performance culture. I wasn’t the player that was scoring the goals or saving the goals but I was the player helping to create a better environment for the team.

What advice would you give someone who wants to be a CEO?

Have a vision. Our XI Principles is a very elaborate vision – it’s a 74-page document that talks to the challenges, the opportunities and the direction that we want to go. Having a document like that to start an era is really important.

On the fly

Personal motto

Today’s decisions define who we are tomorrow.

Email approach

Short, sharp, straight to the point.

Motivation tactic

Focus on the big things – the things that matter – and don’t sweat the small stuff.

Productivity hack

Making sure there’s enough time during the day to think. Creating time to plan and remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing is motivating. Otherwise you become like a washing machine and it wears you down pretty quickly.

Favourite business book

Brand NFL: Making & Selling America’s Favourite Sport by Michael Oriard. It talks to how the NFL built the brand of the league, the clubs and players, and how they were able to monetise those brands into the league they are today.

Rule you don’t break

Never leave a place worse than it was before you were there.

Favourite piece of advice

Opportunities don’t happen – you create them.

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