It was announced on Monday that the A-League season would be suspended indefinitely while all grassroots football had already been cancelled amid the crisis.
The postponement of the Olympics and all other football across the globe means there is currently no footballing activity for the foreseeable future for Australia.
And with no sign or knowledge of when the pandemic will improve, the FFA has followed the likes of NRL and AFL with cutting a large number of their staff.
They will continue to operate with a skeleton staff from now on, CEO James Johnson announced on Friday.
“This has been an extremely difficult decision to make, but necessary to stabilise the organisation so that it can continue to service the game, albeit in a vastly different landscape,” Johnson said.
“Industries all over the world have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and football in Australia is no different.
“We are in a situation where grassroots football and the Hyundai A-League are currently suspended, we’ve had the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the deferral of the international football calendar, so virtually all football activity has now ceased for the foreseeable future because of COVID-19.
“These developments impact many forms of revenue for FFA, including national registration fees, broadcast fees, sponsorship, ticket sales and government funding, so we have needed to adjust our operations to ensure that we can remain operational, forcing us to take the unfortunate decision to stand down approximately 70 per cent of our workforce.”
Johnson added that FFA had explored ways of retaining as many staff as possible, including reducing roles to part time and asking staff to take annual or long service leave, but some have been asked to take leave without pay.
