The A-League Men explained
Twelve clubs, a finals series, two trophies a year and no relegation: what a newcomer needs to know about Australia's top men's soccer league.
The A-League Men is the top professional men's soccer competition in Australia. It is played by twelve clubs, ten from Australian cities and two from New Zealand, and its season runs from October to May.
The league has a few features that confuse people who grew up on English or European football. There is a finals series after the regular season, two separate titles are handed out each year, and no club can be relegated. This guide goes through each of them.
The clubs
As of the 2026-27 season, which kicked off on 16 October 2026, the league has these twelve clubs.
| Club | Home city or region |
|---|---|
| Adelaide United | Adelaide |
| Auckland FC | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Brisbane Roar | Brisbane |
| Central Coast Mariners | Central Coast, New South Wales |
| Macarthur FC | Macarthur region, south-west Sydney |
| Melbourne City | Melbourne |
| Melbourne Victory | Melbourne |
| Newcastle Jets | Newcastle |
| Perth Glory | Perth |
| Sydney FC | Sydney |
| Wellington Phoenix | Wellington, New Zealand |
| Western Sydney Wanderers | Western Sydney |
The line-up changes more often than in older leagues because clubs enter by licence. Auckland FC joined for the 2024-25 season. Western United, who won the 2022 Grand Final, were removed by Football Australia for financial reasons in 2025, which took the league from thirteen clubs back to twelve for 2025-26. A Canberra team has been talked about for years, and in July 2026 the league's operator said Canberra United had new owners and a path to join from 2028-29.
When the season is played
The A-League Men is a summer competition. The regular season runs from October to April, and the finals take it into May. The 2025-26 season ran from 17 October 2025 to 23 May 2026. The 2026-27 calendar is slightly longer and is scheduled to finish in early June 2027.
Playing in summer avoids a direct clash with the AFL and NRL seasons for most of the year, although the late finals do overlap with the start of those competitions in autumn.
The regular season
Each club plays 26 matches in the regular season. That is made up of a home-and-away schedule of 22 games, where every club plays every other club once at home and once away, plus four extra rounds. All twelve clubs are ranked on a single ladder.
Premiers and Champions
This is the part that trips up most newcomers. The A-League hands out two titles each season, and they often go to different clubs.
- The Premiers are the club that finishes first on the ladder at the end of the regular season. They receive the Premier's Plate.
- The Champions are the club that wins the Grand Final at the end of the finals series. They receive the A-League trophy.
In most European leagues, the club with the most points over a season is the champion and there is no play-off. Australian sport has a long Grand Final tradition, and the A-League follows it: the Grand Final decides the Champions, while the Premiership rewards consistency across the whole season. Be careful with the words, because the AFL and NRL use them the other way round. In those codes the Grand Final winner is the premier and the club on top of the ladder is the minor premier.
The 2025-26 season shows the split clearly. The Newcastle Jets won the Premiership, their first, while Auckland FC won the Grand Final, also for the first time. That makes Newcastle the defending Premiers and Auckland the defending Champions going into 2026-27.
The finals series
Six of the twelve clubs reach the finals. The format runs over four weeks.
- Elimination finals: third plays sixth and fourth plays fifth in single matches. The losers are out.
- Semi-finals: the two winners join the clubs that finished first and second. The semi-finals are played over two legs, home and away, across two weeks.
- Grand Final: the two semi-final winners meet in a single match for the Championship.
Finishing in the top two is a real advantage, since it means a week off and a two-legged tie in place of a one-off knockout.
No promotion or relegation
The A-League Men is a closed league. No club goes down at the end of the season, however badly it finishes, and no club comes up from a lower tier on results. Clubs join or leave through licences granted by the league, as Auckland FC's arrival and Western United's exit show. A national second division, called the Australian Championship, has been proposed but is not part of a promotion and relegation system.
Asian competition
Australia is a member of the Asian Football Confederation, so the best Australian clubs qualify for Asian club competitions. Places in the AFC Champions League Elite go to clubs based on league position and to the Australia Cup winner, with the number of spots depending on Australia's AFC ranking. After 2025-26, the Newcastle Jets and Adelaide United earned Champions League Elite places and Melbourne Victory went into the second-tier Champions League Two. Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix cannot take part because New Zealand belongs to the Oceania confederation. The Western Sydney Wanderers won the Asian Champions League in 2014.
History since 2005
The A-League was announced in April 2004 to replace the National Soccer League, which folded after the 2003-04 season. The first season began on 26 August 2005. Adelaide United were the first Premiers and Sydney FC won the first Grand Final in 2006.
The league has expanded and contracted several times since then. The New Zealand Knights were replaced by Wellington Phoenix in 2006-07. North Queensland Fury lost their licence in 2011 and Gold Coast United in 2012, both for financial reasons. Melbourne Heart, now Melbourne City, and the Western Sydney Wanderers were later additions, and Macarthur FC played their first season in 2020-21. The women's competition, now the A-League Women, began in 2008 as the W-League and adopted its current name in 2021.
Sydney FC hold the records for the most Premierships, with four, and the most Championships, with five. The 2026-27 season is the 50th season of top-tier national men's soccer in Australia, counting the National Soccer League years, and the 22nd under the A-League name.
To see how the A-League fits around the football codes and the cricket summer, see our Australian sports calendar.
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