Your kid has been in the JDL program four weeks. The coach is enthusiastic, well-meaning, and runs sessions that look nothing like the JDL curriculum you have started reading about. There is no first-touch work, no one-versus-one structure, no ball-mastery progression. You ask another parent what the coach's licence is and they shrug. You ask the team manager and the answer is vague. Section 8 of the Football NSW JDL Parent Information Guide March 2025 says four roles in a JDL program each carry an FA prescribed minimum coaching licence. The head coach is supposed to hold a C Diploma at minimum. The next question is whether yours does, and what you can do about it in writing.

The four roles and what each one is required to hold

Football NSW sets the minimum coaching qualifications for every JDL program. Four roles, four minimums, all published.

Head of JDL: B Diploma minimum, A Diploma recommended.

Head Coach: C Diploma minimum, C/B Diploma recommended.

Goalkeeper Coach: Foundation of Goalkeeping minimum, Goalkeeping C Diploma recommended.

Assistant Coach: Foundation of Football minimum, C Diploma recommended.

These are the requirements set by the Football NSW Technical Department in section 8 of the 2025 Parent Information Guide. They apply to every Mixed JDL and Girls JDL program in the state. The word "minimum" is important. A club running a JDL program below these qualifications is running it outside the published standard. A club running at or above is meeting it.

Head Coach: what the C Diploma actually means

The C Diploma is the Football Australia community-coaching licence that sits one tier above the Foundation level. It is not a quick badge. The course is multi-day, accredited through the FA community coaching pathway, and the holder has completed structured work on session design, age-appropriate technical content, and the four core skills of the Skill Acquisition Phase.

The reason Football NSW set the C Diploma as the head-coach minimum is direct. A coach without it cannot reliably deliver what the JDL curriculum prescribes for the age group. Sessions drift. Drills get borrowed from senior football and shrunk down. The four core skills (one versus one attacking and defending, first touch, running with the ball, passing and striking) get treated as outcomes of any session rather than the deliberate focus of every session.

If your head coach is enthusiastic, has played at a high level, and is a good person, that is all worth something. But if they do not hold the C Diploma, the program is not meeting the published standard. That is not your fault. It is also not unfixable. It just needs to be raised in writing.

Head of JDL: the B Diploma is your check on the program, not just the coach

The Head of JDL role is the technical director for the program inside the club. Football NSW requires a B Diploma at minimum for this role. The B Diploma sits two tiers above Foundation in the FA pathway. Holders have completed advanced session-design training, observation and assessment work, and they are qualified to oversee an entire age-group program rather than just one team.

A club without a B-Diploma-qualified Head of JDL is running the JDL program without the standard's oversight role. That is the check that catches drifting head coaches and inconsistent session design across the four age groups. Without it, the program runs on the head coaches' individual judgement, which by design is not enough.

The Head of JDL is also the person who sits across Mixed and Girls programs at the club. If your club has a Head of JDL who does not hold the B Diploma, the whole program is outside the published standard, not just one team.

The FA community-coaching pathway has four tiers above Foundation level: C Diploma, then B Diploma, then A Diploma, then the Professional Diploma. Each tier takes structured coursework, observed sessions, and accreditation by Football Australia. A coach moves up the pathway over years, not weeks. That is why the published JDL minimums sit where they do: at the floor where the curriculum can be reliably delivered, with a recommended tier one step above for the head-coach roles.

How to find out what your coach actually holds

Every FA-licensed coach is in the Football Australia system. Coaching qualifications are recorded against the individual. Clubs are also audited each season under the Club Standards and Benchmarking Framework on the coaching qualifications they hold for each role. The audit is not optional. Clubs that fail to meet the published minimum are rated Bronze and on notice.

You can ask the club for the head coach's FA licence number and accreditation year in writing. The request is plain: "Could you confirm in writing the FA coaching licence held by the head coach of the [age group] JDL team, and the year of accreditation?"

A club running a compliant program will answer in days. A club running at minimum will answer with the C Diploma year. A club running below minimum will go quiet, claim privacy reasons, or hint that the club is currently between qualified coaches. Each of those is a signal. The first is fine. The second and third are the situations the rest of this article is about.

What to do if yours does not have it

A 14-day response window is reasonable for a written request to a club volunteer committee. If you do not hear back inside that window, escalate.

Step one. Send the written request to the club secretary or registrar. Cc the Head of JDL if your club lists one. State that the request is regarding compliance with section 8 of the 2025 JDL Parent Information Guide. Be clear, polite, and on the record.

Step two. If no response inside 14 days, or if the response confirms the head coach holds less than a C Diploma, write to the member association. The associations under Football NSW (Northern Suburbs, Manly Warringah, Football South Coast, and the others listed in the Football NSW network) sit between the club and Football NSW. They handle the first round of compliance matters.

Step three. If the matter is still unresolved, write to Football NSW directly at neilm@footballnsw.com.au, the contact published in the 2025 Guide for matters of this kind. Reference section 8. Forward the written record from steps one and two.

The escalation works because the standard is published and the breach is documented. Clubs that breach the minimum tend to do so quietly. Once it is in writing, the option of doing it quietly is gone.

What this rule is actually for

Football NSW set the published coaching minimums because the Skill Acquisition Phase is the part of a young player's development that determines their technical ceiling for the rest of their playing life. A C-Diploma head coach is the floor at which the four core skills can be delivered with the structure the age group needs. Anything below that is improvisation. Improvisation by enthusiastic people can be a lot of fun. It is not what the JDL fee is paying for.

For the broader picture on what JDL is and how the four parent protections fit together, see what JDL actually is in NSW. For the related rule on outsourced coaching and extra paid sessions, see the rule on outsourcing and mandatory extras.