Welcome to Mackay and the Football Queensland Inter-Conference Carnival bringing together players from the Northern and Central Conference FQ Academy Junior and Youth programs.   

Football Queensland wishes to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we gather, the Yuwibara people. We pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging, and we extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.   

Following a disrupted start to the football year due to wet weather impacts across many northern regions in Queensland, this carnival offers an important opportunity for greater match opportunities for players from a very wide range of communities, from Hervey Bay to Cairns, and out to Mt Isa. For some players in the older age groups, the carnival also serves as an additional opportunity to be considered for State selection for tournaments later in the year. 

This year’s event has expanded to span the full long weekend with over 160 games scheduled across all age groups, and we are very excited to welcome over 1200 participants, coaches, spectators and officials to Mackay. 

Whilst we promote the following point every year, it still remains something that we must be vigilant about insisting on, and that is that all participants are respected for their involvement and treated and spoken to accordingly.  Spectators, please support, don’t coach, heckle, abuse, and intimidate players at any time.  The carnival is very much about letting the players play, with coaches providing tasks and challenges to them, but letting the players enjoy the game.   

This year, in celebration of Female Football Week, a Mitre FQPL Champions League Women’s game between Mackay Lions FC and Rockhampton side Bluebirds United FC will be played on Saturday night at 6:00pm at Mackay Football Park. We welcome all the players travelling in for this match and encourage all carnival attendees to come along and support the senior women in action. 

We wish everyone an enjoyable and memorable weekend of football in Mackay.