Tony Pignata is an Australian football administrator and current chief executive of

Football Tasmania Football Tasmania (FT) is the governing body for soccer in the Australian state of Tasmania. The federation oversees competitions across Tasmania, Tasmanian representative teams, and development of the sport in the state. The federation was kn ...

. His previous positions include chief executive of

Football Federation Victoria Football Victoria is the state governing body for association football, soccer in Victoria, Australia. It is affiliated with Football Australia, the sport's national governing body. History Football Victoria began operation in 1884 under the n ...

Perth Glory Perth Glory Football Club is an Australian professional Association football, soccer club based in Perth, Perth, Western Australia. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under Professional sports league organi ...

Sydney FC Sydney Football Club, commonly known as Sydney FC, is a professional association football, soccer club based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. They compete in the top-tier men's league in Australia, the A-League Men. Established in 2004, ...

and inaugural chief executive of

Wellington Phoenix FC Wellington Phoenix Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Wellington, New Zealand. It competes in the Australian A-League Men, under Professional sports league organization#Systems around the world, licenc ...

in the A-League from 2007 to 2010.

Career

Football Federation Victoria

Pignata was the CEO at Football Federation Victoria from October 2004 - January 2007 where he held overall responsibility for football operations, including the administration of football competitions, player registrations and referee development/administration.

Wellington Phoenix

Pignata was responsible for bringing out

LA Galaxy The Los Angeles Galaxy are an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The Gal ...

with

David Beckham Sir David Robert Joseph Beckham ( ; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, cross ...

, resulting in a then-record football attendance of 31,853. In 2009/10, he was CEO when Wellington Phoenix made the

A-League A-League Men, also known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional soccer league in Australia and New Zealand and the highest level of the Australian soccer league system. Established in 2004 as the A-League by the ...

Finals Series (playoffs), going within one game of making the 2009/10 Grand Final.

Sydney FC

In his time at Sydney FC, Pignata helped bring Italian football star

Alessandro Del Piero Alessandro Del Piero (; born 9 November 1974) is an Italian former professional footballer who mainly played as a second striker, although he was capable of playing in several offensive positions. Since 2015, he has worked as a pundit for ...

to the club for two seasons, which helped increase membership, merchandise sales, sponsorship and TV viewership for Sydney FC and the A-League overall. In 2014, the club announced that its finances had turned around from a deficit of $7.2m to almost break-even under Pignata's leadership. In the 2016/17 A-League season, Sydney FC were crowned Premiers after 20 wins, 6 draws and 1 loss culminating in 66 points for the regular season. They went on to win the A-League Grand Final in the equivalent of the play-off series against

Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory ...

on 7 May 2017. In 2017, Pignata was named by the ''

Australian Financial Review The ''Australian Financial Review'' (''AFR'') is an Australian compact daily newspaper with a focus on business, politics and economic affairs. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New South Wales, and has been published continuously since its foun ...

'' as one of Australia's top 21 CEOs. He announced his resignation from Sydney FC three days after the 2017 A-League grand final win.

Perth Glory

In May 2018, he was appointed chief executive of Perth Glory FC. In the 2018-19 A-League season, Perth Glory were crowned Premiers with two games left of the season, finishing with 60 points, having 18 wins, 6 draws and 3 losses on the board. They also reached the

A-League Grand Final The A-League Men Grand Final is an association football match to determine the champions for an A-League Men season. Played at the end of the finals series, the game has been held annually since 2006. The club which wins the grand final receiv ...

, which was hosted in

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

for the first time in the A-League, with a record-breaking attendance of 56,371. The Grand Final score after

extra-time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

was 0-0, and ended in a 1-4

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

loss against Sydney FC.

Football Tasmania

On 24 August 2023 he was appointed as the CEO of

. In addition to the management of the organisation, he has also made the idea of a Tasmanian football specific stadium a priority, along with expansion of the Tasmanian NPL to 10 clubs and adding promotion/relegation to the league.https://footballfedtas.com.au/announcing-our-new-ceo-tony-pignata/

Education

Pignata's secondary education was at Salesian College in Chadstone. He graduated from

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

(Caulfield) in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in business (finance). He also holds the Global Master in sports management and legal skills from the University of Madrid (ISDE – F.C. Barcelona).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pignata, Tony Australian chief executives Living people Australian soccer chairmen and investors Year of birth missing (living people) People educated at Salesian College (Chadstone) Monash University alumni Perth Glory FC Sydney FC executives Wellington Phoenix FC