Football's second-tier Australian Championship launched

Football's new national second tier competition has a name - the Australian Championship - but as yet there is no road map towards promotion and relegation with the A-League Men.

Launched by Football Australia on Wednesday, the competition kicks off on October 10 and will "complement" and sit between the ALM and the National Premier Leagues.

As previously flagged, the competition is no longer the pitched full home-and-away format, but will instead feature four groups of four teams.

Former NSL powerhouse South Melbourne and fellow Victorian clubs Preston and Avondale are joined by NSW counterparts Marconi, Sydney United 58, Sydney Olympic, APIA Leichhardt and Wollongong as eight foundation clubs.

The other eight clubs are made up of premiers from the respective NPL competitions around the country, with each group to have two foundation clubs and two premiers.

The groups will play a home-and-away format, with the top two teams from each group qualifying for finals, and the grand final taking place on the weekend of December 6-7.

All 16 teams will have access to travel subsidies from FA for their away games.

The Australian Championship is clearly connected to the NPL competition, while extending it to a full home-and-away format will depend on its success.

But there is no definitive timeline of completing the football pyramid through promotion and relegation to the ALM, with Football Australia focused on delivering the first season.

Chief executive James Johnson said the Australian Professional Leagues, who run the ALM, had supported an October kick-off.

He stressed how the competition evolved in the future would also depend on the success of the first season.

"In terms of the connectivity, right now, the focus has been on getting the second tier up and running and moving it from a conversation to something that is tangible, which we're doing at the moment," he said.

"We have deliberately connected it to the NPL and that's the first step.

"In terms of how that connection works with the APL, that's something we don't want to be prescriptive about at the moment, simply because we want the second tier to work.

"We don't want that complication - because that's a complicated discussion. We want to get the second tier up and running. We want it to be successful.

"We want it to connect with the NPLs but also with the community. That's our focus right now. We want to focus on what is in our control now, what we can do, and what we can do to actually make this exciting competition that we all want."