Arguably the two biggest issues in Australian men's football right is the lack of development of the Socceroos stars of tomorrow, with a second division operated via promotion and relegation the key sticking point.

There are several reasons why FFA and the A-League have been hampered in making this happen, but speaking to News Corp, Johnson has begun to illustrate the potential options the governing body are looking at.

“Could there be a second-tier competition, with 10 or 12 teams that play 20-odd rounds home and away or do we look at a second-tier competition with conferences based in different states around the country that play half the season at state level and then end up playing at national level in a group stage, similar to how the Brazilian league operates,” he said.

“There’s two parts to the season that starts at state level, then a qualification process that goes into a national level of competition.

“This is something we could look at because someone of our challenges in Australia are similar to Brazil – where you have competition that are strong at state level and you have a very big country geographically, so their solution was to use this sort of format.”

Johnson also seemed clear that changes to import and foreign player visa spots are on the cards, although leaving the foreign quotas the same and simply increasing homegrown player minutes via other quota systems is also a possibility.

“I think this is a no-brainer," Johnson said.

“(Changing the import rules) is something we need to talk to the A-League about, and we’re going to present this evidence to the A-League owners.

“Whether we’re having discussions about reducing foreign player quotas, or about increasing homegrown players, the end result is the same.

“I think the A-League clubs will really take that in a positive way, because they’re ready to listen.”