“Our position on the professional game has not been revised since the press conference yesterday our revision has been solely in respect to the NPL and grassroots and the rest of the pyramid.”

The announcement that grassroots football would be continuing on Monday led to much discontent amongst the Australian footballing community, particularly around issues of player safety and the viability of small clubs playing games without live gates or concession sales.

“We want to highlight that this feedback has been critical in our decision today,” Johnson said.

“We place the concern for the health and wellbeing of our participants at the heart of this decision and we’ve also tried to play a role in being a leader in the wider community.”

Johnson, who acknowledged the fear that existed in the community, ultimately identified five key drivers of the FFA’s move on the grassroots.

“The first is the strong view of member federations and the football community, which has wanted a strong decision and a unified voice from the top to the bottom of the game,” he said.

“Secondly, as a good and responsible citizen, we recognise that a sport with 1.9 million participants, the largest sport in the country,  we need to have a significant role, and in our view a more significant role than other sports, in slowing the spread of the virus and, in turn, saving lives.

“The ongoing response form the broader and national Australian community is evolving fast and it's evolving on an hourly basis. So, we are trying to react to the speed this virus is moving at.

“Lastly, the recent material developments in Australia, which have changed the landscape significantly, which include both Victoria and the ACT declaring states of emergency and more and more schools, university and public sporting facilities closing has led to many of our participants in the past 24 hours not wanting to play football because of the virus, both players and clubs.

“We are disappointed, I am personally very disappointed, but we’re trying to reduce community gatherings, which we hope will slow the spread of the virus.

“We have done our best to listen to the voice of our football community and our football community has expressed its desire to contribute more to this nation and also what have wanted to unite to a whole of game strong response.”