James Johnson (2010 Alumnus) - Group CEO, Canada Soccer Business

Asia has shaped Group CEO of Canada Soccer Business, formerly CEO of Football Australia, James Johnson, both professionally and philosophically. What began for him as a legal role representing players has grown into a broader vision of football as a diplomatic bridge and source of soft power. To achieve this in a region where subtleties abound and trust is currency, Johnson has become fluent in a different kind of language: that of mutual respect, shared goals, and long-term partnerships. In his view, they are values that are core to any game worth playing. 

Despite having played football professionally for Da Nang FC in Vietnam’s V-League when he was just 19 years old, “at a time when going to Vietnam wasn’t a touristy thing to do,” Johnson admits that he “hadn’t had much exposure to Asia”. 

His Asia engagement journey started in earnest when he was living in Melbourne, working as a lawyer for the Australian Professional Footballers Australia (PFA). That post served as a springboard into a deeper engagement with the region and with football’s broader strategic potential. At the time, the PFA was helping to establish FIFPRO Asia, an umbrella organisation for footballers’ unions across Asia. 

“Part of my role was to represent Australian players in contractual disputes and collective bargaining,” he explains. But the other part, arguably the more formative, was “to help players in other parts of Asia organise themselves into player associations and really advance the rights of players.” The territories he became familiar with read like a footballing Silk Road: Japan, Indonesia, China, India and Malaysia.  

Eager to navigate the region’s complex terrain, James enrolled in the Asialink Leaders Program to access the tools he needed to adapt and succeed across diverse environments. This helped him see how football could serve as a mechanism for regional engagement. 

Asia, as Johnson discovered, is not monolithic. “The more I was exposed... the more I learned about cultures within cultures,” he reflects. “There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to working in Asia.” The key lies in sensitivity to nuance and putting “relations before business,” he says. 

He learned that while relationship-building is a facet of business in Australia, in Asia it is the bedrock of corporate success. “In countries like Malaysia or Indonesia… you’re able to move things quicker if the organisation or the people you’re dealing with are known to you, or you’re known to them,” he explains. Trust, familiarity, and mutual regard pave the way and then the deal follows. In Johnson’s eyes, these relationships are the infrastructure of soft diplomacy and football is the meeting ground. 

This attention to relationships still animates Johnson’s leadership. “It kept coming up as a recurring theme,” he reflects. But what stands out is how these principles of integrity and ethics, often chalked up to soft skills, become strategic assets in cross-cultural negotiations. “I think values are what you deem as important, and also understanding what is important to other people promotes a tailored approach that often leads to a more collaborative relationship and better outcomes,” Johnson says. 

The challenge is how to hold firm when values clash. During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when the Socceroos voiced concerns about human rights issues, Johnson was at the fulcrum.“We needed to ensure that our players felt supported, but at the same time… we needed to maintain relationships with our fellow colleagues all over the world, and in particular, our friends in Qatar who had worked hard to host one of the greatest ever World Cups,” he says. 

His solution: educate before advocating. “We try to ensure that we’re able to properly educate people in a 360-degree way then allow them to make their own minds up. Showing that you understand the other’s perspective helps in maintaining relationships, even if ultimately you don’t agree.” 

Johnson has observed that as Australia’s position in Asia’s football community matures, it is beginning to grasp the full diplomatic value of the sport which, in his experience, opens more senior channels for government engagement than many other sports or industries. “Often if you’re dealing with the sport’s [football’s] president, for example in Jordan, it’s the Prince of Jordan. If you’re dealing with Malaysia, the president is the prince of a state in Malaysia. The connections through football go far beyond the sport itself. As a football nation, we’re starting to understand the value behind that, and what it could mean for Australia more broadly, not just football itself.” 

He hopes that this will be reflected in the Women’s Asian Cup, which is being hosted by Australia in 2026. “It is an opportunity to not only get a month of great football that the community and fans can watch and enjoy. It also means the rest of the world’s eyes are on us here in Australia. We bring Asia or the world to us,” he says. 

Beyond the on-pitch spectacle, Johnson also anticipates a rich confluence of diaspora engagement, business networking, and diplomatic engagement. “Sport is a subject that everyone likes... and it brings people together,” he says. 

Looking outward at future opportunities, Indonesia looms large on the horizon for Johnson. “It ticks every box,” he asserts. Proximity, shared passion for football, complementary strengths in infrastructure and audience size all make co-hosting a logical step. “If we were able to achieve that, that would really open up opportunities for government… and business as well.” 

James Johnson was CEO of Football Australia from 2020-2025 and was appointed Group CEO of Canada Soccer Business in July 2025. He is a qualified lawyer and retired footballer. He previously held positions at the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the Asian Football Confederation and at Professional Footballers Australia. James participated in the Asialink Leaders Program in 2010.