Kapiti Coast United - Junior Update and 2026 Season Preview

As 2025 draws to a close, we wanted to share with you some important and exciting information for the upcoming 2026 football season at Kapiti Coast United.

Whole of Football 2.0

Hopefully you will have seen the announcements from New Zealand Football regarding the changes to the football framework in 2026. These are exciting changes, and will result in more game time and football involvement for our players.

Details of the changes can be found here: Wof2.0 Kapiti Coast

KCU will be holding an information evening for our members early in 2026 to provide details of how KCU are implementing these changes.

Age Grades for 2026

For local Kapiti-based leagues, we will be fielding teams in the following age grade competitions:

Because of the reintroduction of Under 13s back in the junior football environment, it is likely that Under 13 game days will be moved to Sundays (this is yet to be confirmed by Capital Football).

2026 Pre-season and Team Allocation Days

Kapiti Coast United will again be fielding teams in the Regional Wellington Leagues in 2026. For players that wish to represent our teams in these competitions, we will be holding team allocation sessions in late February. More details will be shared early in the new year.

We will be fielding regional teams in the following grades:

Playing Up or Down an Age Grade

It is KCU policy that, in the first instance, all players are to play in competitions as per the age grades detailed above. Any requests for players to play up/down a grade must be made in advance to the Junior Committee. This also includes all players who have previously been granted dispensation to play up/down a grade in previous years.

All requests will be fairly considered by the Junior Committee.

Expression of Interests in Coaching

KCU is now seeking Expressions of Interest from individuals interested in coaching our Regional representative teams. If you are interested, please contact us at juniors@kcu.co.nz 

There are already preferred coaches in place for some of our Under 13 and Under 12 teams, however all expressions of interest will be considered.

2026 Season Dates

Some important dates for your calendar!
- KCU Easter Tournament - 3rd to 5th of April
- All Junior football will start on the weekend of 2nd May
- Junior football finishes on weekend of 29th August

Girls Only Football

KCU will again be running our Fantails programme in 2026, aimed at getting more girls playing football on the coast.

Alongside the girls only Kapiti league (played on Saturdays), we will be entering Girls Only teams into the various Capital competitions, playing against other Wellington clubs on Sundays.This is a really exciting development for female players on the coast, as this will give players many options to participate in football. Girls will have the opportunity to play in Mixed or Girls Only teams on a Saturday, as well as playing in the Sunday Wellington competition. This will also allow players to participate in other Saturday sports as well as playing football on a Sunday, if they prefer.

Futsal

The club launched its first ever Futsal programme in Term 4 of 2025. We had over 30 players taking part in weekly skills sessions, and also had 4 KCU teams compete in the Capital Football Junior Futsal competition in Wellington.

We are excited to offer Futsal again in Term 1 2026 for those keen, and more details will be released in January.

Junior Committee

We are extremely fortunate to have a small group of dedicated volunteers keep our club running, but we always welcome more help.If you are interested in getting involved in the Junior Committee and helping to shape our club moving forward, we’d love to hear from you at juniors@kcu.co.nz 

We’ll be sharing details of specific roles we’d love to see filled early in the New Year!

Finally, we just want to thank all of our members and wider KCU whanau for your support in 2025 and look forward to seeing you in 2026.

KCU Junior Committee