Bentleigh Greens met with Football Victoria’s President and CFO in Ongoing Collaboration

Avatar
Image credit: Bentleigh Greens

Interest in football has surged by a phenomenal 43% since 2022. To keep pace with the growing interest, Bentleigh Greens hosted Football Victoria President Dr. Angela Williams, and FV CFO Simon Avenell for a meeting focused on strengthening the future of Victorian Football.

Engaging Clubs for Victoria’s Football Future

The summit brought key voices from the club to engage directly with FV’s leadership on challenges, opportunities, and priorities shaping football locally and at elite levels. The club described the discussion as constructive and timely, noting that growing participation has increased pressure on existing facilities. FV officials acknowledged this and outlined several areas where collaboration will be essential moving forward.

Clubs at the Heart of Decision-Making

“Clubs are at the heart and soul of our sport,” the club posted in a statement. “It was great to hear their commitment to working with clubs.” More broadly, the exchange reflects a continual commitment to ensuring local clubs remain central to decision-making. FV’s CEO, Dan Birrell, echoed a similar sentiment, highlighting the importance of “extensive engagement with clubs.”

The conversation fits into the wider 2025–35 Facility Strategy Roadmap, an initiative that examines and plans infrastructure changes over the coming decade. The roadmap is expected to guide funding priorities and help clubs plan for long-term growth.

Supporting Women’s Football in Victoria

Greater inclusion of women in Victorian football has been a growing priority. As previously reported, the Bentleigh Greens received $2.4 million as part of a grant empowering grassroots women’s football. The grant is allocated to build a new pitch at Kingston Heath Soccer Complex. The Bentleigh Greens President said the new pitch will significantly expand opportunities for junior girls and senior women’s teams, many of whom currently face limited training space.

Building an Inclusive, Sustainable Football Ecosystem

As participation continues to rise across Victoria, both organisations reaffirmed their commitment to working closely to build a more inclusive, better-resourced football ecosystem, one that reflects the sport’s growth and positions community clubs at the forefront of its future. The meeting highlights the ongoing importance of inclusive dialogue as football enters a period of unprecedented expansion.

Previous ArticleNext Article

Victory unites with Roasting Warehouse in culture-led partnership

Avatar
Image credit: Melbourne Victory

The Melbourne-based anf family-owned business will join the Victory family, uniting two institutions which represent the city’s culture and identity.

A partnership with local roots

As the newest partner of Melbourne Victory, Roasting Warehouse joins forces with a vital part of the city’s sporting landscape.

The club’s Managing Director, Caroline Carnegie, outlined why the partnership bears so much value to both parties.

“We are excited to collaborate with Roasting Warehouse, a community-oriented destination for high-quality coffee, proud of its foundations in Melbourne,” said Carnegie via official media release.

“Football and coffee sit at the epicentre of Melbourne’s culture. The two go hand-in-hand, consistently at the centre of the conversation that stirs Melburnians, which is no different to the conversation sport and Melbourne Victory stir in the State.”

Indeed, this is a partnership which combines the identity, passions and culture of an entire city, therefore giving it the foundations required for long-term, mutual success.

Representing the best of Melbourne

Both Victory and Roasting Warehouse are hugely successful in their respective industries. They are institutions with community-oriented philosphies, who pride themselves on craft and quality.

“We’re incredibly proud to partner with Melbourne Victory, a club that represents the heart, passion, and ambition of Melbourne,” revealed Roasting Warehouse Head of Brand, Alexander Paraskevopoulos.

“As a Melbourne-founded, family-run business, supporting a team that means so much to the local community feels very natural for us.”

Furthermore, through their high-quality blends, Roasting Warehouse will look to prepare Victory’s players and staff for high performances on the pitch as the seasons nears completion.

But this is about far more than just fueling athletes.

This is a partnership which embodies and unites two of Melbourne’s greatest strengths and cultural markers – a connection forged from the city’s very own DNA.

 

For more information about Roasting Warehouse, click here.

Football NSW supports Female Coaches CPD as Women’s Football Surges

Avatar
Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football NSW has used the platform of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to deliver a targeted professional development workshop for female coaches, bringing together scholarship recipients for an evening of structured learning and direct engagement with elite women’s football.

Held at ACPE last month, the session was open to female coaches who received C or B Diploma scholarships through Football NSW in 2025. Coaching accreditation carries a financial cost that disproportionately affects women, who are less likely to have their development subsidised by clubs or associations operating in underfunded community football environments. Scholarship access changes that equation at the point where many women exit the pathway.

Facilitated by Football NSW Coach Development Coordinator Bronwyn Kiceec, the workshop focused on goal scoring trends from the tournament’s group stage, with coaches analysing attacking patterns and exploring how those insights could translate into their own environments. The group then attended the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia.

The structure of the evening mattered as much as its content. Female coaches in community football rarely have access to elite competition environments as a professional resource. The gap between the level at which most women coach and the level at which the game is analysed and discussed tends to reinforce itself. Placing scholarship recipients inside a major tournament, as participants rather than spectators, closes that gap in a way that a classroom session cannot.

Female coaches remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of the game in Australia. The pipeline that will change that depends not only on accreditation access but on the professional networks, peer relationships and exposure to elite environments that male coaches have historically taken for granted.

The workshop forms part of Football NSW’s ongoing commitment to developing female coaches through scholarships and structured learning opportunities.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend