Football West Facility Report highlights crucial need for investment

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Image credit: Football West LinkedIn

Football West has unveiled its second State Facility Report, highlighting significant infrastructure challenges across Western Australian football venues.

The comprehensive audit, conducted over the past 12 months, reveals pressing needs for facility improvements amid record growth in participation.

The timing is crucial, with football experiencing unprecedented popularity following the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Official data confirms football as Australia’s leading team sport, with Western Australia seeing a 17% overall participation increase and an impressive 30% rise in female participation in 2024.

Key Findings:

  • 58% of facilities lack female-friendly changerooms
  • 52% are without female-friendly match official rooms
  • 54% have inadequate shower facilities
  • 27% have no lighting
  • 44% have substandard lighting

Football West CEO Jamie Harnwell emphasises the key findings of the report and reiterates the necessity of investment in facilities.

“The importance of having adequate facilities for our community is crucial to supporting the development and growth of football and providing a good environment for our participants,” he said via press release.

“The huge health, social and economic benefits from people playing sport are well documented and football in WA plays a big role in this.”

The report aligns with both Football West’s Strategic Plan 2023-2026 and Football Australia’s One Football Strategy, underlining the urgent need for investment in football infrastructure.

Despite some recent facility upgrades, the audit indicates substantial additional investment is required to meet the growing demands of the sport.

This report points out that key infrastructure plans are funded primarily by government grants and investment support.

An area for private investment is possible but the development needed calls for more action from the government bodies for sport.

This initiative demonstrates Football West’s ongoing commitment to improving football facilities across the state, ensuring they meet the needs of the rapidly expanding football community.

Football’s rise to Australia’s most-played sport is a very exciting opportunity and the rise in participation is a welcoming statistic.

Football West is speaking out with other football communities expressing that we shouldn’t let the significant growth in the sport become a more pressing challenge than what is in truth, a really exciting opportunity.

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Victory unites with Roasting Warehouse in culture-led partnership

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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.

Marie-Louise Eta makes history as new Union Berlin head coach

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Image credit: FC Union Berlin

In an historic appointment, Eta will take over as head coach of Union Berlin until the end of the season.

History in the making

Previously the first female assistant coach in Bundesliga history with Union Berlin, Eta will now take the reigns of the men’s first team on an interim basis.

Currently, the club sit in 11th place in the Bundesliga table, but with only two wins so far in 2026, relegation appears an all-too-real prospect, and one which the club is desperate to avoid.

“Given the points gap in the lower half of the table, our place in the Bundesliga is not yet secure,” said Eta via official media release.

‘I am delighted that the club has entrusted me with this challenging task. One of Union’s strengths has always been, and remains, the ability to pull together in such situations.”

Eta will begin as Union’s new head coach with immediate effect, and will be in the dugout for the club’s matchup against Wolfsburg this weekend.

 

A step into an equal future

Eta’s appointment signals a major step towards a more level playing field in the football landscape.

Furthermore, Eta joins other coaches including Sabrinna Wittmann, Hannah Dingley and Corinne Diacre who, in recent years, have blazed a trail for female coaches to step into the men’s game.

Wittmann currently manages FC Ingolstadt in Germany’s third division, and was the first female head coach in Germany’s top three divisions.

In 2023, Dingley became caretaker manager of Forest Green Rovers, and thus the first woman to lead a men’s professional team in England.

Diacre, now head coach of France’s women’s national team, managed Ligue 2’s Clerment Foot between 2014 and 2017.

 

Final thoughts

The impact therefore, is that Eta’s appointment will show future generations of aspiring female coaches that men’s football is an equally viable and possible pathway as the women’s game.

The time is now to level the playing field.

And while it may be a short-term role, its effect on attitudes towards equality and fair opportunities in the game will hopefully resonate long after the season ends.

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