Melbourne Victory’s three-year community strategy to improve youth football landscape

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Melbourne Victory Community Strategy
Image credit: Melbourne Victory

Melbourne Victory have released an extensive three-year community strategy with the overall goal to improve the current youth football landscape for Victorians in a multitude of areas.

Caroline Carnegie, managing director of Melbourne Victory, stated that club is with an emphasis on the importance of making football more accessible to the youth.

The executive summary explains: “Melbourne Victory has a proud history of supporting the Victorian community. We are the club for all Victorians, striving to lead, unite, connect and inspire generations through football. Although football is central to everything we do, we are more than football.”

The Strategic Plan has three pillars that centre the whole project and its philosophy:

Purpose: Melbourne Victory has an obligation to ensure football is accessible and empowering to all. We are responsible for stewarding a community that leverages football to positively impact lives.

Vision: Victory is committed to lead, united, connect and inspire generations through football. The Club will ensure every young Victorian has an opportunity to reach their potential whilst enjoying a happy and healthy life.

Mission: Creating a passionate and connected community where all people are welcome and all people belong, Melbourne Victory will actively engage disadvantaged/vulnerable Victorian youth in the development and delivery of meaningful football programs that lead to positive social impact. We will actively reduce the barriers to accessing quality football experiences, improving the overall health, wellbeing and social connectedness of young Victorians

Melbourne Victory also set concrete targets they wanted to be achieved by the end of the strategic plan in 2025. These include:

  • Increase program delivery by 50% (From 70 to 105 total)
  • Increase program participants by 50% (From 15,000 to 22,500)
  • Increase grassroots football club engagement by 10%
  • Increase school program delivery by 100%
  • Increase MVFC football pathway program delivery by 33%
  • Increase female participation by 166%
  • Increase CALD program delivery by 50%

The club also is focusing on four strategic priorities in order to efficiently use their resources and ultimately have the greatest impact they can on the progression of the young kids into adulthood. These are:

Participation

Increasing opportunities for people unfamiliar with the game of football to participate as a coach, player, administrator, volunteer or fan in the club’s attempt to provide an enjoyable experience for Victorian youth.

Education

Melbourne Victory support the development of skills for wider learning, work and life. They will leverage the beautiful game to encourage vulnerable youth to better engage with their education.

Gender Equity

Victory will support representatives of LGBTI+ communities in breaking down cultural barriers and making football a safe environment for all. They will also be providing accessible, welcoming and enjoyable opportunities for girls to play, coach and watch football.

Cultural Diversity

Victory want to celebrate and welcome the many cultures seen in Victoria using football, the global sport. Providing a safe space is important in growing the multiculturalism in the game amongst the youth.

The club in the community strategy suggest that whilst there is a clear rationale for each of the four priorities, they will combine them all in their programs.

Victory are also going to monitor the overall results of their football programs by following seven critical factors. These will be in addition to the targets set already for the three-year span of this project.

  • MVFC club culture and operations embedded in its community programming sector
  • Financial sustainability to help reduce costs for participants to play locally
  • Program design and relationship building with the Victorian community to deliver programs to clubs and areas that need it the most
  • Networking and keeping positive relations with key stakeholders like the federal and state governments, schools and grassroots clubs
  • Program delivery being at an elite standard
  • Workforce capacity amongst the community programs
  • Evaluation through quantitative and qualitative feedback to determine success.

It’s great to see an A-League club like Melbourne Victory take initiative in providing support and resources for the youth and future of football in this state and the country, an area that does need more focus if Australia want to sustain a healthy relationship with the sport for generations.

To see the Community Strategy in full, click here.

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Football West’s Female Football Week draws record engagement from Metropolitan Perth to Remote Kunurra

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Image Credit: Football West

Football West has wrapped up its 2026 Female Football Week with activations spanning metropolitan Perth, regional Western Australia and national online platforms, as participation data from the state’s most remote football association underlined the scale of demand for women’s and girls’ football beyond the city.

Kununurra Soccer Association, situated in the East Kimberley more than 3,000 kilometres from Perth, recorded 47 new female registrations aged 7 to 12 across the first two terms of 2026 through Football West’s Junior Girls United program, representing a 30 percent increase in female membership that coaches Hannah Grominsky and Evie Marchetti described as overwhelming.

“The support from the community has been simply awesome,” Grominsky said. “We’re up to nearly 50 registered girls now. The majority of them have never played before or aren’t part of our association, so it’s great to give them a positive football experience in a comfortable environment.”

The program, supported by the Federal Government’s Play Our Way grant, now runs every Wednesday and has extended football activity into the cooler months of the Kimberley calendar, a season when the association would not traditionally operate. The result is a cohort of players new to the game, in a region where access to organised sport has historically been constrained by geography, infrastructure and seasonality.

Recognition across the state

Back in Perth, Female Football Week’s centrepiece event was the Women in Football Celebrate You Breakfast at the Sam Kerr Football Centre, featuring two panel discussions covering officiating pathways, coaching development and advocacy for women in football.

Subiaco AFC NPL Women’s head coach Christine Coppin, who is one of few women coaching at her level in the region, said events like the breakfast were critical to making the pathway visible for others.

“I’d love to see more women coaches putting their hat in the ring, both at junior and senior levels, realising that there’s more to football than just playing,” Coppin said. “They can stay involved in the sport as they get older in different ways.”

A regional Women in Football Breakfast in Albany drew more than 30 attendees, while a Girls Day Out event in the same city attracted more than 50 participants aged 6 to 16 for a come-and-try introduction to the game, extending the week’s reach into the Great Southern and reinforcing Football West’s stated commitment to building women’s football outside metropolitan areas.

Recognising those who make it happen

The week’s awards, nominated by the WA public, recognised five individuals whose contributions to female football across the state were judged most significant over the past year. Cassandra Paxman of Albany Rovers FC was named Coach of the Year, Georgia Whitelaw of Great Southern JSA and Albany JSA took Referee of the Year, Karen Harris of Carramar Shamrock Rovers FC was named Volunteer of the Year, Georgia Aiesi of Mandurah City FC received the Player of the Year award, and Melissa Spillman of Football Futures Foundations was named Community Champion of the Year— a recognition she also received at the national level.

Football West Female Football and Advocacy Manager Sarah Carroll said the week had reinforced both the momentum and the responsibility facing the sport.

“Female Football Week continues to showcase the incredible passion and growing appetite for the women’s game,” Carroll said. “It’s a reminder of how important it is that we keep working together to drive the game forward.”

The contrast between a packed breakfast at the Sam Kerr Football Centre and a Wednesday afternoon program in Kununurra working around wet season schedules captures something essential about where women’s football in Western Australia actually lives. The growth is real, and it is happening in places the cameras do not always reach.

Tasmania’s State Budget Commits $350,000 to Football Facility Planning as $80 million Home of Football Moves Closer to Reality

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Image Credit: Football Tasmania

The Tasmanian State Government has committed $350,000 in seed funding for the next stage of planning for Football Tasmania‘s proposed Home of Football, moving the state’s most significant football infrastructure project closer to construction and signalling political recognition that demand for rectangular facilities in Tasmania has outgrown what currently exists.

The funding, confirmed in the 2026-27 State Budget handed down last week, sits within an almost $200 million investment in sport and recreation across the budget and forward estimates: a package the government describes as designed to improve access and participation for Tasmanians of all ages. The football allocation is listed alongside a $25 million community sporting infrastructure commitment at Kingborough, $12.5 million for new multipurpose indoor sporting courts at New Town Bay, and $8 million for the Domain Tennis Centre redevelopment.

Football Tasmania CEO Tony Pignata OAM welcomed the commitment as an acknowledgement of the structural gap between participation numbers and available infrastructure, particularly in the state’s south.

“The State Government’s delivery on this commitment shows us that they understand that demand outstrips supply for rectangular facilities in the state,” Pignata said. “If we are to continue to grow and develop future Matildas and Socceroos, we need to invest in the infrastructure our game so desperately needs.”

The proposed $80 million facility would include six full-sized pitches, three synthetic and three turf, alongside four five-a-side pitches, modern changerooms for both men and women, and dedicated training facilities. The design is intended to serve every level of the game simultaneously, from grassroots junior competitions through to national-level tournaments.

From grassroots to A-League ambitions

Football Tasmania has framed the facility’s purpose across a deliberately wide range of uses. At the community end, it would provide a permanent home for junior games and regional tournaments that currently compete for limited rectangular ground availability across the state. At the elite end, it would create the capacity to host national competitions including the Emerging Matildas and Emerging Socceroos Championships, flagship state competitions such as the Statewide Cup finals, and potentially, in time, an A-League team.

That last ambition is the most significant and the most distant. Pignata was measured but direct in raising it, situating a Tasmanian A-League club alongside the NBL’s Jackjumpers, the WNBL’s Jewels and the AFL’s Devils as part of the state’s emerging identity as a home for national sporting competition.

“One day down the track, we anticipate this would become home to our very own A-League team, so that we take our rightful place in the nation’s elite competition,” he said.

The pathway from planning funding to A-League admission is long and would require sustained political and commercial support well beyond the current commitment. But the logic is consistent with how football infrastructure investment has worked elsewhere in Australia. The facility comes first, and the competitive pathway follows. Without a purpose-built ground that meets the standards required for elite competition, the conversation about an A-League team cannot begin in earnest.

The equity dimension

The inclusion of modern women’s and men’s changerooms in the facility’s design carries more weight than it might appear. Community and semi-professional football facilities across Australia have historically been built to male standards, with women’s changerooms added as afterthoughts or not included at all. That inadequacy has been consistently identified as a barrier to female participation and to the hosting of women’s competitions at venues that cannot accommodate them properly.

A purpose-built facility that treats women’s infrastructure as a design requirement rather than a retrofit positions the Home of Football to serve the growth of women’s football in Tasmania in a way that existing facilities cannot. The state recorded 41,395 registered football participants in 2025, a number that has been growing and that the current rectangular facility stock was not built to support at this scale.

Additionally, the government’s Ticket to Play program, which provides eligible children with two vouchers worth up to $100 each for sporting participation, and the Ticket to Wellbeing program offering $100 vouchers to eligible seniors, represent indirect but meaningful support for football participation across the state’s communities.

Pignata also acknowledged outgoing Football Tasmania President Bob Gordon, who he said had dedicated almost a decade to the organisation and had been instrumental in lobbying for this and other facilities across the state.

The $350,000 planning commitment is a beginning. The $80 million facility it is intended to progress remains subject to further government investment and development approval.

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