Professional Footballers Australia release the Safe Football Project for workplace protection

Liam Watson
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Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) has launched the Safe Football Project, to safeguard the rights and wellbeing of Australia’s professional footballers.

Following a collaboration between the union and A-League Women players since 2021, Safe Football Project aims to make professional football as the safest available sport for women – by providing a platform to identify, address and reduce risks of abuse and harassment.

When a revelation came to light of Matildas legend Lisa De Vanna facing non-recent sexual harassment, grooming and bullying during her career, it prompted the creation of the project with her disclosure in 2021.

With other high-profile abuse cases in football worldwide, it saw an urgent need for the PFA to conduct a systemic review of the players’ workplaces and experiences.

FIFPRO, the World Players’ Association, and human rights advocates, have also helped to develop the Safe Football Project as areas of the current regulatory framework were addressed.

To achieve a safer workplace in professional football, the Safe Football Project identifies two key recommendations:

  1. A Collaborative, Wholesale Review of Current Safeguarding Frameworks
  2. Take Urgent, Interim Actions

The PFA conducted surveys with A-League Women players and collected the results via anonymous responses. Among the findings from 2023, 45% of players experienced harassment or abuse, but did not tell someone about it; from a total of 172 survey responses.

PFA Co-Chief Executive Kathryn Gill commented on the launch of the initiative:

“A safe workplace is a human right. Our members’ safety and wellbeing at work are our most important priority. However, the Project has shown that Australian football, like most sporting leagues, is falling short,” she said via press release.

“We activated the Safe Football Project not just as a response to past failures but to encourage everyone involved in the sport to address these serious and confronting challenges proactively.

“The next step is to work together with all stakeholders in Australian football to implement best practice safeguarding measures that are shaped by the people they are designed to protect – the players.

“Finally, I would like to acknowledge and thank the many players who so actively contributed to the development of the Project and the courageous women who have spoken publicly about their experiences of abuse and harassment in the hope of being a catalyst for change.”

The Safe Football Project will play a crucial role in providing a safe and welcoming environment for players, in a high-performance industry that has seen serious incidents of abusive behaviour in recent years.

To read the Safe Football Project report and its findings in full, click here.

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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.

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

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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.

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