Melbourne Victory launch women’s and girls’ development fund to improve pathways for female footballers

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Melbourne Victory women’s and girls’ development fund
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Melbourne Victory have announced the launch of a women’s and girls’ development fund to contribute to the growth of female football in all aspects of the game.

Victory are supporting this fund through female-specific projects that run across all levels of football, which is in line with the club’s key values of prioritising community participation and pushing towards gender equity in the sport.

The fund will help improve the pathways for female footballers within the club, provide educational opportunities for female coaches and administrators, and improve female football infrastructure and activation projects.

Former Melbourne Victory player Marco Rojas donated in May earlier this year, in support of women’s football for the club and this initiative comes off the back of it.

Melbourne Victory Managing Director Caroline Carnegie stated the Club’s goal is to lead, unite, connect, and inspire through football and the Female Development Fund is an important step in delivering the Club’s vision for the women’s game.

“Melbourne Victory wants to contribute to growing and enhancing the women’s game and supporting the growth and development of females in football, wherever they sit in the football community,” Carnegie said via Victory press release.

“Part of this is ensuring accessibility to the women’s game off the back of the Women’s World Cup and supporting the development of women to make the greatest impact on our game.

“This is the reason we decided to make our home games at the Home of the Matildas free for patrons to experience and support the A-League Women’s (ALW) team for the 2023/24 season and why the fund will be important to our success in the women’s space.

“We’ve worked to remove the financial barriers for anyone who was inspired by WWC23 to continue to enjoy watching elite domestic football and to give our young boys and girls every opportunity to see their stars in action week in, week out.

“The other factor that we know is key to growing the women’s game is investment which is needed at all levels of the game to develop the next generation of talent and to continue to grow and build participation levels in football.

“We see our strategy around making the ALW accessible, along with the launch of our Female Development Fund as the beginning of the journey and we’re encouraging others to contribute in a meaningful way through our Fund.

“We would love to see anyone attending our games to consider making a contribution to the fund in lieu of purchasing a ticket and also anyone passionate about women’s football to help us bridge the gap and build the future of the women’s game together.”

Melbourne Victory have ensured that all donations and any collaborations with partners and sponsors in the women’s space will be invested back into women and girls’ projects. A clear sign that they are trying to drive momentum into further growing that side of the game.

Eventually, the wider football community will be able to apply for specific grants in order to help improve their own female football situation.

The initiative to improve women’s and girl’s football is a brilliant one, off the back of record-breaking Liberty A-League membership numbers and the Matildas’ success in front of the entire nation.

Creating that foundation is absolutely vital is ensuring that the model is sustainable, and that Victory can continue to produce fantastic talents like they did with World Cup star Kyra Cooney-Cross.

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Project ACL: The initiative leading the way on injury research

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Image credit: FiledIMAGE / Shutterstock.com

Launched in 2024, the research project recently welcomed two US-based organisations: the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association (NWSLPA) and National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).

 

About Project ACL

Led by FIFPRO, PFA England, Nike and Leeds Beckett University, Project ACL aims to research ACL injuries and understand more about multifactorial risk factors.

After piloting in England’s Women’s Super League (WSL), Project ACL will expand to the NWSL in the US, reflecting the global importance of the project’s research and outcome.

“We are incredibly excited to bring the NWSLPA and NWSL to Project ACL,” said Director of Women’s Football at FIFPRO, Dr. Alex Culvin, via official press release.

“Overall, we believe that player-centricity and collaboration with key stakeholders are central to establishing meaningful change in the soccer ecosystem and that players, competition organisers and stakeholdersaround the world will benefit from Project ACL’s outputs and outcomes.”

Interviews with over 30 players and team surveys across all 12 WSL clubs provided the project’s research team with valuable information about current prevention strategies and available resources.

Furthermore, the project tracks player workload and busy schedule periods during the season through the FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring tool, therefore gaining insights into the link between scheduling and injury risks.

 

Looking to the data

Project ACL’s partnerships with the WSL – and now the NWSL – are immensely valuable for the future of player welfare in women’s football.

Although ACL injuries affect both male and female athletes, they are twice as likely to occur in women than men. However, according to the NWSL, as little as 8% of sports science research focuses on female athletes.

In Australia, several CommBank Matildas suffered ACL injuries in recent years: Sam Kerr was sidelined from January 2024 to September 2025, Ellie Carpenter for 8 months after suffering the injury while playing for Olympique Lyonnais, and Holly McNamara came back from three ACL’s aged 15, 18 and 20.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The 2025/26 ALW season saw several ACL incidents, including four in just two weeks.

 

Research, prevent, protect

Injury prevention and research are vital to sport – whether professional or amateur.

But when the numbers are so shocking – and incidents are so common – governing bodies must remember that player welfare comes above all else. Research can inform prevention strategies. Prevention means players can enjoy the game they love.

The work of Project ACL, continuing until 2027, will hopefully protect countless players across women’s football from suffering long-term or recurring injuries.

The A-Leagues Final Series important status also a secret hinderance

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The Isuzu A-League finals series is a huge event in the footballing calendar, though its contribution to stagnant attendance numbers in the league is something to be said.

If the 2025/26 finals series follows similar patterns to those before it, it will gather huge traction and strong ticket sales.

It is the largest event for the domestic league, bringing in massive amounts of viewership through media and gate receipts.

Finals series from years past have shown this, with the 2024/25 final, a Melbourne derby, being sold out within 48 hours and gathering significant viewership online.

The idea of a finals series lies within the Australian sporting ethos; the other sporting codes have had this tradition for most of their existence, especially in recent history.

Football, though, is different from the rest of the sporting codes in Australia, unique even. This has historically contributed to its inability to integrate into the same supported status as other codes.

Many in the Australian footballing community, supporter groups, players, coaches, and even the new Director of Football Australia, have voiced concerns over fan numbers in the league competition.

It wouldn’t be absurd to say that maybe, though profitable now, the finals series is actually taking away from the league itself.

Consider the media image: the league winner is called the “minor premiership,” and ticket sales and viewership figures reveal a huge disparity between the two parts of the A-League.

It must be said that an alternative that could work in unison with the league and possibly increase viewership of the league itself would be a great advantage.

It would allow the league to gain more jeopardy and drama, which could build greater interest in attending league games.

One alternative is already here.

No other sporting code in Australia has both a league competition and a cup competition. Football in Australia does.

The Hahn’s Australia Cup is our equivalent to the FA Cup in England or the Copa del Rey in Spain.

These are competitions that offer a finals option in a different competition entirely. They generate huge traction while never diminishing the importance of the league and, therefore, its popularity.

These cup competitions cannot be discussed without acknowledging some obvious differences.

They don’t face the same popularity issues that football does in Australia. It’s obvious the Hahn’s Australia Cup doesn’t yet gain the traction that the finals series does.

However, for a healthy footballing environment with increasing fan numbers, it should.

The idea of elevating the Hahn’s Australia Cup and scaling back the finals series is a complex question, one that is treated like a “no-go zone” by many in the Australian footballing community, and that is understandable.

Though big changes like this might, in the end, be credible options for the future of the sport in this country.

Larger plans must be set in motion, strategies that can be worked towards and refined along the way. It is the process by which all large organisations, business models and even national governments build their strategies.

Such a shift will be scrutinised and pushed back against.

Though with further fine-tuning and smart investment in development, not to mention the introduction of promotion and relegation and the possibility of changing the footballing calendar.

It could replicate the success that these two-competition models already enjoy in other leagues.

The added importance that the premiership would gain, the reality that every game matters, could alongside other strategies entice fans to more games, increase viewership and ticket sales, and create more dedicated fan bases. It works in other nations, very well in fact.

The possibility of two teams lifting a trophy, rather than one single event defining it all, sounds like a strategy that could deliver more engagement over longer periods of time.

Maybe Australian football doesn’t need to answer this question just yet. It is complex, difficult and it would require a great deal of work, including significant investment into the game, which is another issue entirely.

Yet as low attendance numbers persist in the A-League, even alongside increased media viewership, something needs to change for football in Australia.

The rise in popularity of this game and its dedicated community deserves bold ideas and forward thinking.

Ideas like this could eventually begin to change the landscape of the beautiful game in Australia for the better.

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