Indigenous Football Week to help aspiring coaches

Liam Watson

The Moriarty Foundation is currently holding the annual Indigenous Football Week, which began on November 2nd and concludes on November 10th.

The fourth edition in 2019 is themed “Ground up – developing Indigenous coaches” and is an initiative to help all the aspiring coaches out there.

John Moriarty is the key member of the foundation that is partnered with Football Federation Australia (FFA), Professional Footballers Australia (PFA), SBS, NITV, and FOX Sports.

Moriarty was the first Indigenous footballer to be capped for Australia and spoke about the importance of the week.

“Indigenous Football Week  provides a perfect opportunity for the football community to come together to promote the importance of holistic training, including health, nutrition, and wellbeing; arming our coaches with knowledge and knowhow that they can apply daily back in our communities,” he said.

With assistance from the Morrison Government, John Moriarty Football has been allocated funding to go towards expanding the Northern Territory pilot which reaches out to multiple communities across New South Wales and Queensland over the next three years.

The expansion started in both states in July and the aim of this year’s Indigenous Football Week is to mentor and upskill local community coaches during specialised coaching sessions in Sydney.

It will be a joint collaboration with Football NSW and FFA and features contributions from Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers and Central Coast Mariners.

International sports psychologist Dr. Noel Blundell will support the Moriarty Foundation during the week and will host a program related to the key emotional intensity levels of players. He has worked closely with 23 World and Olympic Champions to maximise their talents, across his 30-year career.

“It is exciting to be a part of Indigenous Football Week, to assist the Moriarty Foundation coaches so that they may pass on these vital skills to their teams and communities,” he said.

Football Federation Australia (FFA) Chief Executive David Gallop also spoke as one of the major partners for John Moriarty Football.

“FFA has been a supporter of John Moriarty Football for several years now and are thrilled to once again be involved in the JMF Indigenous Football Week. This week is a showcase of the positive work done throughout the year in creating awareness and opportunities for indigenous footballers, coaches and administrators across the country.”

The launch of Indigenous Football Week will be formerly celebrated at Valentine Sports Park in Sydney on Tuesday, November 5th.

Image source and more information can be found here: https://www.ffa.com.au/news/indigenous-football-week-kicks

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PlayHER Tournament returns as Football Victoria Doubles Down on Women’s Participation

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Image Credit: Football Victoria

Football Victoria‘s PlayHER Tournament returns to the Knox Regional Football Centre in Wantirna South this May, offering women across Victoria the chance to play football in a structured, social and welcoming environment.

Now in its fifth year, the tournament has grown considerably from its origins as the GO Soccer Mums Cup, which was recognised as Community Sporting Event of the Year at the 2023 Victorian Sport Awards. The rebranding to PlayHER reflects a deliberate broadening of the event’s ambition, from a competition aimed at a specific demographic to one designed to lower the barriers to entry for any woman who wants to play.

That ambition is visible in the structure of the day itself. Matches are played in a five-a-side format with short halves, keeping the format accessible for players who may not have competed in years, or those who are stepping onto the pitch for the first time. New for 2026, participants will compete across two categories: an Open and 35 years and over. It’s an addition that acknowledges the different pathways women take into sport, and the importance of ensuring the game remains available at every stage of life.

More than a matchday

The tournament comes at a strategically critical time. Women’s football in Australia is in the middle of a period of unprecedented growth, with record crowds at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and a growing pipeline of players coming through at club level. Translating that momentum into lasting participation growth depends on events like PlayHER- low-cost, community-driven, and explicitly designed for women who might not see themselves reflected in elite competition.

At $20 per participant, the tournament remains one of the most accessible organised football experiences available in Victoria. The message is straightforward: the game is for everyone, and the door is open.

Football Australia calls for $343M to Sustain Women’s Football Boom

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Japan v Australia Final. Image Credit: AFC

Football Australia has called on the NSW Government to establish a decade-long grassroots facilities fund worth up to $343 million, warning that without urgent investment in community infrastructure, the record participation growth driven by the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup risks stalling before it takes hold.

The call, made jointly with Football NSW and Northern NSW Football as the CommBank Matildas prepare to contest the Asian Cup Final in Sydney on Saturday, centres on a proposed NSW AFC Women’s Asian Cup Australia 2026 Legacy Fund. The proposal entails annual grant rounds of up to $34 million over ten years, administered by the NSW Office of Sport in collaboration with the state’s two football governing bodies.

The fund would prioritise female-friendly and gender-inclusive changerooms, upgraded lighting and drainage, and improved accessibility across metropolitan, regional and remote communities.

“The shortage of female-friendly changerooms is a particularly critical issue, impacting safe and equitable access to the game,” said Football Australia CEO Martin Kugeler. “Securing its future in NSW requires infrastructure that meets contemporary standards, supports equitable access, and reflects the expectations of the growing number of women and girls participating in the game.”

The Growth and Infrastructure Gap

The case for the fund rests on a participation surge that has significantly outpaced the facilities available to support it. Female participation in NSW football grew by nearly 31 percent between 2022 and 2025, a trajectory accelerated by the 2023 World Cup and now further strengthened by a home Asian Cup that has drawn more than 260,000 attendees to NSW venues alone, including over 25,000 interstate and international visitors. The tournament is forecast to contribute an estimated $260 million in national economic output.

Independent analysis commissioned by the three football bodies found that NSW currently requires a ten-year infrastructure plan to adequately bridge what they describe as a facilities gap: the distance between the current condition of community grounds and the standard required to keep pace with demand.

Football NSW CEO John Tsatsimas said the problem was structural and long-standing. “Historically, established and aging facilities do not cater for all-gender use, which doesn’t support growing participation by women and girls,” he said. “Across NSW, fields currently lose around 34 percent of their capacity due to playing field conditions- issues including lack of functional drainage infrastructure, insufficient lighting, and no irrigation or substandard below-ground infrastructure.”

Clubs unable to meet demand are turning players away. Facilities without adequate changerooms are effectively telling women and girls that the game was not built with them in mind, because in many cases, it wasn’t.

“Many clubs are struggling to keep pace, with outdated and inadequate infrastructure limiting opportunities for women and girls,” Kugeler said.

Regional communities bearing the pressure

The infrastructure deficit is not evenly distributed. Northern NSW Football CEO Peter Haynes said participation across the region was at record levels and still rising, but that the rate of growth had exposed how far government investment had fallen behind.

“The demand is not coming, it’s already here,” Haynes said. “More players, more teams, more competitions, but without the infrastructure and support to match, that growth becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.”

Haynes pointed to the particular pressure on regional communities, where the boom in women’s and girls’ football has been pronounced, but facilities have historically received less investment than metropolitan areas. “We have the players, the passion and the momentum,” he said. “What we need now is the long-term investment to ensure women’s football not only grows but thrives for generations to come.”

The equity dimension of that argument is difficult to overstate. Access to safe, functional sporting facilities is not evenly distributed across income levels or geography, and the communities most likely to be underserved are often those where participation growth has been most significant.

Legacy beyond the tournament

The timing of the call is deliberate. Major sporting events generate participation surges that are well documented, and equally well documented is the tendency for those surges to dissipate when the infrastructure to sustain them is not in place. Football Australia’s pitch to the NSW Government is an argument that the Asian Cup’s legacy should be measured not in ticket sales or television audiences but in the number of women and girls still playing five and ten years from now.

“The legacy of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2026 should endure well beyond the conclusion of the tournament,” Kugeler said. “Women’s sport, and football in particular, are essential to building a more equal, healthy and inclusive society.”

The NSW Government has not yet responded to the fund proposal. The Asian Cup Final took place at Stadium Australia last Saturday.

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