Bentleigh Greens met with Football Victoria’s President and CFO in Ongoing Collaboration

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Image credit: Bentleigh Greens

Interest in football has surged by a phenomenal 43% since 2022. To keep pace with the growing interest, Bentleigh Greens hosted Football Victoria President Dr. Angela Williams, and FV CFO Simon Avenell for a meeting focused on strengthening the future of Victorian Football.

Engaging Clubs for Victoria’s Football Future

The summit brought key voices from the club to engage directly with FV’s leadership on challenges, opportunities, and priorities shaping football locally and at elite levels. The club described the discussion as constructive and timely, noting that growing participation has increased pressure on existing facilities. FV officials acknowledged this and outlined several areas where collaboration will be essential moving forward.

Clubs at the Heart of Decision-Making

“Clubs are at the heart and soul of our sport,” the club posted in a statement. “It was great to hear their commitment to working with clubs.” More broadly, the exchange reflects a continual commitment to ensuring local clubs remain central to decision-making. FV’s CEO, Dan Birrell, echoed a similar sentiment, highlighting the importance of “extensive engagement with clubs.”

The conversation fits into the wider 2025–35 Facility Strategy Roadmap, an initiative that examines and plans infrastructure changes over the coming decade. The roadmap is expected to guide funding priorities and help clubs plan for long-term growth.

Supporting Women’s Football in Victoria

Greater inclusion of women in Victorian football has been a growing priority. As previously reported, the Bentleigh Greens received $2.4 million as part of a grant empowering grassroots women’s football. The grant is allocated to build a new pitch at Kingston Heath Soccer Complex. The Bentleigh Greens President said the new pitch will significantly expand opportunities for junior girls and senior women’s teams, many of whom currently face limited training space.

Building an Inclusive, Sustainable Football Ecosystem

As participation continues to rise across Victoria, both organisations reaffirmed their commitment to working closely to build a more inclusive, better-resourced football ecosystem, one that reflects the sport’s growth and positions community clubs at the forefront of its future. The meeting highlights the ongoing importance of inclusive dialogue as football enters a period of unprecedented expansion.

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WA Government and Virgin Australia Partner to Bring Discounted Flights for Italian Football Series in Perth

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

The Western Australian Government has partnered with Virgin Australia to offer discounted airfares to Perth ahead of a three-match series featuring AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus and Palermo, in a move that reflects how state governments are increasingly using major sporting fixtures as tools of tourism and economic strategy.

Subsidising travel costs rather than simply promoting the matches signals a shift in how state governments are approaching major sporting events. WA Tourism Minister Reece Whitby positioned the series within the state’s broader Winter of Unmissable Sport strategy, framing the partnership as a way to fill hotels, support local businesses and generate visible economic activity across a single week of programming. That logic places football alongside other major events states have used to justify public investment in visitor attraction, where the return is measured in tourism spend rather than ticket revenue alone.

A bet on Australia’s appetite for European football

Touring Italian clubs is not a routine occurrence in Australia, and Sport and Recreation Minister Rita Saffioti’s comments point to an underlying assumption behind the investment: that the existing fan base for European football in Australia is substantial enough to justify a state government underwriting travel costs to fill a stadium on the other side of the country.

Australian audiences for international football have grown considerably over the past decade, driven by streaming access, diaspora communities and the rising visibility of leagues once difficult to follow locally. State governments positioning themselves to capture economic value from that growth, rather than leaving it to broadcasters and travel operators, marks a change in how football’s commercial footprint in Australia is being treated by policymakers.

It also raises a question likely to recur as more international club fixtures are scheduled in Australian cities: whether public subsidy for travel around marquee football events delivers economic value beyond the host city, or whether the benefit is concentrated narrowly within the host state’s tourism and hospitality sectors. Virgin Australia’s involvement reflects the commercial logic on the airline side, with the partnership forming part of a broader push to connect Australians with major domestic and international destinations.

For the domestic football industry, the series is a reminder that international club football is competing for the same audience attention as the A-Leagues and grassroots competitions. Whether that competition proves complementary or extractive, in terms of where football-related spending in Australia ultimately lands, is a question state and national football bodies are likely to watch closely as similar fixtures become more frequent.

Referee Omar Artan appointed to UEFA Super Cup Final

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Image credit: BBC

The Somali referee will officiate the 2026 UEFA Super Cup in August between Paris Saint-Germain and Aston Villa.

 

World Cup controversy to Super Cup support

As 2025’s CAF Men’s Referee of the Year, Artan stands as one of the world’s leading match officials.

His expertise and skill allowed him to enter FIFA’s international list in 2018, and has since proved an outstanding ability as a referee, culminating in the CAF Men’s Referee of the Year award last year.

Despite Artan’s capabilities and reputation, his dream of officiating this summer’s World Cup tournament met a premature ending. The referee couldn’t enter into the US after arriving on a diplomatic passport and single entry visa, and was subsequently forced to return home to Somalia.

But Artan’s journey as a referee on the global stage is far from over, as UEFA and CAF confirmed that Artan will officiate the UEFA Super Cup clash between Champions League winners, PSG, and Europa League winners, Aston Villa, in Salzburg this August.

 

Upholding the partnership

In April of this year, UEFA and CAF signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which promised to utilise mutual support to encourage development, inclusion and wellbeing in football.

The MoU aligns unity, cohesion and partnership between two powerhouse continents of world football.

And now, the alignment is stronger and clearer than ever. In the midst of a major blow to Artan’s personal and professional dreams, UEFA and CAF’s partnership provided an opportunity.

“Omar is an excellent young but already experienced referee, who has proven himself at the highest competition level of the Confederation of African Football,” said UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin via media release.

“Football is made to connect people, and UEFA wants to show its respect to Omar and his outstanding officiating skills, which had earned him such a prestigious nomination.”

Furthermore, CAF President, Dr Patrice Motsepe, outlined why the initiative perfectly embodies the nature of a partnership between UEFA and CAF.

“This is a great honour for Omar Artan and for African referees and is also an excellent example of football bringing together and uniting people from Africa and Europe and worldwide.”

 

Final thoughts

Out of bitter disappointment and controversy comes a far more positive reflection of football’s influence and impact. It also proves that an MoU is more than just signatures, but a genuine promise to support the game and all within it.

A partnership like this has the power to help millions at once.

But sometimes, helping just one person is all it takes to prove its worth.

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