Brisbane Roar calls Ballymore home for the 2023/24 A-League Men’s season

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Brisbane Roar and Ballymore training venue
Image credit: Brisbane Roar

Brisbane Roar have announced an agreement with Queensland Rugby Union (QRU) that sees the Roar men’s squad using Ballymore Stadium as their training base.

With the 2023/24 A-League Men’s season already kicking off, the Roar have recently settled into their newly redeveloped venue and have used the world-class facilities for their training sessions.

Earlier this year, the QRU and Brisbane Roar agreed to let the A-League women’s squad play all their league home matches their permanently. It is public that the relationship between the Roar and the QRU is fantastic and that more deals like this would occur in the future.

QRU CEO David Hanham explained how the Ballymore facilities were perfect for the Roar squad after the recent developments

“It’s great to have the Brisbane Roar back at Ballymore. Having the men’s program train at our world-class facility reinforces the QRU’s vision for Ballymore as a multi-sport high-performance hub,”  Hanham said via Roar press release.

“It’ll see two Olympic sports in rugby and football come together at the one precinct – a milestone moment as we build towards the 2032 Brisbane Games.

“Our future vision for the Ballymore precinct is for the Eastern Stand to become a high-performance centre of excellence for Olympic sports, and the first home for women’s rectangular sport with stage one of Ballymore’s redevelopment now complete following the construction of the NRTC and McLean Stand.

“We look forward to welcoming their men’s program to the precinct but also the women’s squad to the venue for their upcoming home fixtures at Ballymore.”

BRFC Chairman and CEO Kaz Patafta expressed his excitement at the new opportunity for both Roar squads.

“The Ballymore Sports Hub is a state-of-the-art facility, and we are delighted to have our men’s squad utilise the venue as their training base,” he added via media release.

“Providing our players with a professional and consistent training environment will have a great impact on our club moving forward.

“We look forward to continuing to strengthen and expand our partnership with the QRU and we’re committed to ensuring our teams are exposed to high-performance facilities and infrastructure.”

This is a great move by the Roar, who are utilising their fantastic relationship with the QRU to give the women’s team a suitable home for league matches as well as using the world class facilities to help develop the men’s team with the potential to play a few home matches there for the 2023/24 campaign

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Football South Australia renews partnership with Datacord as Community Football Commitment Deepens

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Image Credit: Football SA

Football South Australia has announced the renewal of its partnership with Datacord, continuing a relationship that has grown steadily since the South Australian print and document solutions provider first entered the football community as naming rights sponsor of the Collegiate Soccer League Division 1.

That initial agreement, which saw Datacord align with one of Adelaide’s most historic amateur competitions, marked the beginning of what has since developed into a broader commitment to South Australian football at every level. The renewed partnership extends Datacord’s involvement beyond the CSL and into the wider Football SA ecosystem, with clubs across the state now able to access exclusive offers and preferred pricing on photocopying, managed print services and tailored business solutions.

The practical value of that access should not be understated. Community football clubs operate on tight margins, relying heavily on volunteer administrators managing everything from registration paperwork to grant applications. Cost-effective print and document solutions reduce the operational burden on those volunteers, a small but meaningful contribution to the sustainability of clubs that form the backbone of the game in South Australia.

“George is a great supporter of sport in South Australia and we are delighted to have Datacord as a supporter of football,” said Football SA CEO Michael Carter. “Service is second to none and we highly recommend their services to the business community within the Football Family.”

For Datacord Managing Director George Koutsoubis, the renewal reflects a genuine investment in the community rather than a transactional commercial arrangement. “It is important to support the local community, and Football South Australia is the perfect place to start spreading the word about Datacord and what we do for the South Australian community,” he said. “We are locally owned and operated, and I think it is a great partnership to be part of.”

Football NSW releases $600,000 towards Grassroots Grants to meet Participation Pressure

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The Victorian State Government has announced new grants and funding for 11 new community infrastructure projects for local football clubs, totalling $3.8 million.
Image Credit: Shutterstock

Sixty-five football clubs across New South Wales have secured a combined total of nearly $600,000 in funding through the NSW Office of Sport’s Local Sports Grant Program. It follows as a result of Football NSW’s scale of demand for community sport support and the growing pressure on clubs struggling to keep pace with surging participation.

The grants, covering 69 individual projects across the Football NSW footprint, will fund facility upgrades, equipment purchases, participation programs and accessibility improvements: the unglamorous but essential infrastructure that determines whether community clubs can function at the level their members require.

The Local Sports Grant Program made up to $4.65 million available statewide in 2025, with $50,000 allocated to each electoral district and individual grants capped at $20,000. Football’s share of nearly $600,000 reflects the sport’s status as the largest participation code in NSW, and the degree to which that status has not always been matched by corresponding investment in the facilities and resources required to sustain it.

Volunteers carrying an unsustainable load

The announcement arrives against a backdrop of mounting pressure on the volunteer workforce that keeps community football operational. Across NSW, thousands of volunteers dedicate significant unpaid time each week to administration, ground preparation, canteen operation and the logistical demands of running competitive junior and senior programs. As participation numbers climb, driven in part by the sustained visibility of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and the legacy of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, those demands have intensified without a corresponding increase in the resources available to meet them.

“As the largest participation sport in NSW it is pleasing to see almost $600,000 will be reinvested back into supporting our players, coaches, referees and volunteers to improve the football experience across our community clubs,” said Helen Armson, Football NSW’s Group Head of Strategic Partnerships and Corporate Affairs.

The equity dimension

The distribution of the grants across 65 clubs and 69 projects also speaks to the geographic breadth of football’s footprint in NSW, and to the uneven distribution of resources that has historically characterised community sport in this country. Clubs in outer metropolitan and regional areas tend to operate with smaller budgets, older facilities and thinner volunteer bases than their inner-city counterparts. Grant programs structured around electoral allocation, rather than club size or existing resource base, provide a degree of equity that market-driven funding cannot.

The kinds of projects funded under this program disproportionately benefit clubs serving communities where the barriers to participation are highest. A club that cannot offer adequate facilities or equipment is a club that turns players away, often without intending to.

Football NSW has used the announcement to call on the NSW Government to maintain and extend its investment in the sport. “We urge the government to continue to invest in football,” Armson said, in the midst for a nation-wide push for a $343 million decade-long infrastructure fund to address the facilities gap across the state.

The nearly $600,000 secured through this round is meaningful. Against the scale of what is needed, it is also a measure of how far the investment still has to go.

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