How Ultima Sport have elevated football

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Image credit: Ultima Sport website

Ultima Sport are not a typical football essential manufacturer. The Sydney based company have made significant waves within the football plethora since becoming a business in 2020.

Immersed within the world game, Ultima Sport provide a variety of indispensable products required by footballers, specialising in the production of high quality shin guards.

Although almost never visible to the naked eye, shin guards are a footballer’s best-friend. Shielding a player’s low-leg from the brut physicality experienced throughout the art of football.

While not being visible to the naked eye, they are essential in injury prevention and longevity of a player’s overall career.

Players are synonymous with superstitions. Manchester City’s Jack Grealish an example, given his decision to represent his “lucky” boots at Wembley in a championship play-off final victory for Aston Villa in 2019.

Shin guards are rarely replaced by footballers due to the same feat. Luck, fortune and fond nostalgic memories are all immersed within the humble shin pad, rendering them irreplaceable despite the condition they may be in.

For the player associates the shin guard, as an extension of themselves as a footballer. The shin guards had ran the hard yards, put in the crunching tackles, ran that extra step, scored that match winning moment.

Acknowledging this, Ultima Sport have dedicated resources and attention towards the creation of an individual’s shin pads by providing customers with the opportunity of curating their own personal designs.

Featured upon the company website, customers have the ability in designing a pair of shin guards. With sizing, quality, and customisation all varying upon the customers’ request.

Footballers have the opportunity to instil personality into their shin pads, in whom have adopted the personality possessed by the footballer.

Ultima have made quite the movements within their short tenure. Company director Jenny Mejalli discussed the origins of the essential manufacturer with Soccerscene.

“The inspiration behind Ultima Sport back in 2020 came from our founder and international ex professional footballer Milan Susak,” she said.

“Milan is a player scout and Head Coach and Owner of SUSAK Football Academy.

“In the competitive world of football, on athletes and businesses, Ultima Sport is making significant strides towards achieving its business goals.”

Mejalli added the impact in which the Australian business has had upon football within the nation.

“With a strong focus on Australian footballers from grassroots to NPL we are working on strategic partnerships, and community engagement with clubs and state platforms which is allowing our growing presence in the industry,” she said.

“Ultima Sport has successfully attracted a loyal following base and secured collaborations with the likes of FirstTouch NPL which is a community platform for NSW NPL Footballers and more recently with Junior NPLWA which is the Western Australian community for NPL footballers.

“Paul Mejalli, Co-owner and Business Development Manager and current NPL Footballer who is on the ground with footballers, takes on feedback from fellow players when we create our designs.”

Additionally, Mejalli stated the company’s current momentum, alongside what is in store for the future.

“As our business continues to gain momentum, its primary goal remains centred on allowing footballers to create their own style with custom made shin guards along with our range of footballer essentials like grip socks,” she said.

“Ultima Sport has also kept with the trends and recently launched one of the first carbon fibre mini shin guards in Australia.

“We are poised to unlock new opportunities and solidify our position in the world of football and among the industry’s elite.”

Ultima Sport Uniguard shin guards are created from polymer materials, which is constantly used in the military and aeronautic industries, this football manufacturer will continue to transform how shin pads are utilised in the country and around the world.

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The Spreadsheet Is Dead: Majestri’s Fix for How Clubs Actually Assess Players

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If you’ve ever sat through a club’s end-of-season review, you’ll know the drill. A coach pulls out a folder of notes, someone half-remembers what a player was like back in Round 3 and a parent quietly wonders what they actually got for their rego fees beyond a team photo. Football club platform Majestri says it has a fix for that, and it’s built directly into its Player Assessment module.

Why clubs bother assessing players in the first place

According to Majestri, clubs run player assessments for one of three reasons – usually more than one at once. Some are chasing genuine development, using the data to lift the level across their high-performance squads. Others are after a fairer way to pick teams, putting every player on the same measurable scale so selection is based on evidence rather than a coach’s gut feel about who “looks the part.” And for clubs operating under a Football Australia or state federation licence, assessments at set intervals often aren’t optional – they’re a compliance requirement, with the paperwork to prove it when asked.

Whatever the motivation, Majestri’s pitch is the same: don’t let that assessment data die in a spreadsheet on someone’s laptop.

Build your own assessment, your way

There’s no one-size-fits-all template here. The Assessment Designer lets technical directors set their own criteria, sort them into whatever categories their coaching staff already use – think core skills, possession, defending, attacking – and decide what each point on the rating scale actually means. Crucially, every criterion also gets a comment field, because a bare number rarely tells the full story of a player’s development.

The Assessment Module Builder for an NPL Juniors assessment
The Assessment Module Builder, showing an NPL Juniors assessment with a 1-10 rating scale banded from under performing through to excelling and role-specific criteria grouped into core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

Build it once and it’s reusable every time that assessment cycle comes around, so every player and every coach – is working off the same yardstick.

Something for the parents to actually take home

One of the more relatable pain points Majestri is targeting: most families never see much tangible return from a season of fees beyond a team photo. Player Assessment addresses that with report cards – colour-coded against the same scale coaches used, grouped by category with averages calculated automatically, and delivered as a PDF or an interactive web page a parent can read without needing a coaching badge themselves.

A player report card for an under-15 player
A report card for an under-15 player, colour-coded from under performing to excelling, with a score for every criterion and a group average across core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

 

Turning the numbers into something useful

The real value, though, sits in what Majestri calls the Player Analysis Lab. This is where clubs can plot a player against their team-mates or an entire age group across two categories at once, spotting clusters and outliers at a glance. Every score gets read against the group average – so a “7” actually means something in context – and clubs can report at the broad category level or drill into individual fields underneath. The results can be filtered down and exported for selection meetings or grading purposes.

The Player Analysis Lab comparing players in an under-15 and under-16 squad
The Player Analysis Lab comparing seven players across under-15 and under-16 squads, with a scatter plot, a sortable table of scores against the player average, and controls for choosing which categories and fields to report on. Source: Majestri.

The admin side nobody enjoys, made easier

Beyond the flashy analytics, there’s a practical layer built for the volunteers actually running the process:

  • Sweep monitoring – a quick view of which assessments are done and which are still outstanding, organised into defined assessment periods so progress can be tracked against peers.
  • Individual development plans – every player gets a personalised plan, and clubs can group common improvement areas to run cross-team training sessions that lift the whole club rather than just one squad.
  • Access control – coaches and technical staff can only see assessments for the teams they’re responsible for, and completed assessments are only visible to people linked to that player’s registration.
“Hard numbers to draw on when you review coaching staff and curriculum – and something tangible for the players and parents who pay the fees.” – Majestri

 

The bigger picture

Majestri frames all of this as sitting on top of the club’s own data – assessment results live on each player’s profile inside the platform rather than in a spreadsheet that walks out the door when a technical director moves on. For committees, it also means hard numbers to lean on when reviewing coaching staff or curriculum, rather than relying on anecdote.

It’s a fairly clear read on where club administration software is heading: less about digitising paperwork for its own sake, and more about making the data clubs already collect actually work for player development, team selection and compliance  without adding to the workload of the volunteers who run the show.

For more information on Majestri’s Player Assessment module, visit majestri.com.au/player-assessment.

Football Has the Audience. Does It Have the Commercial Strategy?

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Image Credit: One Nil Media

Soccerscene has launched Survey 4: Commercial Confidence in Football, calling on clubs, sponsors, governing bodies, commercial leaders and football industry professionals to assess whether the game is making the most of its enormous commercial potential.

Football has the audience, participation base and community reach to be one of Australia’s most powerful commercial platforms. But does the industry have the commercial strategy, professionalism and infrastructure required to turn that potential into sustainable growth?

That is the question at the centre of Soccerscene’s latest industry research.

The survey examines how attractive grassroots football is to potential commercial partners, what industry professionals believe is limiting football’s commercial potential, and whether clubs are presenting themselves professionally enough to sponsors.

It also explores what sponsors value most when engaging with football – from community reach and participation scale to brand alignment, values and purpose – as well as whether improved facilities could directly contribute to stronger sponsorship outcomes.

Is football fully capitalising on its commercial opportunity?

Football continues to provide brands with access to highly engaged communities across grassroots, community and elite environments. Yet the commercial landscape remains fragmented, with clubs operating with vastly different levels of resources, capability, governance, media infrastructure and commercial expertise.

Soccerscene’s survey is designed to capture the industry’s perspective on where the opportunities exist – and where football may be leaving commercial value on the table.

The research will look specifically at four key areas:

  • Commercial attractiveness – How attractive is grassroots football as a commercial partnership?
  • Commercial barriers – What is holding football back from reaching its full commercial potential?
  • Club professionalism – Are clubs presenting themselves effectively and professionally to sponsors?
  • Sponsor value – What are sponsors really looking for when they invest in football?

The survey also asks whether better facilities would have a direct impact on sponsorship outcomes, highlighting the potential relationship between infrastructure, commercial presentation and investment.

Have your say

Soccerscene is encouraging football clubs, sponsors, commercial professionals, governing bodies, administrators, media professionals and industry stakeholders to participate.

The findings will contribute to Soccerscene’s ongoing program of industry research, designed to provide a clearer picture of the challenges and opportunities facing football and the organisations operating within it.

Take the Survey: Commercial Confidence in Football

Complete the Commercial Confidence in Football Survey here

The survey will close on 30 August 2026 at midnight, with responses received before the deadline included in the final analysis.

Football has the audience. The question is whether it has the commercial strategy to match.

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