Indigenous Football Week 2024 power to break down barriers

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Image credit: Moriarty Foundation

Indigenous Football Week 2024, running from 23 to 29 September, will bring the football community together to highlight the sport’s ability to transform the lives of Australia’s most vulnerable children and youth.

Indigenous Football Week (IFW), an initiative by John Moriarty Football (JMF) with support from A-Leagues and Professional Footballers Australia (PFA), will feature the annual Moriarty Cup, Australia’s leading charity football tournament raising funds for JMF’s ongoing programs.

The 2024 Moriarty Cup, hosted at Sydney’s iconic Allianz Stadium, will feature 14 teams from prominent Australian companies such as Paramount+, Optus, Stan, Channel Nine, MinterEllison, and Charter Hall. They will compete for football glory while supporting Indigenous children and youth in remote and regional Australia.

The theme of Indigenous Football Week 2024, ‘Breaking Barriers,’ is inspired by the life of JMF co-founder and first Indigenous Socceroo, Yanyuwa man John Moriarty, football and education transformed his life, lifting him out of poverty.

John Moriarty, Co-Founder of John Moriarty Football, explained the positive impact the initiative has on children’s faces.

“I love seeing the big smiles on the children’s faces when I visit community and join them on the football oval. Those smiles tell a story of wellbeing, resilience and opportunity. It’s why more children attend school on the days JMF runs its sessions. After our in-curriculum sessions, they concentrate better and show more positive behaviours,” he said via press release.

“More engagement with education, and improved mental and physical health – this is the power football has to change lives, just as it changed mine.”

A-Leagues and Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) will back Indigenous Football Week, celebrating alongside fans, players, and clubs.

A-Leagues Commissioner, Nick Garcia, added further comments.

“The A-Leagues is excited to see another instalment of the Indigenous Football Week, celebrating the ongoing contribution of Indigenous football players to the game. The power of football to influence impactful change is unlike any other and the A-Leagues is proud to support the John Moriarty Foundation,” he said via press release.

IFW and JMF are initiatives of the Moriarty Foundation, an Indigenous children’s charity focused on creating a thriving future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids. Through innovative programs, the foundation is helping close gaps in education, health, wellbeing, and employment to achieve cultural, social, and economic equality for Indigenous children.

JMF’s sister program, Indi Kindi, is an early learning initiative for children from birth to five years. It combines a distinct Aboriginal teaching approach with the Australian Early Years Learning Framework. Graduates of this program are culturally strong, ready for school, and equipped with a lifelong foundation for learning.

For more information on Indigenous Football Week 2024, click here.

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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.

Victory unites with Roasting Warehouse in culture-led partnership

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Image credit: Melbourne Victory

The Melbourne-based anf family-owned business will join the Victory family, uniting two institutions which represent the city’s culture and identity.

A partnership with local roots

As the newest partner of Melbourne Victory, Roasting Warehouse joins forces with a vital part of the city’s sporting landscape.

The club’s Managing Director, Caroline Carnegie, outlined why the partnership bears so much value to both parties.

“We are excited to collaborate with Roasting Warehouse, a community-oriented destination for high-quality coffee, proud of its foundations in Melbourne,” said Carnegie via official media release.

“Football and coffee sit at the epicentre of Melbourne’s culture. The two go hand-in-hand, consistently at the centre of the conversation that stirs Melburnians, which is no different to the conversation sport and Melbourne Victory stir in the State.”

Indeed, this is a partnership which combines the identity, passions and culture of an entire city, therefore giving it the foundations required for long-term, mutual success.

Representing the best of Melbourne

Both Victory and Roasting Warehouse are hugely successful in their respective industries. They are institutions with community-oriented philosphies, who pride themselves on craft and quality.

“We’re incredibly proud to partner with Melbourne Victory, a club that represents the heart, passion, and ambition of Melbourne,” revealed Roasting Warehouse Head of Brand, Alexander Paraskevopoulos.

“As a Melbourne-founded, family-run business, supporting a team that means so much to the local community feels very natural for us.”

Furthermore, through their high-quality blends, Roasting Warehouse will look to prepare Victory’s players and staff for high performances on the pitch as the seasons nears completion.

But this is about far more than just fueling athletes.

This is a partnership which embodies and unites two of Melbourne’s greatest strengths and cultural markers – a connection forged from the city’s very own DNA.

 

For more information about Roasting Warehouse, click here.

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