Western United have recently agreed a two-year extension with Science in Sport (SiS) to remain as its Official Performance Nutrition Partner.
This confirmation will allow the club and its academy players to continue to gain access to SiS’s award-winning sports expertise and nutrition products such as their energy gels and recovery powders.
Since collaborating in November 2020, the pair has seen success together with Western United being crowned as A-League Men champions in 2022.
Soccerscene spoke with Commercial Partnerships Executive at Western United, Nathan Perrone, who discusses the journey with SiS, the reasons to extend its partnership with the global nutrition brand and what the future holds for the pair over the next two years.
How did Western United and SiS initially come together as partners in November 2020?
Nathan Perrone: It came together through our Lead Strength and Conditioning Coach at the time, Andrew Rondinelli.
“Rondo” as he’s known, currently works for the GWS Giants and left Western United at the end of the 2022/23 season. He was a big advocate for SiS and had used them in the past at other clubs.
It worked within Australia and the sporting landscape and Andrew Pirchan (former Commercial Partnerships Manager at Western United) managed to organise a deal.
They’ve been a fantastic partner and contributor to the high-performance side for our A-League teams, and I know the strength and conditioning staff really appreciate what they can provide.
SiS have not only collaborated with other football clubs across the world but have worked in other sports such as cycling and rowing. What made SiS stand out from other nutrition brands?
Nathan Perrone: They’re a global brand that works with some of the top performers in the world.
Seeing the likes of Spurs that they work with and hearing their involvements, I think it bodes well for our high-performance team because they want our players to be provided with the best nutrition possible, the supplements and whatever is needed to help increase their performance and recovery.
I’m not the expert in this space and with a lot of these football related partnerships, I play an element from a business lens but a lot of it comes down to the players and staff.
If it’s a product that they like and support, I take their best practice and their advice, and they’re all key.
They’ve acknowledged to us that they wanted to try and keep one club in the A-League, and they didn’t want to support other clubs in Victoria or interstate.
It’s nice to hear from them overseas that they want to just back us and go all in on one club. It’s a privilege to be able to continue with them.
What are the factors that led to this extended partnership with SiS and would you say Western United winning the A-League Championship in 2022 contributed to that?
Nathan Perrone: I’d like to think Tom (Global Head of Elite Sport at SiS) would think it’s part of it. Ultimately it has an impact, and you don’t want to provide the players with products that aren’t top standard.
For us, it was a no brainer coming to the end of the last agreement and there wasn’t really any doubt from my mind, the football staff or Tom’s for that matter.
For both of us, we just want to get better at trying to elevate the partnership and we’re doing what we can to help promote and support them in Australia, especially.
We can continue to expose ourselves to other clubs they work with as well and learn best practice.
What will we see next in this partnership between Western United and SiS and could we see the latter having an increased role as a partner of the club?
Nathan Perrone: The scale of going to jersey branding is probably unlikely at this point. I know they’ve recently done a big deal with Rugby Australia, for example, so they’re definitely wanting to increase their footprint.
We have a new contact, Sean Morley, who works at Nutrition APAC, playing a key role in distribution of SiS in Australia.
He’s going to be more hands on with us to try to do some more giveaways or digital content with the players to really enhance it on that level.
That’s their big play in trying to break into local clubs and the NPL, but they really want to become top of mind in Australia for professional athletes and others as well.
Yvette Henshall-Bell, President Europe, Forest & Garden Division at Husqvarna, has been one of the key people to orchestrate the deal.
