PFA Teams Up with UK’s Green Football Weekend for Kit Sustainability

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PFA & The Green Weekend announce partnership for the Great Save 2025.
Image credit: PFA

Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) has joined forces with the UK’s Green Football Weekend for The Great Save 2025, a global campaign tackling football kit waste.

By bringing The Great Save to Australia, the PFA is urging clubs, players, and fans to rethink how they dispose of kit and its environmental impact.

The Great Save aims to keep sports kit in play for longer – via donations, re-sale, reusing or upcycling – helping to reduce waste, save money, and support those in the community who may otherwise lack access to kit.

The players’ union is partnering with several sustainability organisations to drive real impact.

KitAid Australia and The Salvation Army will distribute donated kit to disadvantaged communities, while Unwanted FC will help players upcycle old jerseys.

With a large demand due to new fashion trends, Vintage resellers will also keep classic and retro kits in circulation.

PFA Chief Executive Beau Busch explained how the need for sustainability in football has become a major topic and lead to this alliance.

“Sustainability in football is increasingly important to players and fans. The Great Save 2025 offers a real chance to keep kits in use longer, reduce waste, and provide gear to communities in need,” he said via press release.

“Building sustainable practices in clubs and leagues requires a whole-of-industry effort, and I’m proud that players are once again leading on this critical issue.”

An extension of the PFA’s Greener Games 2024, The Great Save follows the PFA’s nomination for Elite Organisation of the Year at the BBC Green Sport Awards.

Emma Ilijoski, a member of the PFA’s climate-conscious advocacy group, Our Greener Pitch, said supporting The Great Save would help leverage football’s global appeal, and connect fans and players to make an impact in the UK and Australia.

“Footballers collect a lot of gear during their careers, from junior clubs through to senior professional football,” she said via press release.

“Instead of letting it go to waste, we can create a cycle where kit is reused, keeping its nostalgic value, and also benefit those in need. The Great Save makes that possible.”

In 2024, the PFA’s Stoppage Time report explored football’s climate impact in Australia and New Zealand, sports and with that football has always had an important place for supporting sustainability.

This collaboration has the unique positions of positively effecting all pyramids in the industry in active sustainable practices and arguably having greater effect.

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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.

Football NSW supports Female Coaches CPD as Women’s Football Surges

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football NSW has used the platform of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to deliver a targeted professional development workshop for female coaches, bringing together scholarship recipients for an evening of structured learning and direct engagement with elite women’s football.

Held at ACPE last month, the session was open to female coaches who received C or B Diploma scholarships through Football NSW in 2025. Coaching accreditation carries a financial cost that disproportionately affects women, who are less likely to have their development subsidised by clubs or associations operating in underfunded community football environments. Scholarship access changes that equation at the point where many women exit the pathway.

Facilitated by Football NSW Coach Development Coordinator Bronwyn Kiceec, the workshop focused on goal scoring trends from the tournament’s group stage, with coaches analysing attacking patterns and exploring how those insights could translate into their own environments. The group then attended the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia.

The structure of the evening mattered as much as its content. Female coaches in community football rarely have access to elite competition environments as a professional resource. The gap between the level at which most women coach and the level at which the game is analysed and discussed tends to reinforce itself. Placing scholarship recipients inside a major tournament, as participants rather than spectators, closes that gap in a way that a classroom session cannot.

Female coaches remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of the game in Australia. The pipeline that will change that depends not only on accreditation access but on the professional networks, peer relationships and exposure to elite environments that male coaches have historically taken for granted.

The workshop forms part of Football NSW’s ongoing commitment to developing female coaches through scholarships and structured learning opportunities.

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