Soccerscene the only online publication dedicated to the Australian and international football industry. It serves as a practical guide for those involved in the business of running a football club and bringing readers up-to-date research and development across all football matters providing insights, discussion and information related to topics that matter.
Why we should be extra careful with what we say online
Social media, for the most part has been a groundbreaking invention that has allowed people across the world to interact from the comfort of their own homes.
We are able to communicate with friends, family and anyone else through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and before their declines, myspace and Messenger.
But in the eyes of some, the use of social media has allowed those to express feelings and thoughts in a negative manner. And in the world of sport, there’s usually someone or something on the receiving end of this ‘abuse’.
Quite frankly, it’s downright disgusting.
To hide behind a keyboard and post things you wouldn’t say to or someone if they were standing right in front of you is a true act of cowardice. And deservedly, it’s universally condemned.
But it’s easy to take this perspective when you’re fortunate enough to not be the subject of online abuse and vitriol.
For those who play sport at a professional level and for clubs with significant fan bases, it can be quite scary to read things that people around the world say about you.
With the stakes they play for being so high, any level of failure is met with a knee-jerk reaction by those online. And with such easy access to the aforementioned platforms, it’s hard for professional athletes to see the bright side.
Some athletes do see the bright side, knowing that what’s said online rarely translates to what’s said in real life. A great example of this is through the popular TV segment, Mean Tweets.
Hosted by late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, high profile people are made to read derogatory tweets directed at them, with most of them expressing laughter at the stupidity of what’s said.
Here’s a couple of examples of the segment.
But then there’s the other side of the equation, those who do get affected by what people say.
Often, these comments left online can be quite upsetting and sometimes, those on the receiving end don’t take it well. And despite there being those who can cop the abuse, some have different perspectives.
These comments, whether they’re made online or from the stands, are dragging the game of soccer down and it’s a real shame.
Back in 2017, Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren played a poor game against Tottenham Hotspur in a 4-1 loss. Following the game, Lovren’s family members were threatened purely based on his performance.
You could be the most soulless person on this planet and still find that kind of comment disgraceful.
Briefly on Tottenham, left-back Danny Rose was diagnosed with depression in 2018. He seems to have put it behind him after becoming a first team regular for Tottenham this season.
Granted, Rose has admitted that injuries played a part in his depression during a BBC video that went online this year (can be found below in full), but it goes to show something.
We may see them as these worldwide superstars who can do anything. But in reality, they’re just like us.
Some may think that these comments don’t have any affect, but they do.
Mental health is one of the biggest problems surrounding soccer players and athletes around the globe because people think that they can say anything and get away with it.
They say these things for numerous reasons. Their performances on the field, as we know. It can be down to their appearance and personality (see above video for Peter Crouch). But there’s one other factor.
The fact that most of these players are millionaires.
Footballers get paid lots of money and there is a select group that think because of this, they should never be sad in their lives. Purely because they’re a bit wealthier than most folk.
To rebut these opinions, there is only one thing that needs to be said.
Money can’t buy happiness.
So before you send that tweet, Facebook post or whatever it is, put yourselves in their shoes.
How would you feel seeing someone say that about you? Because in life, you should only treat people the way you want to be treated.
And it’s time that we stamp the abuse out, whether it’s racism, sexism or general oppression. Because whatever it is, it has no place in sport or in life. Anywhere.
The A-League reported last week that Australia’s international transfer revenue has increased by a staggering 1344% over the past three years.
With 2023/24 recording transfer revenue of $16.5 million and 2024/25 reaching $16.9 million, these figures represent a significant improvement compared to the 2022 season, which recorded just $4.17 million in revenue.
This growth coincides with recent data from the A-League showing that the 2024/25 season has seen 39% of A-League minutes played by under-23 players, compared to just 18% in the 2023/24 season and 13% in the 2022/23 season.
This indicates that this season alone has seen a 26% increase in overall minutes played by young players since 2022.
The result of this rise in youth talent is evident with Australia qualifying for the Under-20 Men’s World Cup for the first time in more than a decade and, just last week, lifting the trophy at the Under-20 Asian Cup.
The A-League’s recent success in youth playing time is directly intertwined with the rise in transfer revenue.
This increase in youth participation has emerged as a silver lining from tough times in the league.
In the most recent “Off the Pitch” podcast from Soccerscene, guest speaker Gary Cole, current president of Football Coaches Australia, provided his professional insight into one of these situations.
He explained that the COVID-19 crisis and the financial constraints placed on A-League clubs forced them to look inwards for talent.
Another recent catalyst has been the reduction in funding from the Australian Professional Leagues.
With funding decreasing from $2 million to $500,000 in 2024, clubs have faced difficult financial decisions regarding their budgets.
Players from club academies or even NPL clubs are far more cost-effective for club budgets than more expensive signings.
Additionally, their selling and transfer value provides a huge boost to club revenues.
These events are not coincidental but are catalysts for the rise in homegrown talent testing their skills and showcasing their quality on the big stage.
It demonstrates how, during tough times for the league, supporting youth development has become a key part of the league’s success and represents a profitable and dynamic opportunity for the future.
This opportunity to produce and showcase players to increase Australian youth football standards and therefore transfer value is a proven strategy in football.
Ajax’s Academy is renowned for developing class players and has for many years been a funnel for building their academy graduates and selling players for a profit.
In South America, Brazilian and Argentinian clubs such as River Plate, Boca Juniors, Fluminense and Flamengo have been persistent sources of footballing talent.
Selling stars like Vinicius and Julian Alvarez to Europe for significant financial benefits while still maintaining a healthy domestic talent structure and international success.
Importantly, the common factor in these successful systems is regular first-team minutes at their clubs and even on the international stage.
The evidence from A-League transfer revenues is fitting this pattern.
One must point out that, though this is a great revenue source and a way to place Australian football on the map, this focus can have an adverse effect on the domestic scene.
Football fans are passionate about their clubs, and nothing brings out more pride than watching one of their own prospects grow and play for them.
To use academy players primarily as revenue-building prospects can undermine the important place they have at the club and the overall goal of academies.
This could potentially alienate fan bases, impacting popularity and therefore the quality and financial interests of the league.
Transfer revenue should not be the central response to the league’s current financial burdens.
Being realistic about the position of the A-League in the international football hierarchy is crucial, though ambitions for the league to climb cannot be sidelined.
The rise in player transfer revenue presents an enticing prospect for investment and brings increased popularity.
Players themselves also have their own dreams and aspirations that must be taken into account, which can also encourage transfers and revenue.
Currently, the A-League has the unique opportunity to give its promising young players the chance to play top-level football while producing significant revenue and attracting sponsorship.
Australians playing overseas and at home, puts Australia on the map and solidifies our rise in the footballing scene.
If the focus on homegrown talent is managed well, Australian football will reap huge rewards.
Back in September, Rangers FC confirmed they had extended their partnership with Kindred Group establishing this special alliance as the longest-standing of its kind in British football for its tenth season now.
Kindred Group, an online gambling company, have invested their time providing help in the local community, with initiatives such as ‘Team Talk’, which the Rangers Charity Foundation team run.
Most gambling operators put their logos on jerseys or have it around the grounds and consider it a success, Kindred is not the average gambling company as they wanted to make sure there was a wider piece of work going on.
During an extensive conversation with Soccerscene, Group Head of Corporate Affairs at Kindred Group, Tom Banks, spoke in-depth to Alex Bagdasarian about the relationship between the two parties, the work done in the local community, men’s mental health, and much more.
Can you explain to us about the benefits of both parties and the relationship you two have over the last 10 years?
Tom Banks: We’ve had a very long relationship with them, it’s into its tenth season and we have seen them through ups and downs in terms of seeing them in European Cup finals and supported them through when they were relegated down to championship, promoted back to the Scottish Premiership, so it has been a rollercoaster of a journey, it has been really great.
Rangers FC, as lots of football fans will know are steeped in heritage and got a really special place in football not just in Scotland and the wider United Kingdom, but across Europe as well, it is a very well-known club and a well known brand. We have been proud to support them for the last 10 seasons and what has been really good is particularly the last few years we’ve worked hard across all of our sponsorships in football to create a new model of sponsorship that not only benefits the club in terms of our support from a club perspective, but also the communities and so every club that we sponsor now across the UK always has a community benefit angle to it, so in the example of Rangers for the last few years we have supported a great project called ‘Team Talk,’ which focuses on mental health and particularly men’s mental health.
It uses the football club as a sort of conversation starter for men who might not otherwise feel comfortable to open up about their mental health and so we have seen a huge support for that organisation and that program has grown significantly as a result of our funding and that’s really great and we have replicated that across other clubs that we support that focus on mental health.
We did our research a few years ago with a research agency that showed football clubs and men have a unique link and everybody knows it and if you can leverage that the right way to open up conversations about how you’re doing and your wider mental health then there is a real opportunity to get a conversation going and make improvements.
Image provided by Kindred Group.
Can you explain to us what work has been done in the local community?
Tom Banks: That’s predominantly through our support of the ‘Team Talk’ initiative which the Rangers Charity Foundation team run, that program runs once or twice a week, we funded it from a supporter perspective which has meant it can be open for longer, it can have more people turn up and it hosts more sessions, it has been great to see that program grow.
Quite a bit of it is individuals sharing with everyone having a shared passion of the club and so that is a nice entry point for people, and if they want to talk a bit about how they are doing more broadly they can, and there is staff who are trained on hand to have those conversations with them but they also do football sessions.
The club and foundation has seen a strong growth in terms of the numbers of people that have turned up to those sessions, as a result the support we have been able to provide that can advertise those sessions more widely.
Previously to the mental health project that we have supported The ‘Team Talk’ program, we have also sponsored resources for homeless charities in Glasgow, so we have done bits and pieces so that’s why over the last couple of years we have created more of a defined model of what our sponsorship looks like in terms of community benefit and l think we have started to see the benefits of that now in regards to a real increase and engagement with the community.
You mentioned the support of a men’s mental health initiative called ‘Team Talk’, explain to us in further detail and what it involves.
Tom Banks: The beauty of that program is that it is a real enabler for people to talk, with a dozen men attending the sessions every week and staff tracking how they are doing from when they first joined the program right the way through and we have seen a big improvement in the wellbeing of the participants.
It is not a medical program, it is reducing the barriers to talk about if they have any problems with their mental health, we have sponsored other clubs that have had similar projects and they are really powerful.
The research that we were provided in the last couple of years did show that men are statistically less likely to talk about any kind of mental health issues but they are statistically much more likely to be very passionate football fans and so there is a nice intersection to be able to use the football club and the sport to make them feel more comfortable to start talking and that’s really important which has been valuable for that project because initiatives such as ‘Team Talk’ have showed that the science behind what we thought we knew from the research is proving correct, it has been great to see it being developed over the last couple of years.
Is there a particular demographic that comes through the doors the most?
Tom Banks: It’s not exclusive to men but it’s focused predominantly on men, we expected it to be slightly older men, or who are on their own or who don’t have that many people around them in terms of support network but it has actually been quite diverse.
There is some quite younger people that come through the doors because mental health can affect anybody because it’s not like other types of diseases that affects over 65s or men of a certain weight.
Its been interesting to see the broad demographic split of men, it slightly leans older but overall it is diverse and l think that shows the fact that mental health doesn’t necessarily discriminate against any type of character.
Image provided by Kindred Group.
Kindreds approach to ‘Zero % Mission’, can you explain to us what it involves and the tools available for Rangers fans?
Tom Banks: The Zero % Mission is something we are really proud of and Kindred is the parent company and that has this overarching journey and an ambition the company has to reach zero % of its revenue derived from harmful gambling where people have had issues when they play and it is a small percentage of what we see which is around 2-3% from where our revenue comes from but the aim is to get that to 0%, we have seen good success on reducing that percentage over the last three or four years and so the Zero % Mission is almost our consumer facing campaign element of the journey to zero.
What it means and why we are proud of the work that we have done with Rangers but also other clubs is because we use the sort of advertising assets and the sponsorships assets like the front of shirts has Zero % Mission underneath and a lot of LED around the ground will refer to that.
We remain l think one of the only gambling operators that just doesn’t have their logo on the shirt but also has some form of safer gambling type of messaging and we think that is important to use our assets for good.
It has been good to use the Zero % Mission to open up the conversation on safer gambling with fans and punters more easily. I suppose it’s about insuring fans that are aware of the variety of tools that players have available when they gamble and actually we have seen a really good benefit of that and us talking more about that through the Zero % Mission.
In 2020, about 40% of our player base use a voluntary safe gambling tools so that’s factors such as a deposit limit or a loss limit, there is various tools that are available for players, much like on Netflix where it says ‘are you still watching?’, we have very similar things on our platforms to make sure individuals are aware and in control, but it’s actually up to about three quarters of our player base that have one now.
I think we have gotten a lot better as a sector and everything else from a Kindred perspective, using our sponsorships to really highlight and promote the use of these tools because for us it’s really important that our players on our platforms are doing it in a controlled way.
Lastly, is there any new initiatives planned between both parties in the extension of the partnership?
Tom Banks: We will be doing a range of interesting things from a content perspective so that will come throughout the year, what we will try to do is utilise some of the players and assets to think about how we can use our sponsorship creatively but the main thing is the ongoing support of Team Talk, we expect there will be further developments for that program over the course of the year as a result of the funding and it may be possible for them to expand the program in the next 12 months.
It is one for people to keep an eye on, we are really keen for the sponsorship to continue evolving but we’re just really excited to be part of it again for another season. I think it’s the longest running deal in British football and so that is a challenge as much as it is an area of pride because we have been going for a long time to keep it new and fresh for the fans is important.
We’re trying to challenge ourselves to make sure we think of new ways to innovate in terms of giving benefits to the club and the community but there is definitely exciting things on the horizon.
