Registrations open for community footy and NAB AFL Auskick in 2023
From the start of November, many community clubs and NAB AFL Auskick centres across Victoria will start to sign up players for the 2023 footy season.
Those interested in registering as a player or NAB AFL Auskick participant can find their local club by visiting play.afl, which is also the home for all information regarding community coaching, umpiring, volunteering and general club support. Individuals should contact their local club or centre if registrations haven’t yet opened to find out when they can sign up.
Participation at grassroots level across Australia rebounded strongly in 2022 following two years of significant disruption in many parts of the country because of the COVID pandemic.
In Victoria, the incredible network of volunteers, coaches, umpires and players who are behind the success of the local game drove participation to back around pre-COVID 2019 levels, with more than 173,000 people registered to play junior, youth or senior club football, across girls and boys, women and men. A further 42,000 kids registered to participate in NAB AFL Auskick programs in 2022.
Further growth is anticipated at all levels and the AFL has made a clear commitment to supporting and growing community football through a number of initiatives, including:
- The recent announcement that 10 per cent of the AFL’s assessable revenue will be enshrined for community football from 2023 onwards. This means that the overall amount invested in community football will grow from $50 million to $67 million in 2023, an increase of 35 per cent year on year.
- $5 million has been committed to delivering outcomes from the Women and Girls Action Plan over the next three years, headlined by the appointment of inaugural female Australian Football Hall of Famer Debbie Lee to lead the execution of the plan.
- The all-new, free AFL Schools program - play.afl/schools - has been designed to make it easy for teachers to deliver quality in-classroom and on-field lessons for students anywhere in the country
Head of AFL Victoria, Ben Kavenagh, said: “After so much disruption and uncertainty in recent years, we start to look forward to the 2023 community football season with a great deal of excitement knowing the game rebounded very well this year.
“Community clubs and NAB AFL Auskick Centres will start to sign up participants and build towards next year.
“While community football is generally in good shape, there are areas of the game where support is needed and directing investment towards these areas of need is a big focus of the AFL.
“Getting young boys back to junior football will continue to be a priority as this segment was impacted by the pandemic disruption. We will continue to develop and upgrade facilities across the state to cater for growth, particularly for women and girls, and tailor our community football offerings to be more accessible and welcoming of multicultural communities.”
For more information visit play.afl or call 1800 PLAYAFL (1800 7529 235) from Monday to Friday between 9am – 5pm AEDT.
