School Sport Victoria partnership supports the growth of footy

AFL Victoria is pleased to announce a new partnership with School Sport Victoria (SSV) that will support an extensive range of school football opportunities to primary and secondary students across Victoria.

SSV helps to develop young people through school sport and supports schools to maximise opportunities for all students to play sport. The role of SSV is to focus on:

• PLAY - Providing inclusive and accessible participative and competitive opportunities in school sport to involve a wider range of Victorian students.
• VALUE - Enhancing the role of school sport as part of a whole-school approach to physical activity and physical literacy of all students.
• CONNECT - Facilitating partnerships between schools and communities through school sport to support life long participation in physical activity.

With the establishment of SSV in 2010, participation opportunities in the Australian Rules Football interschool competition grew by 24% by 2019. Participation opportunities for secondary school students was over 260,000—the most of any SSV sport. In 2021, there were over 57,000 interschool Australian football participation opportunities for Victorian students.

SSV has also helped to deliver interschool sport opportunities to girls for over 25 years and has contributed to a massive growth in participation of women and girls playing Australian Rules Football. Girls primary school Australian Football participation grew by 9,300 participants from 2010 to 2019, a 502% growth.

The new partnership and AFL Victoria's continued investment into school sport will further generate participation and transition opportunities into community footy.

Head of AFL Victoria, Ben Kavenagh, said: “Australian football has been a huge part of schools in Victoria for generations and will continue to be. The work School Sport Victoria does in promoting and helping to grow the game is a significant part of this."

“AFL Victoria is pleased to continue to partner with SSV and support the delivery of school football competitions, which help ensure schools, students and teachers across the state remain closely connected to Australian football and can participate in our great game.”

For more information about AFL Victoria's School Programs and initiatives, head to AFL Victoria | Schools