Football NSW is pleased to announce the inaugural recipients of the Let’s Light Up Football Campaign with 17 clubs/council’s receiving funding to light up community football fields across NSW.
The Let’s Light Up Football Campaign has seen $300,000 from the Community Investment Fund spread across the state to provide much needed lighting upgrades for community football clubs.
The Community Investment Fund is a joint initiative of both Football NSW and Football Federation Australia (FFA) and is made possible by the FFA’s annual grant to Football NSW.
Football is the most popular sport in Australia and NSW with AusPlay statistics highlighting that there are over 600,000 players in NSW and 1.1 million players playing nationally.
With almost 5% of the national population participating in football, the need to improve facilities is imperative to the continual growth of the game.
Football NSW CEO, Stuart Hodge stated, “it is exciting to financially assist our members with the upgrade and renewal of 17 floodlight projects across our regional and metropolitan associations”. Lights are a crucial element of a football facility and a simple but effective way to improve the quality of many facilities”.
“It was wonderful to see such a large number of applications in the first year of the campaign. This highlights the issue of poor and inadequate lighting on community fields that clubs are currently experiencing and we will endeavour to repeat the project next year”.
The Let’s Light Up Football Campaign will improve floodlighting for 17 clubs across the state bringing fields up to the minimum Australian Lighting Standards for training and competition. This will be mainly through increased additional lamps, poles and infrastructure.
Manager – Government Relations, Funding and Infrastructure, Daniel Ristic said, “this funding will allow teams to train in a safe and secure setting for the first time ever”.
“Clubs have trained under very poor lighting conditions with often just one pole in a corner of a field – often with old technology – for many years. Through these upgrades, clubs will now be able to use an entire field for training and competition, which will no doubt assist in the safety and development of players” added Mr Ristic.
The Let’s Light Up Football Campaign has been the first ever football facility fund offered to member clubs and associations of Football NSW. With the success of the fund Football NSW will look to roll out similar funding in the near future to continue the much-needed investment into community football fields.
Successful applicants from the Let’s Light Up Football Fund are as follows (alphabetical order):
| Club | Venue | Council |
| Albion Park SC & Albion Park White Eagles FC | Terry Reserve | Shellharbour |
| Albury Hotspurs SC | Lambert Park | Albury |
| Australian National SC | Parry Park | Canterbury Bankstown |
| Bulli FC | Holly Mount Park | Wollongong City |
| Campbelltown Uniting Church SC | Lynwood Park | Campbelltown City |
| Central Coast Football | Pluim Park | Central Coast |
| Dee Why FC | Dee Why Oval | Northern Beaches |
| Eschol Park FC | Eschol Park Sporting Complex | Campbelltown City |
| Forest Rangers FC | Gannons Park | Georges River |
| Gladesville Ravens FC | Monash Park | City of Ryde |
| Lindfield FC | Princes Park | Ku-ring-gai |
| Macquarie Dragons FC | Marsfield Park | City of Ryde |
| Menai Hawks FC | Heritage Drive Oval | Sutherland Shire |
| Minto District SC | Sarah Redfern Playing Fields | Campbelltown City |
| Newington SC | Wilson Park | City of Parramatta |
| North Rocks SC | North Rocks Park | City of Parramatta |
| Parramatta FC | Everley Park North | Cumberland |
