The Parliamentary Friends of Football staged their inaugural meeting in Canberra today, which was launched by Federal Minister for Sport the Hon. Peter Dutton.
The group, which consists of nearly 40 bi-partisan Ministers and Senators, has been set up in a similar vein to rival sporting codes and will ensure football has a powerful network inside Parliament House.Today's event was also attended by football dignitaries from around the county including Football Federation Australia (FFA) CEO David Gallop, LOC AFC Asian Cup CEO Michael Brown and former Socceroo Brett Emerton, who is a FFA and Asian Cup ambassador.
FFA CEO David Gallop lauded the thinking behind the initiative and looked forward to working with members of parliament to continue to see football prosper in Australia.
“Football has found many new friends over the past three years of quite staggering growth and we're delighted to see we've got so many friends here in the nation's parliament,” said Gallop.
“I can say with certainty that football is driving in every State and Territory in Australia and we look forward to telling our stories to the elected representatives.”
Queensland's Liberal Member for Forde, Bert van Manen and Labor's Member for Moreton, Graham Perrett will co-chair the new group.
