
- Through its Safe Football Project, Professional Footballers Australia aims to make football the country’s safest sport for women
- Goalkeeper Morgan Aquino was part of the Player Consultation Group the PFA set up to review processes for safeguarding players
- Based on feedback from the group, the PFA concluded urgent change was needed to deliver a safe workplace free of abuse and harassment
Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) launched an initiative to further safeguard players' rights and welfare. Through its Safe Football Project, the union aims to make professional football the safest sport for women in Australia.
The catalyst for this project was former national team player Lisa De Vanna in 2021 revealing she had faced incidents of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment during her career. De Vanna spoke out during a period when more players worldwide came forward with similar stories. The PFA felt compelled to take action and review players’ workplace experiences.
"That [De Vanna’s case] was an eye opener," says goalkeeper Morgan Aquino, who last season was at Perth Glory before recently joining USA’s Power FC. Aquino was part of the Player Consultation Group the PFA set up to assist with the project. "You feel sorry that she couldn’t speak up in that moment, because who knows what her career would have looked like. Obviously she still achieved a lot, but who knows what she would have achieved if she was able to feel comfortable.
PFA Australia launches project to safeguard players

"It changed the way I was looking at the football environment," continues Aquino. "I was still young, but I started looking around more to check if everyone was getting treated well. After that [De Vanna’s case] came out, I took my soccer more seriously. If this is where I'm going to work, I want to feel safe. I don't want to be going into an environment where I'm not comfortable. What's the point of doing it as a career if you're not going to be comfortable with it?"
Aquino was one of the core members of the Player Consultation Group who, together with PFA staff, created the Safe Football Project that sets out to review processes for supporting and safeguarding players. They launched a survey in 2022 and 2023 to get a better understanding of the prevalence of abuse in the workplace.
It found that in 2022, 27 percent of the 138 players surveyed reported some form of abuse, with only 21 percent of players informing someone else about it. In 2023, 16 percent of 172 participating players reported some form of abuse, and 55 percent of them spoke about it.
"I was shocked after learning about the results," Aquino says. "But what stood out to me is the difference between the two years; that in the second year more people who had unfortunately received some sort of abuse knew where to go. They had learned from the education and weren't trying to deal with it on their own."
Based on the feedback from the Player Consultation Group, the PFA concluded that significant and urgent change was needed to deliver a safe workplace free of abuse and harassment. The union presented several recommendations including a wholesale review and five interim actions.
One of those actions is the establishment of a "landing space". Aquino explains: "It's a safe space where you can go for support, protection or answers for whatever you are experiencing. It could be a platform, a website or a brochure created by trusted peers. You can find guidance on how to stop what is going on, or you can share concerns. It's in the works, it's still to be created."

Another recommended action was education to increase players’ awareness about their rights, and where to find remedy for when those rights are not respected.
"Sometimes people forget that this is a workplace," Aquino highlights. "If you are an accountant and you were being mistreated at a job, you wouldn't put up with it. You would leave, right? But when you are playing football, you're in such a unique work environment that people can get confused how to treat you. With the learnings and with the education sessions that the PFA can bring to the teams, we show that it's not acceptable.
"If you feel you've been mistreated or you think someone else is, then it's okay to speak about it because your position won't be jeopardised. Players were scared of that; they were afraid of being dropped from their team because, at the end of the day, they want to play.
"Personally, I will call out if something's wrong," Aquino continues. "Even when I wasn't playing, I still felt I could speak up, because I'd been at Perth for so long, understood the club, and because of the relationships I had with the club I could speak to the coaches. I felt that if I spoke up, I wasn't going to get dropped or whatever."

Later this month, the PFA will host a Safe Football Conference, where Australian football stakeholders will come together to discuss player wellbeing and safety.
"The most important message is: we hear you,” says Aquino. “Don't ever feel like you have to keep something in. There are people that will help you. Keeping it in is detrimental to your physical and mental health.
"I want everyone to acknowledge the abuse that people experienced and to be empathetic to them. It is important you feel safe in the workplace. You excel in a professional environment when you feel comfortable. If there's harassment or any other type of abuse, then you're not able to perform. You come to your workplace to excel, and no one should be there stopping you from doing that."