Nickname(s) The Victory Ground Capacity 30,050 and 53,359 Training ground Goschs Paddock | Short name MVFC League A-League CEO Ian Robson (5 Aug 2013–) | |
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Full name Melbourne Victory Football Club Founded 1 November 2004; 12 years ago (2004-11-01) Profiles | ||
Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. It competes in the country's premier competition, the A-League, under licence from Football Federation Australia. Victory entered the competition in the inaugural season as the only Victorian-based club in the newly revamped domestic Australian league. The club has won three A-League Championships, three A-League Premierships, one Pre-Season Challenge Cup and one FFA Cup, the only club to have won all four Australian soccer trophies. They have also competed in the AFC Champions League on five occasions.
Contents
- History
- Colours and badge
- Club songs
- Stadium
- Support
- Rivalries
- First team squad
- Out on loan
- Corporate
- Sponsors
- Honours
- Records
- References
The club plays matches at both multi-use venues, Melbourne Rectangular Stadium and Docklands Stadium, with seated capacities of 30,050 and 56,347 respectively. A youth team competes in the National Youth League. A women's team competes in the W-League. The youth and women matches are played at various locations across Melbourne, including Lakeside Stadium, Kingston Heath Soccer Complex as well as Melbourne Rectangular Stadium.
History
-DNQ denotes that the club Did Not Qualify for the particular fixture
-Not Held denotes that the event did not take place
-TBD denotes that the final outcome has not occurred
Colours and badge
Melbourne Victory's club colours are navy blue, silver and white, which encompass the traditional state sporting colours of Victoria. In the Victory's inaugural A-League season, only the club badge displayed a chevron, known colloquially as the "Big V", a symbol traditionally used by the Victoria Australian rules football team. From the 2006–07 season the away strip was changed to a grey jersey with a white chevron on the front. This was an immediate hit with the club's supporters, and from the 2007–08 season onwards Melbourne's home jersey also sported the white chevron on the front. A new kit was introduced for the 2008 AFC Champions League due to AFC rules requiring kits to have player numbers on the front of the uniform as well as the back, which would not fit well with the 'V' on the Victory's regular kit. For the 2009–10 season, Melbourne changed their away jersey to be a reverse of their home jersey; a white shirt with a blue chevron. In 2010, Melbourne wore the TAC 'seatbelt' shirt against Perth Glory in a charity event to raise awareness for the necessary use of seat belts in cars. On 16 June 2011, the current kits were announced via the club's YouTube channel, which features a change to a fluoro yellow away jersey. Adidas were announced as the club's official kit manufacturer for five years. For their 2013–14 kits, Melbourne Victory received backlash from supporters following the releasing of the kits, as the away kits had a large resemblance to rivals Sydney FC.
Club songs
"Stand by Me" by Ben E. King is played prior to kick-off, when the Victory walk onto the field. "Victory the Brave", a rearrangement for the club of Scotland the Brave by Jim Keays of The Masters Apprentices, is played after a home win, as is "Horses" by Daryl Braithwaite at AAMI Park as well as Docklands Stadium.
Stadium
Melbourne were originally based at the 50-year-old Olympic Park Stadium, where they played all home matches during the 2005–06 A-League season. This stadium had seated areas only on the wings, with standing-room sandy terraces on the north and south ends. The average crowd during the first year was 14,158.
On 2 September 2006, Melbourne Victory played Sydney FC at the 56,000 capacity Docklands Stadium. The match was a runaway success in terms of crowds, with 39,730 in attendance. As a result, the club moved all but one of their home games to the ground.
This move to such a large stadium was viewed with scepticism by many, but proved to be an outstanding success, with the Grand Final held there. The average attendance rose to 27,728 for the 2006–07 season, 10,000 above the next highest in the A-League.
Prior to the 2006–07 season the club had planned to move to a new $190 million stadium being built to the east of the current Olympic Park complex. The new stadium was originally expected to sit approximately 20,000 spectators (expandable to 25,000) and was to be completed by 2009.
These plans were revised after the Victory refused to commit to playing at such a small capacity stadium. On 23 May 2007, the club announced it had signed as a founding co-tenant of the new stadium, which would now be built to accommodate a maximum of 30,050 spectators with further renovations to 50,000 possible. However, further expansion in the near-term is unlikely as it was discovered during Australia's World Cup Bid process that to build such an expansion would be prohibitively expensive.
Docklands Stadium continued to serve as the club's only home ground until the completion of AAMI Park. The club split its home games between the new stadium and Etihad Stadium from the 2010–11 A-League campaign onwards; the games of less importance or potential drawing power at the new stadium and the 'blockbusters' and finals matches at Etihad Stadium.
On 15 February 2014, Melbourne Victory played their Asian Champions League qualifying game against Muangthong United at Kardinia Park in Geelong due to AAMI Park and Etihad Stadium being unavailable.
Support
Melbourne Victory has the largest supporter base in Australia and has consistently set record highs in membership and attendance.
In January 2011, the Horda group was suspected to have stolen a banner from Melbourne Heart's Yarraside active group. In the following games, Horda banners were banned, which led to great protest from the Northern Terrace active members. At the following games, there was an increase in police and security present at the active area. Fans that were perceived as being "too aggressive" were escorted from the terrace, and in some cases fined or banned from the terrace. This led to the fans' anger escalating as they protested against the police control. On 2 February 2011, the fans from the North Terrace organised a silent protest for the Melbourne Victory – Newcastle Jets match. They left the North Terrace empty, and had a banner saying "No fans no past no future – without us you are nothing", "NT United". The banner was later confiscated by the police.
In February 2011, Victoria Police said they were reluctant to cover Melbourne Victory games because of behaviour by fans that they claimed was unacceptable. Problems included violence, anti-social behaviour and the lighting of flares.
On 3 January 2014 the Football Federation of Australia charged both Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers with bringing the game into disrepute following violent fan behaviour before and during their game on 28 December 2013.
Rivalries
Rivalry exists with Sydney FC, Melbourne City !Melbourne City and Adelaide United, as well as a budding rivalry with the Western Sydney Wanderers.
First team squad
As of 31 July 2016Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Out on loan
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Corporate
As of 2015, the largest of around fifty shareholders of Melbourne Victory Ltd, an unlisted public company, is Mario Biasin, owner of construction company Metricon, followed by others including current Victory chairman Anthony Di Pietro, CEO of Premier Fruits Group.
Victory struggled to raise the initial $5 million equity capital to join the A-League in its first year and the FFA helped the club over the line by contributing franchise and set-up fees of about $500,000. The FFA took a ten per cent holding in the club in return, as well as having a representative on the Victory board. The shareholding was offered back to the club in 2007 and Geoff Lord and his partners – including Ron Peck, Richard Wilson and John Harris – raised the money to buy the shares.
In 2014, it was announced that major shareholder, real estate investor Harry Stamoulis and fellow shareholder Robert Belteky, Managing Director of car parking company Care Park, along with some other minority shareholders, would offer their combined 35% stake in Melbourne Victory for sale to the general public, making part ownership of the club available to regular fans, a first for an A-League club. However, despite payments already having been collected from fans by the facilitator of the sale Deloitte, on the 12 of November it was announced that the entire allocation of shares were eventually purchased "by a small number of long-term substantial shareholders".
Victory's commercial success has even surpassed many much longer established Melbourne AFL teams (with Hawthorn the only team to report a higher profit in 2014-15). Despite this, Melbourne Victory FC is not a "for profit" business, and as such the shareholders have never taken a dividend.
Sponsors
On 5 December 2005, South Korean electronics giant Samsung became the club's major sponsor in a two-year deal. This would ensure that Samsung would have their logo feature on the front and the back of Victory's home and away kits. Prior to the 2006–07 season, KFC were announced as Victory's sleeve sponsor, with their logo appearing on the sleeve of Victory's home and away kits. On 28 January 2009, Samsung announced that they would not be renewing their sponsorship for the 2009–10 A-League season. Intralot became the Melbourne Victory's new major sponsor when they signed a two-season $2 million contract on 4 May 2009. Their logo subsequently featured on the front of Melbourne Victory's playing strip, starting from the 2009–10 season. On 6 August 2010, it was announced that law firm Florin Burhala Lawyers would be Melbourne Victory's official shorts sponsor for the 2010–11 season. On 1 June 2011, it was announced that human resources company Adecco Group signed a three-year deal as the club's major sponsor, replacing Intralot. As part of the deal, Adecco's logo will appear on the front of the club's playing strip. Melbourne Victory announced on 16 June 2011 that they had signed a five-year deal with global sportswear giant Adidas as the club's official kit manufacturer.
Honours
Records
Archie Thompson holds the team record for number of total games played with 224 matches. Thompson also holds the record for all-time highest goalscorer in all competitions with 95 goals.
Melbourne Victory's record win came against Adelaide United 6–0, on 18 February 2007, in the 2007 A-League Grand Final. Victory's record defeat was against rival Sydney FC, in a 0–5 on 26 January 2014. Melbourne Victory's record FFA Cup win came against Balmain Tigers FC on 4 August 2015 with the score of 0–6.
The club's highest home attendance is 50,333 for a league Big Blue match on 8 December 2006, at Docklands Stadium. The club's highest home attendance for any match is 95,446 for pre-season friendly at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 24 July 2013, against Liverpool.