THE PORT ADELAIDE Football Club has announced a new strategic partnership with the Australian Defence Force (ADF), formalising a long-standing relationship between the organisations.

The Power will for the eleventh year in a row host a game at home in the AFL’s ANZAC Round, which features a curtain raiser which pits the Australian Defence Force Australian Rules All-Stars men’s team against the Australian Combined Emergency Service.

The game is part of a significant commitment to the ADF by Port Adelaide, which also runs community programs for ADF personnel and their families including The Power to be Positive, aimed at teaching wellbeing and resilience to children of those who serve the nation and are often forced to relocate frequently.

As well as the program, ADF families are invited to an annual Family Event along with the opportunity to attend the ANZAC Round game at Adelaide Oval to meet players and form the guard of honour on the field.

The formalised partnership between the organisations was announced during a signing ceremony on Friday, onboard the flight deck of the HMAS Adelaide, which is docked at Outer Harbour.

“We’re here to consolidate a relationship that has been very strong for eleven years between the ADF and the Port Adelaide Football Club,” Port Adelaide CEO Keith Thomas said.

“The reason it is important to us is because increasingly ADF and all of their supply services are operating out of the Port Adelaide area and their interests are increasingly important to us.

“We run programs that are designed to help families and children of ADF service people with the challenges that are unique to them, they have teams which focus on the Indigenous players in the force, women are increasingly playing so we will be supporting the football programs of the Defence Force.”

Major General Matthew Hall said the ADF and Port Adelaide connected around a mutual understanding of the ANZAC spirit.

He said there was a mutual respect given the number of Port Adelaide players and staff who had served and died at war, but more than anything, having worked together for such a long time, it was time to put something in writing.

“We’ve been exceptionally grateful for the long-term support of the Port Adelaide Football Club for more than a decade that’s enabled us to bring the best of our initially men’s footballers from across the Navy, Army and Air Force to Adelaide to play on a major oval as a curtain raiser to whatever Port Adelaide’s ANZAC Round commitment is that year,” he said.

“We’ve been exceptionally well supported with the ability to train at Alberton Oval and use the facilities and support staff, Power Community Limited has been exceptional in allowing our serving members an opportunity they otherwise wouldn’t get.

“We’ve been doing that, but now it’s been expanded, and as it’s become more complex… we think it’s now appropriate that we show and demonstrate that what we’ve got together is something very common but also very supportive of each other.

“We like that and we wanted to formalise it fully.”

The Australian Defence Force Australian Rules (ADFAR) encourages and promotes Australian Rules Football among ADF members and provides the opportunity for service men and women to participate at all competition levels.

Their programs include men’s and women’s interservice competition, best of ADF All Stars, ANZAC Cup competitions, Indigenous football development, and wheelchair ‘Aussie Rules’ for members undergoing rehabilitation and recovery from injury and illness.

As part of the new agreement, ADF All-Stars will continue to get access to the Alberton Oval training facilities, staff and Port Adelaide players during the AFL ANZAC Round commemorative week, while the football club will support the ADFAR’s indigenous, women’s and other diversity programs, as well as its wheelchair AFL programs, which are designed to support recovery and rehabilitation from injury and illness for ADF personnel and veterans.

The Port Adelaide logo will feature on the shorts of the ADF All-Stars during the ANZAC Challenge, and ADFAR players and officials will be available to the club for leadership and team development work with Power and Magpies players.

Port Adelaide will take on North Melbourne during the AFL’s ANZAC Round on Friday 26 April at Adelaide Oval, with the first bounce at 7:20pm.