The Port Adelaide Football Club is delighted to welcome Santos as a co-major partner for the inaugural ALFW season.

As a valued partner for the past 14 years, Santos has been a long-term partner of the industry leading Santos Aboriginal Power Cup, closing the gap on indigenous student outcomes in South Australia for over a decade.

This extension of their commitment will see Santos elevate to co-major partner of Port Adelaide’s history making AFLW team for the next four years.

The multi-faceted partnership includes employment and leadership pathways for the club’s AFLW athletes around their football commitments, while also adding value to support the players with their busy work and football schedules.

Port Adelaide Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Richardson was delighted that Santos have extended their partnership with the club into the AFLW program.

“Santos are a wonderful long term partner of the Port Adelaide Football Club. They have helped us build the Santos Aboriginal Power Cup into a program which genuinely changes lives. It’s real, authentic and makes a genuine difference to indigenous students and communities.”

“As we were preparing our submission for an AFLW license, we spoke to Kevin about the vision we had to create something special with our AFLW program and were seeking a partner to back the program from the outset. Santos were instrumental in helping Port Adelaide secure the license.

“When we spoke to Kevin about the vision we had for AFLW, and the opportunities and pathways for women, he immediately saw the importance and we are very proud to have Santos as a co-major partner of our AFLW team.”

“It’s much more than a sponsorship, it’s about building opportunity and pathways for women, something very important to Santos also.”  

Santos’ CEO and Managing Director, Kevin Gallagher, said supporting the AFLW was a great opportunity to extend Santos’ partnership with Port Adelaide.

“Santos have been proud partners with Port Adelaide for many years through the Santos Aboriginal Power Cup and the opportunities we have seen the Club offer through this program are the perfect example of sport bringing communities together, as well as delivering real, life-changing outcomes for the community,” Mr Gallagher said.

“Through the Aboriginal Power Cup, we’ve built really strong ties with PAFC, and I’m pleased that we can strengthen those ties further as Joint Major Partners of the inaugural AFLW team.

“Santos is a proudly South Australian company that employs locals and invests in the community and extending our partnership through to the AFLW with Port Adelaide is another way of giving back to communities in which we operate.”

As a special component of the partnership, Santos secretly placed a welcome pack in front of each player’s locker during a Wednesday night training session, ready to be unboxed as a post-training surprise.

The home changeroom erupted with excited chatter as the athletes filtered in and discovered the gifts.

The packs featured self-care items for players to leave in their lockers, removing the need for them to lug products to training every day, or to purchase doubles.

 An extra special touch was teal bath towels featuring the Port Adelaide Football Club logo and each player’s respective guernsey number.

Senior player Hannah Dunn was full of gratitude for the thoughtful contribution.

“Coming into the room, we all had these big gift packs on our lockers, it was really cool!” she said.

“Those of us who have played AFLW before know about how you have to have double of everything, so the fact that Santos has done this is so special.

“Spud (Kate Surman) and I spoke to Robyn and Gretchen from Santos on the night. Just getting to know them and the background on why they wanted to support us was really inspiring. They’re boss-women too so not only are they inspired by us, but we're inspired by them.

“It’s really cool to have them on board and have them care so much about our team.”

Port Adelaide is grateful for the support on and off the field from co-major partners Santos, MG, KFC and GFG.

The club would also like to acknowledge HairCare Australia for their support with product supply.