Bute Energy to sponsor FAW Women’s and Girls’ competitions

The FAW has announced a landmark sponsorship deal with Bute Energy, who will become the primary sponsors of the women’s and girls’ cup competitions.

From the start of next season, both competitions will be renamed to the Bute Energy FAW Cup and the Bute Energy U16s Cup.

The deal is the first of its kind in Wales for a women’s competition, and Head of Women’s Football at the FAW, Lowri Roberts, is thrilled about the deal.

“Bute Energy share a lot of the same values as us and when we were having the initial discussions with Bute Energy it was all about, how can we build a partnership here that can really make an impact?

“Similar to the Adran Leagues, we are removing the words women and girls from those cup competitions to have parity with the men’s competitions.

“They really want to make meaningful change with us, and they are going to be supporting our clubs over the next few years around how they can become more sustainable.”

Bute Energy are committed to making a sizeable investment into the competitions, and this will allow the FAW to invest in key areas.

“We need more people all of the time, to be able to cater for the growing demands in the women’s game,” Roberts continued.

“Over the summer, you’ll see that we’ll be recruiting for a new post to specifically market women’s and girls’ football, but to also grow the social media content of our girls’ programmes and our national cup competitions.

“This investment from Bute Energy allows us to bring in more people, but also it allows us to invest more into our cup competitions and to make the finals even bigger and better.”

Bute Energy

Catrin Newton from Bute Energy explained why the company were so interested in putting their name to the competitions.

“Our focus is investment in communities across Wales, especially near to where we have projects. We have really gone big in terms of our support for women and girls, especially those in STEM.

“We’ve been working with a lot of schools to showcase some of the fantastic female staff and the diversity in our company.

“This is a natural progression of that, and we want to support women’s and girls’ health and wellbeing activities and football is growing so much in Wales.”

Inspiring women into key roles in the community is at the centre of Bute Energy’s ethos, and Newton wants to continue to provide women and girls with confidence in what they want to achieve.

“It’s all about confidence and empowerment and showing women and girls that they can go into these industries, and they can achieve roles that have historically been fulfilled largely by men.”

Annaliese Lewis

Cascade forward Annaliese Lewis also spoke at the launch of the new sponsorship, and she is hoping the new investment will mark the first step of many when it comes to the domestic game.

“For a long time, the women’s game has struggled to get investment into it and a long-term sponsor, so it’s nice to see someone coming on board and actually investing in the game.

“Hopefully, it’ll bring more sponsorship in. The game is growing so much and it’s something that’s becoming essential.

“We need that investment in to make sure the long-term future of the girls coming through the pathway is secure.”

Along with clubs across the pyramid, players are waiting with bated breath to see how the investment will affect them.

However, Lewis is hoping to see the benefits of the money across the system.

“The next step now is finding out where the investment is going to go and how it will benefit us as clubs across the leagues.

“If it means financially, we’re going to be better off, and we can make a few more things happen then that’s exactly what we want.”

Lewis and her Cascade teammates have started preparations for the new Adran South season.

With eight teams now being in the division rather than the five-team league last season, the forward is looking forward to hitting the ground running.

“It was tough going for all the teams last season and credit to everyone for getting through the season.

“We knew each other’s schedules by the time the league finished, but it’s exciting to have it gone to an eight-team league and hopefully it’ll make it a very competitive season.”

Featured Image: Perry Dobbins