Fremantle Football Club

The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers or colloquially Freo, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of Fremantle, a stronghold of Australian rules football in Western Australia. The Dockers were the second team from the state to be admitted to the competition, following the West Coast Eagles in 1987. Both Fremantle and the West Coast Eagles are owned by WA Football, with a board of directors operating Fremantle on WA Football's behalf.

Despite having participated in and won several finals matches, Fremantle is one of only three active AFL clubs not to have won a premiership (the others being Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney), though it did claim a minor premiership in 2015 and reached, but didn't win the 2013 Grand Final. High-profile players who forged careers at Fremantle include Hall of Fame inductees Matthew Pavlich and Peter Bell, and dual Brownlow Medal winner Nat Fyfe. Justin Longmuir is the current head coach of Fremantle, with Alex Pearce serving as captain. Originally based at Fremantle Oval, the club's training and administrative facilities are now located nearby at Cockburn ARC in Cockburn Central, whilst its home ground is the 60,000-capacity Perth Stadium in Burswood.

Fremantle has also fielded a women's team in the AFL Women's league since the competition's inception in 2017. They are currently coached by Lisa Webb and captained by Ange Stannett. Their most successful season was the 2020 season, in which the team was undefeated, but was ultimately cancelled without a premiership awarded due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The port city of Fremantle, Western Australia has a rich footballing history, hosting the state's first organised game of Australian rules in 1881. Fremantle's first teams, the Fremantle Football Club, the Union/Fremantle Football Club and East Fremantle Football Club, dominated the early years of the West Australian Football League (WAFL), winning 24 of the first 34 premierships.

Since 1897, Fremantle Oval has been the city's main Australian rules football venue. The Fremantle Derby between East Fremantle and South Fremantle is traditionally one of the biggest games on the WAFL calendar, and routinely attracts strong crowds. Until the opening of Perth Stadium in 2018, the record attendance for an Australian rules football game in Western Australia stood at 52,781 for the 1979 WANFL Grand Final between East Fremantle and South Fremantle at Subiaco Oval.

Champion footballers who forged careers playing for Fremantle-based clubs include, among other Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees, Steve Marsh, Jack Sheedy, John Todd, George Doig, William Truscott and Bernie Naylor.

Despite Fremantle's long history of Australian rules football, the expansion of the then-Victorian Football League (VFL) into Western Australia took the form of a single, state-wide team with the creation of the West Coast Eagles in 1987. Soon afterwards, discussions emerged between the East Fremantle and South Fremantle clubs regarding the formation of a second WA-based VFL club as a joint venture. However, exclusive rights clauses in contracts between the Eagles and the VFL made a second Western Australian club legally unfeasible until 1993. Additionally, the proposed joint venture model was opposed by the West Australian Football Commission (WAFC).

On 14 December 1993, the AFL announced that a new team, to be based in Fremantle, would enter the league in 1995, with the provisional name "Fremantle Sharks." The licence had cost the WAFC $4 million. On 21 July 1994, the names "Fremantle Football Club", "Fremantle Dockers" and the club colours of purple, red, green and white were announced.